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William Brassington
William Brassington (1837 or 1841 – 3 March 1905) was a stonemason, sculptor and builder practising in Christchurch, New Zealand in the late 19th century. His sculptured carving on many of the city's unique Gothic revival public buildings is regarded as some of the finest in the Southern Hemisphere. His work is celebrated around New Zealand and he died when he was around 65 Biography Brassington was born in Nottingham, England, and trained, like his father, to be a stonemason. In 1863 he and his wife Ellen and two daughters emigrated to New Zealand aboard the ship ''Brother's Pride''. His youngest child died on the voyage. On arrival in New Zealand he set up business in a Christchurch cemetery as a monumental mason. The quality of his work was noticed by the official Provincial Architect Benjamin Mountfort who was working on the provincial council chamber in Christchurch. Mountfort immediately employed Brassington to carve the decorated stonework. The work Brassington ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stonemason
Stonemasonry or stonecraft is the creation of buildings, structures, and sculpture using stone as the primary material. It is one of the oldest activities and professions in human history. Many of the long-lasting, ancient shelters, temples, monuments, artifacts, fortifications, roads, bridges, and entire cities were built of stone. Famous works of stonemasonry include the Egyptian pyramids, the Taj Mahal, Cusco's Incan Wall, Easter Island's statues, Angkor Wat, Borobudur, Tihuanaco, Tenochtitlan, Persepolis, the Parthenon, Stonehenge, the Great Wall of China, and Chartres Cathedral. Definition Masonry is the craft of shaping rough pieces of rock into accurate geometrical shapes, at times simple, but some of considerable complexity, and then arranging the resulting stones, often together with mortar, to form structures. *Quarrymen split sheets of rock, and extract the resulting blocks of stone from the ground. *Sawyers cut these rough blocks into cuboids, to required siz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canterbury, New Zealand
Canterbury ( mi, Waitaha) is a region of New Zealand, located in the central-eastern South Island. The region covers an area of , making it the largest region in the country by area. It is home to a population of The region in its current form was established in 1989 during nationwide local government reforms. The Kaikoura District joined the region in 1992 following the abolition of the Nelson-Marlborough Regional Council. Christchurch, the South Island's largest city and the country's second-largest urban area, is the seat of the region and home to percent of the region's population. Other major towns and cities include Timaru, Ashburton, Rangiora and Rolleston. History Natural history The land, water, flora, and fauna of Waitaha/Canterbury has a long history stretching from creation of the greywacke basement rocks that make up the Kā Tiritiri o te Moana/Southern Alps to the arrival of the first humans. This history is linked to the creation of the earth, the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volcano
A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates are diverging or converging, and most are found underwater. For example, a mid-ocean ridge, such as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, has volcanoes caused by divergent tectonic plates whereas the Pacific Ring of Fire has volcanoes caused by convergent tectonic plates. Volcanoes can also form where there is stretching and thinning of the crust's plates, such as in the East African Rift and the Wells Gray-Clearwater volcanic field and Rio Grande rift in North America. Volcanism away from plate boundaries has been postulated to arise from upwelling diapirs from the core–mantle boundary, deep in the Earth. This results in hotspot volcanism, of which the Hawaiian hotspot is an example. Volcanoes are usually not created where two tectonic plates slide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lyttelton Timeball Station
The Lyttelton Timeball Station is a heritage-registered time ball station and prominent local landmark in Lyttelton, New Zealand. The original station was significantly damaged by a series of earthquakes and aftershocks in 2010 and 2011, and finally collapsed on 13 June 2011 after a magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The tower was subsequently reconstructed, reopening in November 2018. Context A time ball is a large painted wooden or metal ball that drops at a predetermined time, principally to enable sailors to check their marine chronometers from their boats offshore. While latitude has long been easily determined first using an astrolabe and later a sextant, timekeeping is one way of enabling mariners to determine their longitude at sea. The key to this was accuracy, as an error of four seconds translates into of actual distance at the equator, and at latitude 60 degrees. History John Thomas Peacock, a businessman and politician, first came to Lyttelton in 1844. He b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble. This is distinct from a palace, which is not fortified; from a fortress, which was not always a residence for royalty or nobility; from a ''pleasance'' which was a walled-in residence for nobility, but not adequately fortified; and from a fortified settlement, which was a public defence – though there are many similarities among these types of construction. Use of the term has varied over time and has also been applied to structures such as hill forts and 19th-20th century homes built to resemble castles. Over the approximately 900 years when genuine castles were built, they took on a great many forms with many different features, although some, such as curtain walls, arrowslits, and portcullises, were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portico
