Category Archives: Architecture

They Had Sailed from Erith

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Apart from knowing Erith as a stop on the railway line to Dartford I have loved its mention in one of Joseph Conrad’s greatest works ‘Heart of Darkness’ where he writes:

“Nothing is easier … than to evoke the great spirit of the past upon the lower reaches of the Thames. The tidal current runs to and fro in its unceasing service, crowded with memories of men and ships it had borne to the rest of home or to the battles of the sea. It had known and served all the men of whom the nation is proud, from Sir Francis Drake to Sir John Franklin…the great knights-errant of the sea. It had borne all the ships whose names are like jewels flashing in the night of time, from the Golden Hind … to the Erebus. They had sailed from Deptford, from Greenwich, from Erith…they all had gone out on that stream. What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth! The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires”.

Erith railway station is a pleasant nineteenth century Italianate building with characteristic dragon teeth eaves on its platform coverings. A path leads to the riverfront.

 

The Thames is a river with one of the most varied widths in its course through a capital city. At Teddington little more than a rural stream by the time the Thames has reached Westminster it inspired William Wordsworth to declare:

“Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty.”

Here is the Thames as it appears taken on my journey home on the South East railway line; the railway passes by Southwark cathedral before entering Cannon Street station.

I was stunned by the view of the Thames at Erith. Already doubled in width since crossing the City of London the iconic river fully displays its estuarial properties here, particularly at high tide. On a fine day with fresh gusts of wind blowing across a true blue sky and sea-birds flying overhead it is truly an exhilarating panorama.

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The riverfront has been considerably enhanced by the gardens through which the Thames river walk passes:

A little wooden pier tempted me to walk down close to the water’s edge. Not too far, however, as it became a little slippery!

I walked into the town passing a row of old cottages hidden behind scaffolding and the Erith Playhouse where many years previously I had attended a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘Princess Ida’, one of his lesser known operettas but full of his finest music, where one of my work colleagues was performing as member of the choir of ‘girl graduates’.

Entering the town I passed the Carnegie library. Designed by William Egerton, and funded by the philanthropist Andrew Carnegie it opened in 1906. We knew it for the fine museum it housed but this time I found the distinguished Edwardian building boarded up and fenced off. I was alarmed. Later I was relieved to find out that the library has been moved to a new centre but that fortunately the ‘old’ library has secured National Lottery funding this year to restore the former library building to provide new community facilities.

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Sadly Erith town centre has been a victim of the worst sort of urban modernization of the 1960’s so there aren’t that many old buildings left in its disemboweled heart.

One of the few left, the White Hart pub, has a fine mural by Gary Drostle on its outside flank displaying a characteristic Thames sailing barge.

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The Thames sailing barge is a type of commercial sailing boat once common on the East Coast of Britain. With its shallow draught this type of vessel is well adapted to the Thames Estuary and, although no longer dedicated to commercial purposes, the remaining examples are used for races, regattas and wedding parties.

My walk finished at the C of E Christchurch, a fine late Victorian building by architect JP St Aubyn and dating from 1874. Together with the Carnegie library it is Grade II* listed.

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The exterior displays a fine broached spire separated from the nave by a short passage and a sculpture of the good shepherd on its doorway:

Unfortunately the interior was locked because of the current health crisis. However, here is a photo of it taken from on-line public sources.

The interior has been well summed upon by that doyen of architectural historians Pevsner who states: “Nave arcade has round piers, with stiff-leaf capitals. Nave has three tier hammer beam roof with curved braces supported on stone corbels. Chancel has five fine lancet windows by Hardman of 1875 depicting scenes from the Gospels, reredos of painted triptych of the Adoration of the Magi in a C15 Italian style by A O Hemming of 1904,

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stencilled decoration, triple sedilia and polychrome tiles. Nave has original carved wooden lectern, pews, stone and – granite font, wall tablet on west wall to Thomas Ruck, organist between 1881-1918 with mosaicwork cherubs and eight painted panels depicting scenes from the early history of the Church in England from the martyrdom of St Alban to the martyrdom of St Edmund by Ward and Hughes of 1906-9.”

