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Witley Park
Witley Park, formerly known as Lea Park, is an estate dating from the 19th-century between Godalming and Haslemere, Surrey, England. Its landscaped grounds include three artificial lakes, one of which conceals an underwater conservatory and smoking room. In 1890, the swindler Whitaker Wright purchased Lea Park, and the adjacent South Park Farm, from the Earl of Derby. The title to the estate included the titular Lordship of the Manor and control of Hindhead Common and the Devil's Punch Bowl. He then developed it as part of an extensive set of real estate holdings, approximately , that he purchased in the Haslemere and Hindhead area. Wright developed the pre-existing house into a 32-bedroom mansion adjacent to one of three artificial lakes, and within the landscaped grounds. Underneath an adjacent lake Wright built an underwater conservatory and smoking room, with aquarium windows, upon which a statue of Neptune stands, giving the appearance it is floating on the water. After ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Witley Court
Witley Court, Great Witley, Worcestershire, England is a ruined Italianate mansion. Built for the Foleys in the seventeenth century on the site of a former manor house, it was enormously expanded in the early nineteenth century by the architect John Nash for Thomas Foley, 3rd Baron Foley. The estate was later sold to the Earls of Dudley, who undertook a second massive reconstruction in the mid-19th century, employing the architect Samuel Daukes to create one of the great palaces of Victorian and Edwardian England. The declining fortune of the Dudleys saw the sale of the court after the First World War to a Kidderminster carpet manufacturer. In 1937 a major fire caused great damage to the court, the estate was broken up and sold and the house was subsequently stripped of its fittings and furnishings. Forty years of decay followed before the house and grounds were taken into the care of The Department of the Environment in 1972. Since that point, significant restoration and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hindhead Common
The Devil's Punch Bowl is a visitor attraction and biological Site of Special Scientific Interest situated just to the east of the village of Hindhead in the English county of Surrey. It is part of the Wealden Heaths Phase II Special Protection Area. The Punch Bowl is a large natural amphitheatre and is the source of many stories about the area. The London to Portsmouth road (the A3) skirted the rim of the site before the Hindhead Tunnel was built in 2011. The land is now owned and maintained by the National Trust as part of the "Hindhead Commons and the Devil's Punch Bowl" property. The highest point of the rim of the bowl is Gibbet Hill, which is above sea level and commands a panoramic view that includes, on a clear day, the skyline of London some away. The Devil's Punch Bowl was featured on the 2005 TV programme ''Seven Natural Wonders'' as one of the wonders of the South. Etymology The name Devil's Punch Bowl dates from at least 1768, the year that John Rocque's ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Country Houses In Surrey
A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, while the country of Wales is a component of a multi-part sovereign state, the United Kingdom. A country may be a historically sovereign area (such as Korea), a currently sovereign territory with a unified government (such as Senegal), or a non-sovereign geographic region associated with certain distinct political, ethnic, or cultural characteristics (such as the Basque Country). The definition and usage of the word "country" is flexible and has changed over time. ''The Economist'' wrote in 2010 that "any attempt to find a clear definition of a country soon runs into a thicket of exceptions and anomalies." Most sovereign states, but not all countries, are members of the United Nations. The largest country by area is Russia, while the smallest is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raymond Frederick Brown
Sir Raymond Frederick Brown (July 19, 1920 – September 3, 1991), along with his partner George Calder Cunningham, was the founder of Racal, and the British government's chief arms salesman from 1966 to 1969. Brown was born at 4 Nettleton Road, Greenwich, London, and started work as a tea boy at the age of 14. Formation and early years of Racal Electronics In 1950 he and his partner George Calder 'Jock' Cunningham founded Racal (the name was formed using the first two letters of Brown's name and the first three letters of Calder Cunningham's name to create the name 'RA CAL'), which gradually grew to become a major supplier of military radios and telecommunications equipment with Brown as its Managing Director. Brown had previously worked for the electronics company Plessey and Cunningham was an ex-RAF Wing Commander. In 1966, the year in which Ernest Harrison took over as chairman, Brown was asked to join the Ministry of Defence as 'Head of Defence Sales' in the newly created D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patrick Gwynne
(Alban) Patrick Gwynne (1913 – 2003) was a British modernist architect with Welsh roots, best known for designing and building The Homewood, which he left to the National Trust in 2003. Early life and work Gwynne was born in Portchester, Hampshire in 1913 to naval Commander Alban Gwynne and mother, Ruby. They also had a daughter, "Babs". He attended Harrow School where he first connected with modernist architecture on a school sketching excursion near Amersham in Buckinghamshire, where he saw Amyas Connell's "High and Over", the first modern movement house in Britain. His father planned for him to be an accountant but since Gwynne wanted to be an architect, secured articles (indentured training) for him with Ernest Coleridge, a former assistant to Sir Edwin Lutyens. On completion, Gwynne met Wells Coates, founder of the Modern Architecture Research Group. Gwynne immediately re-designed a Victorian house in Notting Hill Gate to include a private theatre and foyer in an advanced ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modern Movement