A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cultures, including most Western cultures. Some noteworthy examples of porticos are the East Portico of the United States Capitol, the portico adorning the Pantheon in Rome and the portico of University College London. Porticos are sometimes topped with pediments. Palladio was a pioneer of using temple-fronts for secular buildings. In the UK, the temple-front applied to The Vyne, Hampshire, was the first portico applied to an English country house. A pronaos ( or ) is the inner area of the portico of a Greek or Roman temple, situated between the portico's colonnade or walls and the entrance to the ''cella'', or shrine. Roman temples commonly had an open pronaos, usually with only columns and no walls, and the pronaos could be as long as th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canterbury Museum, Christchurch
The Canterbury Museum is a museum located in the central city of Christchurch, New Zealand, in the city's Cultural Precinct. The museum was established in 1867 with Julius von Haast – whose collection formed its core – as its first director. The building is registered as a "Historic Place – Category I" by Heritage New Zealand. Directors The title curator and director has been used interchangeably during the history of Canterbury Museum. Von Haast was the museum's inaugural director; Haast died in 1887. Following Haast's death, Frederick Hutton was acting director until Henry Ogg Forbes took on a permanent position in December 1888 upon his return from England. In August 1892, Forbes permanently moved to England, and Hutton was appointed full director from May 1892 until October 1905. Hutton applied for leave to travel to England, and Charles Chilton was acting director from March 1905; Hutton died on his return journey from England and Chilton retained his acting role un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Teddington, New Zealand
Teddington is a very small community on Banks Peninsula at the head of Lyttelton Harbour / Whakaraupō. It sits on the junction of the road to Gebbies Pass and the road from Purau to Christchurch. It dates back to the early settlers of Christchurch but is now reduced to a pub and a restored working blacksmith's forge. Tsunami An earthquake near Chile on 23 May 1960 caused a tsunami which crossed the Pacific to hit New Zealand. The tsunami was funnelled up Lyttleton Harbour and flooded low-lying farmland and the Wheatsheaf Tavern in Teddington. A similar event occurred in 2010 following an earthquake in Chile with three waves that were greater than two metres high inundating the head of the harbour around Teddington. An earlier tsunami occurred in 1868 following an earthquake off the coast of Peru. This caused an eight foot high wave to be funnelled up Lyttleton Harbour towards Teddington. Demographics The Teddington statistical area, which extends from Governors Ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lyttelton Harbour
Lyttelton Harbour / Whakaraupō is one of two major inlets in Banks Peninsula, on the coast of Canterbury, New Zealand; the other is Akaroa Harbour on the southern coast. It enters from the northern coast of the peninsula, heading in a predominantly westerly direction for approximately from its mouth to the aptly-named Head of the Bay near Teddington. The harbour sits in an eroded caldera of the ancient Banks Peninsula Volcano, the steep sides of which form the Port Hills on its northern shore. The harbour's main population centre is Lyttelton, which serves the main port to the nearby city of Christchurch, linked with Christchurch by the single-track Lyttelton rail tunnel (opened 1867), a two lane road tunnel (opened 1964) and two roads over the Port Hills. Diamond Harbour lies to the south and the Māori village of Rāpaki to the west. At the head of the harbour is the settlement of Governors Bay. The reserve of Otamahua / Quail Island is near the harbour head and Ripap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ChristChurch Cathedral, Christchurch
ChristChurch Cathedral, also called Christ Church Cathedral and (rarely) Cathedral Church of Christ, is a deconsecrated Anglican cathedral in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. It was built between 1864 and 1904 in the centre of the city, surrounded by Cathedral Square. It became the cathedral seat of the Bishop of Christchurch, who is in the New Zealand '' tikanga'' of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. Earthquakes have repeatedly damaged the building (mostly the spire): in 1881, 1888, 1901, 1922, and 2010. The February 2011 Christchurch earthquake destroyed the spire and the upper portion of the tower, and severely damaged the rest of the building. A lower portion of the tower was demolished immediately following the 2011 earthquake to facilitate search and rescue operations. The remainder of the tower was demolished in March 2012. The badly damaged west wall, which contained the rose window, partially collapsed in the June 2011 and suffered f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pulpit
A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, accessed by steps, with sides coming to about waist height. From the late medieval period onwards, pulpits have often had a canopy known as the sounding board, ''tester'' or ''abat-voix'' above and sometimes also behind the speaker, normally in wood. Though sometimes highly decorated, this is not purely decorative, but can have a useful acoustic effect in projecting the preacher's voice to the congregation below. Most pulpits have one or more book-stands for the preacher to rest his or her bible, notes or texts upon. The pulpit is generally reserved for clergy. This is mandated in the regulations of the Catholic Church, and several others (though not always strictly observed). Even in Welsh Nonconformism, this was felt appropriate, and in some ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