Erith has the longest pier in London. It was once used for commercial purposes but is now the haunt of anglers:

Something about the town’s history: Erith has a past dating back to Neolithic times and traces of prehistoric settlements have been revealed by the London archaeological service. The Romans were there and the Anglo-Saxons built the original church of Saint John the Baptist which is another important Erithian church which I have to visit someday.

Henry’s famous warship, Henri Grâce à Dieu, was fitted out there in 1515 and is allulled to in the Conrad excerpt I have previously quoted.

Erith remained a small riverside port until the nineteenth century when it expanded with establishment of various industries. One of these was the British Insulated Callender’s Cables and Pirelli, for which my wife worked as interpreter.

There are a number of interesting modern works of art spread out in the town. Most lively is the ‘The De Luci’ ‘dancing fish’ mosaic statue, otherwise known as the ‘Erith Fish’, at the roundabout in the town centre designed and created by artist Gary Drostle in 2006. It was inspired by the former Erith Urban District Council’s coat of arms which featured three intertwined pikes. The pikes were, themselves, adapted from the family arms of Richard de Luci, a supporter of King Stephen, assistant in the murder of Thomas a Becket founder of Lesnes Abbey and owner of Erith during the reigns of King Stephen and King Henry II. (For more on this story read my post at https://longoio3.com/2019/08/09/un-perdono-londinese-per-lassassinio-di-thomas-a-becket/)

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I was pleasantly surprised by Erith. Clearly the day was fine and the place was more than quiet due to the lockdown but it was certainly less grim than I remember it to be. The ghastly brutal town centre of the sixties has been largely replaced by a more acceptable shopping centre, thanks also to the regeneration provided by the Thames Gateway project. Most of all, Erith gorgeously reveals the quasi-sacred Thames in all its glory.

 

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Neighbouring towns, villages and places

 

The Tragedy of Minneapolis

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So many parts of the USA relate their geography to the old world countries of their first immigrants. For example, the Maine coastline evokes the Celtic shores of Scotland and Ireland while the Appalachian mountains recall the hills of Wales where many of the early settlers originated from. When my Greyhound bus entered into the state of Minnesota over half a century ago I was reminded of Scandinavian countries and Finland in particular. The extensive pine forests. the scattering of lakes, the long summer days all contributed to this feeling and, indeed, it was largely Scandinavian people who first immigrated into the area.

The state capital, Minneapolis, with its fine examples of modernist buildings reminded me of the best examples of Scandinavian architects, in particular the Finn, Alvar Aalto. I enjoyed walking around this clean, pedestrian-friendly city, admiring the beautiful new buildings which provided such a change from the then dismally unimaginative examples of British post-war architecture.

Most enjoyable were the examples of street art such as the Alexander Calder mobiles I came across. Here is a photograph of one I took (with my reflection too).

A building which particularly struck me had a neoclassical high-arched facade reflected into a basin of water surrounding it. One of the few photos I took of the States during my visit is of this structure.

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I have since found out that this exquisite edifice is the current ING Reliastar Building and former Northwestern National Life Insurance Building. It was designed in 1963 by Minoru Yamasaki, a Japanese – American architect whose buildings include the original World Trade Centre in New York. Together with Edward Durell he is considered to be one of the two leading masters of ‘New Formalism’. Certainly there is a neoclassical air about his Minnesota building which links it to a previous era of Italian fascist architecture, best exemplified in the works of Guerrini and Romano in the EUR quarter of Rome, and forwards to an area which later became rather useful to me, the monumental entrance to Florence’s Careggi hospital. My post on this building is at: https://longoio3.com/2020/02/25/21218/

Fast forwarding to the present times it came as something of a shock to me that the clean, friendly, modern city of Minneapolis is now the centre of violent urban confrontation as a result of the murder of one of its citizens by a policeman. I could not believe that this was the same city but then a lot has changed since 1970! I pray that beautiful Minneapolis will once again return to a more peaceful state despite the fact that the United States is sadly living through the presidency of one of the most confrontational leaders it has ever known.

