"Sacred Places" - a Non-Secular thread

[Cyril Haearn]

Churches are officially deconsecrated, then they can be turned into houses, shops, brothels (soup kitchens) or whatever

A small church could make a wonderful dwelling

Witherspoon has some old cinemas, does it have old churches?

[Cunobelin]

Churches are officially deconsecrated, then they can be turned into houses, shops, brothels (soup kitchens) or whatever

A small church could make a wonderful dwelling

Witherspoon has some old cinemas, does it have old churches?

The West Kirk in Ayr is:




It is not an uncommon usage, I must have come across dozens over the years

[Cunobelin]

Iona. I'm not religious or spiritual, but there was something deeply affecting about the place.

There was also a corncrake nesting in someone's front garden, but that's another story.

Iona is on BBC4 now.

[LollyKat]

Mining is what makes the lake district for me....Stories too. Like the napoleon forces that landed and raided the graphite mines. Apparently graphite was a strategic mineral used to make cannonballs. Napoleon's forces were very low on it so were desperate.

No more than a story, surely??

[geocycle]

Mining is what makes the lake district for me....Stories too. Like the napoleon forces that landed and raided the graphite mines. Apparently graphite was a strategic mineral used to make cannonballs. Napoleon's forces were very low on it so were desperate.

No more than a story, surely??

Another is that German miners were brought in during Elizabethen times and they introduced the Cumberland sausage...

[LollyKat]

German miners sound quite plausible, the sausage maybe??????, but an actual Napoleonic raid sounds very unlikely.

[Cyril Haearn]

German miners sound quite plausible, the sausage maybe??????, but an actual z to the top division xxxxxxxx€x Napoleonic raid sounds very unlnnxzzikely.

Everyone knows, the French tried to invade at Fishguard, the ladies of the town lined up in traditional dress and scared them off
Cymru am byth!

Trying to get back on topic, I have a book by D Huw Owen, Chapels of Wales, describes 122 chapels. Not all in Wales, one is at Clapham Junction, one in Australia, one in Patagonia

[Tangled Metal]

It wasn't a French invasion only a raid for mineral resources for their fight against England. Not sure whether French forces or mercenaries though.

German miners (IIRC called adventurers) were brought in by the Crown estates who owned the mining rights for goldscope mine. German miners were technologically more advanced than English miners at the time and there were difficulties in accessing the ore I think.

The Cumberland sausage is a happy mix of local meat production and the cosmopolitan nature of what was one of the most important ports of its day. So many nationalities sailed into the port and they brought their own food and spices. At the time spices were cheaper and easier to get hold of there than most of the most important and biggest cities in Britain. So the local farmers just used them. Sausages were just right to take spices too. It wasn't the German miners at all just locals using what they could get hold of easily.

Of course the Americans invaded the western port but that was before the special relationship.

[Cyril Haearn]

Mining has a very long tradition in the Erzgebirge Germany, but not much is known about it, there are lots of unmapped caverns
A mining history museum has just opened in Dippoldiswalde near Dresden

[Bonefishblues]

Iona. I'm not religious or spiritual, but there was something deeply affecting about the place.

There was also a corncrake nesting in someone's front garden, but that's another story.

Iona is on BBC4 now.

Sadly I was in a Japanese restaurant in Suffolk, of all places! (Very very good, since you ask )

[Tangled Metal]

My view on ancient sites believed to be religious sites in modern ways is kind of similar to an imaginary situation of Muslims practising their religion in a Christian church, except that Christian religion isn't a dead religion.

Actually I believe there's a little of this happening in the temple of the Mount. IIRC it's a site considered holy to Judaism and Islam. Not unknown to cause religious strife.

The only thing is the builders of the whole stonehenge terrain aren't around to defend their religious site. That's why I believe we should defend them by preventing modern versions from practising their religion on these sites.

I realise a lot probably don't see a problem. I don't personally agree with religion but I defend the right of those who do but I don't believe that their right is unconditional. They must be considerate of others too. Just because those others died out so far back in pre-history doesn't mean they should be forgotten. Perhaps those new age druids could make their own, new religious sites instead?

[landsurfer]

There are over 40 stone circles in the Peak District.
Some in groves ... of obviously modern trees, and others overturned on the heath land and hills.
Jules and i visit them with our children and friends and always find them places of calm ...
Our Sacred Places....

[Cunobelin]

Graphite was very valuable. If you were able to sneak out a pocket full and knew teh right people it was several years wages.

The colloquial name for graphite is "Wad"

ALlegedly this value gave rise to a pocketful of money being called a "Wad" as well

[Cunobelin]

... and talking German Sausages.

Queen Victoria used to travel by rail to Carisbrooke House on teh Isle of Wight. However in some areas her husband was seen as a "foreigner". Allegedly some gentleman from Portsmouth hung a set of men's underwear from a flag pole with a large German sausage sticking out of the flies........... It was seen by Queen Victoria, who was (literally) not amused

She swore that from that day she would never ever set foot in Portsmouth again, and had the branch line and embarkation pier built down to Stokes Bay in Gosport

[Cyril Haearn]

Not sure whether one may quote whole poems (copyright?)

I mentioned "Church Going" by Philip Larkin before.. What remains when disbelief is gone?

"We are Seven" by Wordsworth is good too, set at Conwy, not in the Lake District