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, and social organization which reflected the newly emerging industrial society, industrial world, including features such as urbanization, architecture, new technologies, and war. Artists attempted to depart from traditional forms of art, which they considered outdated or obsolete. The poet Ezra Pound's 1934 injunction to "Make it New" was the touchstone of the movement's approach. Modernist innovations included abstract art, the stream-of-consciousness novel, montage (filmmaking), montage cinema, atonal and twelve-tone music, divisionist painting and modern architecture. Modernism explicitly rejected the ideology of Realism (arts), realism and made use of the works of the past by the employment of reprise, incorpor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RMS Titanic
RMS ''Titanic'' was a British passenger liner, operated by the White Star Line, which sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, United States. Of the estimated 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, more than 1,500 died, making it the deadliest sinking of a single ship up to that time. It remains the deadliest peacetime sinking of a superliner or cruise ship. The disaster drew public attention, provided foundational material for the disaster film genre, and has inspired many artistic works. RMS ''Titanic'' was the largest ship afloat at the time she entered service and the second of three s operated by the White Star Line. She was built by the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. Thomas Andrews, the chief naval architect of the shipyard, died in the disaster. ''Titanic'' was under the command of Captain Edward Smith, who went down with the ship. The ocean liner carri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Pirrie, 1st Viscount Pirrie
William James Pirrie, 1st Viscount Pirrie, KP, PC, PC (Ire) (31 May 1847 – 7 June 1924) was a leading British shipbuilder and businessman. He was chairman of Harland and Wolff, shipbuilders, between 1895 and 1924, and also served as Lord Mayor of Belfast between 1896 and 1898. He was ennobled as Baron Pirrie in 1906, appointed a Knight of the Order of St Patrick in 1908 and made Viscount Pirrie in 1921. In the months leading up to the 1912 disaster, Lord Pirrie was questioned about the number of life boats aboard the ''Olympic''-class ships. He responded that the great ships were unsinkable and the rafts were to save others. This would haunt him forever. In Belfast he was, on other grounds, already a controversial figure: a Protestant employer associated as a leading Liberal with a policy of Home Rule for Ireland. Background Pirrie was born in Quebec City, Canada East, the son of James Alexander Pirrie and Eliza Swan (Montgomery) Pirrie, who were both Ir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Trust For Places Of Historic Interest Or Natural Beauty
The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and independent National Trust for Scotland. The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the permanent preservation for the benefit of the Nation of lands and tenements (including buildings) of beauty or historic interest". It was given statutory powers, starting with the National Trust Act 1907. Historically, the Trust acquired land by gift and sometimes by public subscription and appeal, but after World War II the loss of country houses resulted in many such properties being acquired either by gift from the former owners or through the National Land Fund. Country houses and estates still make up a significant part of its holdings, but it is also known for its protection of wild lands ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Witley Common
Witley Common is an area of woodland and heath, close to Witley, Surrey, in the United Kingdom. It is part of a much larger Site of Special Scientific Interest. The land has been occupied since the Bronze Age — it features ancient burial mounds which have been dated to this period. It has been used as common land by many generations over the centuries — particularly for grazing, turf-cutting and, during the 16th and 17th centuries, for iron workings. Witley Common again proved useful during the First and Second World Wars when the land was used by the army as a training camp (Witley Camp) with up to 20,000 soldiers based there at one point. In the late 1940s, it was gradually restored to its pre-war condition. Today it is managed by the National Trust, to provide a mixture of habitats for wildlife, with birch, oak and pine woodland, as well as open heathland. Birdlife includes nightjars and nightingales. The area is populated by many rare species and has a broad ran ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Devil's Punch Bowl
The Devil's Punch Bowl is a visitor attraction and biological Site of Special Scientific Interest situated just to the east of the village of Hindhead in the England, English county of Surrey. It is part of the Wealden Heaths Phase II Special Protection Area. The Punch Bowl is a large natural amphitheatre and is the source of many stories about the area. The London to Portsmouth road (the A3 road, A3) skirted the rim of the site before the Hindhead Tunnel was built in 2011. The land is now owned and maintained by the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, National Trust as part of the "Hindhead Commons and the Devil's Punch Bowl" property. The highest point of the rim of the bowl is Gibbet Hill, Hindhead, Gibbet Hill, which is Above Ordnance Datum, above sea level and commands a panoramic view that includes, on a clear day, the skyline of London some away. The Devil's Punch Bowl was featured on the 2005 TV programme ''Seven Natural Wonders'' as one ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thursley Lodge At Witley Park - Geograph
Thursley is a village and civil parish in southwest Surrey, west of the A3 between Milford and Hindhead. An associated hamlet is Bowlhead Green. To the east is Brook. In the south of the parish rises the Greensand Ridge, in this section reaching its escarpment near Punch Bowl Farm and the Devil's Punch Bowl, Hindhead. History The village's name came from Old English ''Þunres lēah'' meaning lea of the god Thunor, as with Thundersley, Essex; it was probably a site where he was worshipped. There is a rocky outcrop near the village referred to in Victorian guides to the area as ''Thor's Stone''. This stone is first mentioned in Saxon times as being "near Peper Harow", an adjacent parish with known pagan connections. The precise stone or rocks this refers to is now uncertain, with some sources indicating it could be the rocky outcrop and others suggesting it may be an ancient Celtic boundary stone found on the margin of Pudmore pond on Ockley Common. The small parish church, d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