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Ernest Trobridge – an Architectural Visionary

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A good third of houses in England are semi-detached. Buildings of this type started to be built in the nineteenth century and in the twentieth century, especially during the inter-war years, there was a veritable explosion of semi-detached buildings thanks to the expansion of the London underground and the desire of many families to move away from unhealthy areas of the city centre to the new suburbs arising in the green countryside.

In London’s suburbs such as Harrow, Pinner, and Surbiton, the streets are lined with semi-detached houses from the 1930s, one similar to the other, and built in the style known as ‘tudorbethan’ alluding to sixteenth century fashions.

In the Kingsbury area, however, there are often bizarre variants of this model that deserve an exploration on foot, as we did on a fresh but sunny day last week.

There are two main areas for these discoveries. The first is near Saint Andrew’s church, Kingsbury:

The main area, however, is north of Kingsbury Green, off Buck Lane:

Note how the semis are united with curious and sometimes monumental stairways, and how the facades are a varied ‘tudorbethan’ style with half-timbered gables transmuted by abstruse towers, extravagant walls, and unexpected asymmetries. The clinker-built wooden walls with irregularly finished planks, the occasional use of thatched roofs and the leaded glass windows are further characteristic features.

Who was the architect who provided this impetus against uniformity and, let’s face it, monotony of nineteen-thirties semi-detached streets that characterize so much of the suburban panorama of English cities?

Ernest George Trobridge (1884–1942) was an architect active in the first half of the twentieth century, especially in the north-western outskirts of London. Trobridge was a supporter of the ‘New Church’, based on the thought of the Swedish philosopher and mystic Swedenborg, and it may have been his religious beliefs that led him to be interested in building houses for the working classes.

Trobridge embarked on his first work in the 1920s, when new homes were needed for ex-servicemen returning from the front after a terrible war. Brick was in short supply, so he used elm wood that was readily available at the time and built cheap houses with framed, panelled frames and thatched roofs in the London suburb of Kingsbury and the village of Chaldon in Surrey. These properties were technically very innovative: the green elm was cut in a special way so that it could contain its shrinkage and the straw had a patented fire-proof system.

In the 1930s, bricks became more readily available and the pressure on land around London indicated that the working class needed flats rather than houses. Trobridge developed condominiums with the appearance of romantic ‘cottages’, or baronial castles, most of which were built in Kingsbury. Here are some we spotted at the crossroads between Highfield Avenue and Buck Lane

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Following his socialist beliefs, Trobridge employed disabled employees and insisted on paying union dues to all his employees. In addition, he was a vegetarian and showed an ecological attitude towards the planet reflecting current trends.

For many years Trobridge’s imaginative houses, built for ‘our heroes’, were underestimated by architects and the public alike and could be bought for a minimal sum. In recent years, however, their prices have risen a lot. This house, for example, has recently been sold for over a million pounds.

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Cheaper is this apartment, with four bedrooms and a garden, which was sold for just £ 425,000 the other week.

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It was fun to wander through the otherwise unremarkable streets of Kingsbury and spot a Trobridge-designed house. I doubt that otherwise Kingsbury attracts many tourists.

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Trobridge’s work may not be a major reason for visiting London. However, his architecture has more relevance for those of us who do not live in palaces or castles. Being a tenant of a Trobridgian villa, at least could make us dream of these other residences!

 

Socially Distancing Hermits

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If, during the current strange times, anyone requires some tips on social distancing then some advice may be had from hermits. These reclusive folk in the pursuit of some higher spiritual aim have found themselves beautifully lonely spots in woods, mountains, islands and, in a few cases, on the top of columns.

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The only problem that hermits have, however, is that when knowledge of their sanctity becomes diffused people rush to their solitary spots and, in some cases, build churches, hospices and even cities. Poor Simon Stylites, who lived atop a column in the Syrian Desert (not much peace there today, sad to say) had to contend with an increasing bevy of tourist shops and religious sightseers surrounding the holy column.

This surreal story is recounted in Luis Bunuel’s 1965 film ‘Simon of the Desert’. I wrote a poem about this theme some years ago:

 

THE STYLITE

 

I see you’ve had a guard rail placed

around your column top.

Now you no longer have concerns

of falling down that drop.

 

Fresh chicken wire protects your head

from pigeons’ aimless splash

while scarlet flashing light above

prevents an aircraft crash.

 

Around your base a town has grown

with shops and inns and parks:

cheap trinkets and mementoes sold:

capitalism’s marks.

 

They praise you not like man of god

but as a tourist sight,

like someone whose harsh penances

stemmed unemployment’s flight.

 

Before you came all this was sand,

you chose it for dusk’s peace;

but even now when midnight strikes

loud voices never cease.

 

By column’s base broad whores inscribe

their liquid thighs for sale

while camels wait, tied to bronze rings,

and ruminate their bale.

 

And so a vow to steal away

from eyes of fetid earth

has lathed one absurd turn-around

before a town’s new birth.

 

Come down to land you sold-by saint,

your mission’s consummated now.

See platinum lights advertise

the TV preacher’s show.

 

Italy abounds in places originally founded by hermits and called appropriately ‘eremo’ or ‘romitorio’ (hermitages). The most famous spot in Italy is certainly at La Verna, Tuscany, where my namesake obtained his stigmata.

There are a number of attractive ‘eremi’ or hermitages in our area of the Lucchesia: the mountains of mediavalle and Garfagnana. Here are some I’ve visited:

  1. Eremo di Calomini. (Vergemoli Comune).

See my post at:

https://longoio.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/heavenly-hermitage-2/

  1. Eremo di San Viviano. (Vagli Sotto Comune).

See my post at

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2015/08/15/the-exquisite-alpeggio-of-campocatino/

  1. Eremo di Sant’Ansano.

See my posts at:

https://longoio3.com/2018/02/24/walk-to-a-hermitage/

https://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/07/05/heavenly-hermitage/

Who was Ansano (Ansanus)?

Born of a Roman family he was secretly brought up as a Christian but publicly declared his faith aged nineteen during the Emperor Diocletian’s persecution. Ansano then preached in Bagnoregio an amazing town which I have still to visit but has been described by blogger Debra Kolkka at

https://bagnidilucca.wordpress.com/2016/05/14/civita-de-bagnoregio/

Like all good martyrs Ansano was first tortured by scourging and being thrown into a pot of burning oil. He was then taken as a prisoner to Siena where he preached the Gospel. Ansanus was finally decapitated by order of the Emperor Diocletian.

Going through my photographs I find that I first discovered Sant’Ansano’s hermitage near the village of Lucignana in our valley of the Serchio in August 2005. It’s again a case of realizing that I’d visited some places much earlier than I supposed.

The pretty porch of the ‘Eremo’ with its expansive views over the valley has been a favourite resting spot for me on a number of walks. Let’s hope we can get back to these lovely places soon!

 

 

 

First Impressions of Longoio, Italy

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As the UK situation has moved from Johnson’s advice to the nation to ‘take it on the chin’ and rely on ‘herd instinct’ to the PM being admitted into an intensive care unit under a ventilator, it’s for all of us to bury our political differences for the present time and wish him a full and speedy recovery so that he may happily see the birth of his fiancée’s new baby this year.

Meanwhile, I have frequent desires to cocoon myself as far as possible from further demoralizing news about the present UK government-exacerbated crisis. This mind-isolation can be helped by not having the wireless permanently tuned to Radio 4 but, rather, to  often very palliative music of Radio 3.

Another way is to sift through one’s photographs. Sadly, my snaps taken before the digital picture explosion of this century are relatively few. Indeed, there are more photographs in one year now than there are from the whole period before 2000. I’ve mentioned my own change from analogue to digital at:

https://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/04/27/death-of-analogue/

I am also reminded of that fabulous 2011 exhibition by Keane of Barga news on the same theme at:

http://www.rcbarga.it/ComuneNews/2012/Keane%20Mostra%20-%2021%20Gennaio%202011/Keane%20Mostra%20-%2021%20Gennaio%202011.htm

What would I give to have a few more photos of myself and my mates and girlfriends at school or university? I treasure the handful that I do have. Like this one taken on the roof of my Cambridge College’s chapel (King’s) during one of Fellow John Saltmarsh’s tours of his favorite building:

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One of my rediscoveries during our present lock-down are the first photos taken in the spring of 2005 of the house we were to buy in Longoio, Bagni di Lucca when we were taken there by Luciana Gargiulo (wife of architect Francesco Rondina) of ‘Casa e Ville’, Ponte a Serraglio:

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(The very first sighting of our Longoio house)

What strikes me about these ‘early’ photographs, apart from their continued novelty and freshness  (we were younger then!), is how much we were able to see in the short time we had at our disposal. Some of the places I recognize well, others less so. Let’s always try to photograph road signs of where we are!

We later returned on our own to the house at Longoio. At that time (and until 2008, when we bought our first Italian car, a FIAT ‘Cinquina’), our main mode of transport was by scooter:

It’s both lovely and sad to see these photographs. Since the purchase of our Longoio house it’s clearly not been all plain sailing. To start to describe not only some of the good things but some of the bad ones that have occurred to us in Longoio would not be appropriate at this time when so many of us are suffering through no fault of our own. Let us look towards an Easter when the word ‘resurrection’ will seem to mean so much more…

 

 

 

 

Along a London Towpath

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This week-end promises fine weather. What places to visit then, what walks to relish, what friends to meet and what events to enjoy? Only except that now any step outside our semi-detached must be ‘strictly necessary’: a weekly shop (pharmacies, food and hardware shops still remain open), an essential walk with the dog or a stroll only for exercise and that to be conducted at a short distance from one’s home – no excursions to anywhere further than the local park – else a ticking off, or worse, a fine from the police.

The Grand Union Canal passes nearby where we stay; at 137 miles in length England’s longest artificial waterway, it was constructed to join London with Birmingham during the heady days of the industrial revolution. Superseded by the railways and the motorways, and with commercial traffic disappearing in the 1980’s, when the transport of Lime Juice from Brentford to Boxmoor ended, this placid stretch of water in London is now dedicated to pleasure trips on the characteristic canal longboats and to leisure walks along its towpath..

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We walked a stretch of the canal that passes through Brent and it was a truly emancipating experience. I suffer badly from cabin fever at the best of times and ours was more than a walk: it was liberation.

 

There is little pretense at picturesqueness in this part of the canal: it passes through the backs of industrial estates with their factories and warehouses and quite often there is an unacceptable load of trash, mainly discarded beer cans, lining the towpath. Yet it’s possible to enjoy the placid and remarkably clean waters and the moorhens, ducks and Canada geese that paddle on them.

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There are a few longboats moored up, some for sale. I’ve rarely been on one – most memorably along the Regent’s canal part of the waterway – and it is truly relaxing.

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We emerged from our walk along the canal near a Hindu temple. As the sun bathed on the shrine’s mellow carved stones we felt for a short instance we were nearer to Rajasthan that to Rayner’s Lane.

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The canal pubs may be closed, and whenever we pass someone on the tow paths we must maintain social distance (which doesn’t mean we can’t be social with them) but no one can take away from us the sublime pleasure of a sunny week-end in a London now, with no traffic and few airplanes flying over it, miraculously transmuted into a remarkably silent city.

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PS If you can read Italian I’ve written more on London’s canals at

I Fiumi e i Canali di Londra

Lockdown in Kandy

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An increasing number of ‘Pandemic’ diaries are appearing on social media documenting personal experiences, especially regarding lockdown in Italy and other European countries. We too in our hotel in Kandy, the old capital of Sri Lanka, are being increasingly affected by the coronavirus crisis. Yesterday, Sri Lanka’s health minister confirmed a total of 77 positive cases, showing an inexorable rise since March 10th, when the first case of the virus was reported. 245 more cases remain under observation.

Police have already made many arrests on charges of violating the curfew that came into effect last Friday evening at 6 pm. It would originally have expired this Monday morning but has been extended until Tuesday.

It is our third day at this hotel in the hills encircling Kandy and we are not allowed to leave it. Luckily the hotel has extensive grounds and a swimming pool which reduces the impact of our imprisonment.

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Our room has French windows opening out into a particularly scenic panorama of exotic plants, the call of eastern bird species, and the flow of lusciously wooded hills.

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There are very few people around here. Indeed, the staff greatly outnumber the guests. An infra-red thermometer is fired at our forehead at least once a day by masked employees with recordings diligently noted down. There are hand sanitizers placed on tables. We continue to feel safe in this place, seemingly remote from the turmoil happening elsewhere.

Presumably the same feeling of safety entered the mind of Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma when he turned Kandy’s Queen’s Hotel into the Supreme Allied headquarters for fighting the Japanese during World War II.

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We visited this historic building for lunch before arriving at our present hotel. With a history of over 160 years Queen’s gives a nostalgic flavour of what it must have been like to be a traveller to this part of the world in a previous, more leisurely age. We dined in the ‘Queen of Hearts’ restaurant.

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I also visited the Royal Ballroom, now firmly under wraps. I wonder what elegant galas would have taken place here.

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There was also the colonial atmosphere of the Pub Royal, still open in these difficult times.

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However, things are not so calm in other parts of the island. Two inmates died following a clash at Anuradhapura (which we visited a few days ago) prison between the inmates and the prison guards who fired guns to contain them. This followed an argument in which prisoners complained about not being sufficiently protected against corona virus. I recollect that a protest recently occurred at Milan’s San Vittore jail over the same issue and wonder what will happen in the overcrowded UK prison and detention centres when virus peak time is reached as surely it must: a week later than Italy’s as the following figures demonstrate.

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When this whole major episode in the history of our planet is over I am sure there will be published a whole spate of diaries kept throughout the pandemic months.

For in all effects we are now living in a wartime situation. The enemy this time is the virus and not the axis forces; the danger is not from bombs damaging homes but from the virus damaging our bodies. For the majority of us let us trust it will be a lucky escape for none will be allowed a last kiss from loved ones or even a touch of their hand.

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One thing remains the same, however: more devastating than economic hardship will be the psychological damage wrought upon us. No matter how strong we keep ourselves our lives will never be quite the same again.

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(Ekphrasis courtesy of Alexandra Pettitt)

Let us hope that, instead, we can learn something from this crisis. The cleaner air in so many cities and the clearer water in Venice’s canals, the quieter streets, the absence of non-essential journeys, the esprit de corps in our communities increasingly shown towards the more vulnerable are all very hopeful signs for humanity and our planet. Compassion and tolerance must win in the end.

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The Wonders of Polonnaruwa

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The history of Sri Lanka is complex but can be simplified into an often violent dialectic between the Buddhist Sinhalese majority of the island’s centre and south and the Hindu Tamil minority of its northern and eastern areas. Added to these two major ethnic groups were the western traders: first Portuguese, then Dutch and lastly the British. Each one of these people have left their distinctive mark in the culture and architecture of the country.

My previous post describes the ancient city of Anuradhapura. We subsequently visited a further ancient city and world heritage site: Polonnaruwa. This city was founded by the South Indian Chola dynasty after their successful invasion of Anuradhapura in the tenth century.

Two things struck me as odd about these cities when compared with those in the western world. First was the utter obliteration of a conquered city and the construction of a new centre in a new site. This was rather different from what usually happened in Europe. For example, Lucca was conquered by the French under Napoleon; he did not destroy it but merely added to its beauty. In the East the total elimination of a city was commonplace in an attempt to deny that previous powers had ever been in existence. This trend has continued in modified form to this day: for example the former capital cities of Pakistan and Myanmar have both been replaced by new centres. The British, too, followed this trend when they founded a new capital of India at Delhi.

Second was the astonishing syncretism between Buddhist and Hindu religion. Statues of Buddha and Vishnu, for example, are to be found in the same temple. In India hinduism won hands down and Buddha was relegated as an avatar of Vishnu while in Sri Lanka the Theravada school of Buddhism continues to flourish.

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The ruins of Polonnaruwa are very well presented and very extensive. We only managed to visit a part of the area they occupied but were impressed by the ruins of palaces, stupas, baths and shrines we saw. The city was clearly a flourishing place with particularly advanced irrigation systems which included the man-made Parakrama lake.

We first visited the informative museum and realised that we’d seen similar examples of the bronze statues during our visit to Chennai’s Government museum three years ago and described in my post at

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Of the ruins five were particularly impressive.

First was the temple where Buddha’s tooth, perhaps Buddhism’s most sacred relic, was originally kept.

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Second was the burnt out shell of the King’s palace with massive walls.

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Third was a giant temple with a Buddha statue approaching the scale of the sadly destroyed Bamiyan ones.

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Fourth was a shrine with an almost gothic arch form.

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Fifth was the elegant King’s bath:

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Sixth was a majestic trio of gigantic statues including one of the dying Buddha.

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Polonnaruwa eventually suffered the fate of other ancient cities in Sri Lanka: the Aryacakravarti dynasty abandoned it in the thirteenth century and built yet another centre at Dambadeniya.

Before the evocative ruins of this once prosperous city I could not help picturing an apocalyptic vision of a world currently threatened by an unseen enemy from which there appears to be no respite.

Where Buddhism Began in Sri Lanka

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We spent our third night in Sri Lanka in what appeared at first sight to be an ancient temple but turned out instead to be a hotel, the inappropriately named Palm Garden Village. Entering the reception hall was awesome but we were soon wafted away to a colonial-style cottage with equally veteran looking furniture.

The following morning I took a look at the place and found a delightful lake at the end of beautifully landscaped grounds.

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There was also, somewhat incongruously, this chapel frescoed with Giottesque copies.

The hotel complex, clearly unfinished, was started in the 1990’s and still needs some investment. I felt it was almost like an oriental equivalent of that disappeared folly, Fonthill Abbey. It was certainly one of the more unusual hostelries I’ve stayed in.

The following morning was dedicated to climbing up another sacred mountain, this time that of Mihintale, the site of a meeting between the monk Mahinda, son of King Ashoka, and King Devanampiyatissa; a meeting marking the beginning of Buddhism in Sri Lanka.

I found this area exceptionally evocative. Large rocks were scattered around the luxuriant forest and caves marked the location of hermit monks. There was an atmosphere of peace and quiet: the place diffused a mystical religious feel.

At the base of steps leading to the crowning stupa were the remains of an ancient hospital and a monastery with rules for the novices still inscribed on stones on each side of the entrance.

 

We then started on our climb of 1840 steps to the stupa.

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From its platform magnificent views extended down to Anuradhapuram and its stupa which we had visited the previous day.

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What glories and what mysteries are unwrapped in Sri Lanka’s history so unknown to the majority of westerner!

DSCN0416~2But now we headed towards the sea, passing smatterings of the island’s wildlife the way and

further Buddhist statues.

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Stupefying Stupas

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Sri Lanka has a number of ancient cities which were once major cultural, religious and commercial centres. We visited one of these, Anuradhapura, two days ago. One of the country’s eight world heritage site it was formerly the centre of Theravada Buddhism and continues to remain an important Buddhist pilgrimage centre.

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There are eight principal religious places which are visited by pilgrims here. Of these we managed to see the following:
Jaya Sri Maha Bodi. This is a sacred bodhi tree grown from a branch of the original at Sarnath in India which I visited several years ago and under which the Buddha obtained enlightenment. Planted in 288 BC, it is the oldest tree with a known planting date and is a most holy relic. The tree is now kept up by guilded supports.

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Ruwanweli Maha Seya. This is a stupa of hemispheric shape containing relics of the Buddha. It’s really large with a height of 338 feet and a circumference of 951 feet.

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I particularly liked the rows of elephants gracing the sides.

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While we were there workmen were busy whitewashing the stupa and climbing up a tall, steep ladder without any safety harness!

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A Puja procession also took place during our visit.

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Lovamahapaya. Otherwise known as the brazen palace only the supporting pillars remain of this building which dates back to 1500 BC.

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Sandra pointed that the array of pillars reminded her of this sculpture at Italy’s Villa Celle, Magdalena’s Abakanowicz’s ‘Katarsis’ (1985):

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Abhayagiri Dagaba. This is another huge stupa built of red bricks and dating back to the second century BC.

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Like the Angkor Wat, which we visited in 2015, it would need a good month to fully explore Anuradhapura but at least we got there and visited its main features which fully demonstrate the incredible energy encapsulated in a belief which is more a philosophy than a religion.

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