#st.giles

St Giles at Dusk - Francis Hamel

British , b. 1963 -

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まとめてあげちゃえーKAWAIIから大丈夫ー！

St. Giles Church, 'Pugin's Gem.' Cheadle, Stoke-on-Trent.

St. Giles Church, 'Pugin's Gem.' Cheadle, Stoke-on-Trent.

I remembered that I was drawn to the big church in the middle of the Old Town and even though we went in twice to see it I realize that I missed to see a lot. It’s often so you go in and you don’t know what to see of the many things from the past. It is an awesome thought that people have been in such an old building for nearly a thousand years!  A lot of knowledge can be found at the St Giles’ webpage. It is also known as the High Kirk of Edinburgh ! In Danish the word for church is “kirke”. The outstanding stained glass windows are from the 19th and 20th centuries. They are difficult to show on photos.

  st-giles-outside

st-giles stained-glass

st-giles-john-knox

st-giles

  The Cathedral stands on the Royal Mile between Edinburgh Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse

the area just outside takes you back to the old days where quick executions  and other punishments were entertainments in everyday life.

From the leaflet

St Giles was a prince born in Athens around 650 AD. He went to France and became a hermit in the forests around Nimes. Legend says that one day King Wamba of the Goths was hunting and shot an arrow at a deer St Giles had tamed. To save his companion, st Giles blocked the arrow with his hand, hence depictions of St Giles with an arrow through his hand. Later, he became the patron saint of lepers and cripples. 

More information on the leaflet:

The Cathedral dates from 12th century (Norman architecture) but was rebuilt in a Gothic style in the 14th to 16th century.

Built as a Catholic Church, the cathedral became Presbyterian after the Scottish Reformation (c.1560), with John Knox being the first Protestant minister.

Behind the Cathedral at a parking lot there is a stone that tells us that the grave of the famous John Knox is here. Typical English sense of humor.

st-giles-john-knox-parking-lot

Edinburgh is famous for their poets and writers and you can see a relief bronze portrait of the writer Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) He was sick all his short life but managed to travel a lot in spite of that.

rls-memorial-768×626-stevenson From the St Giles’ homepage

We got the idea to visit Edinburgh because of one painting by Vermeer on an exhibition at the Queen’s Palace of Holyroodhoouse. We got so much more though that picture really was worth the travel.

palace-of-holyroodhouse-coffee

vermeer-collage

Vermeer’s painting belonging to the Queen

high street, edinburgh

Imber - British hamlet turned over to the military in 1943 for urban warfare training.

Imber's residents were evicted in 1943 to allow the town to act as a rang to practice urban warfare skills. It was never returned, and is now part of a vast firing range. The British military bought up large swaths of land near the town int he late 19th century for a training range. Agricultural depression in the 1920's saw farm land surrounding the town bought up by the government, so it is likely the town would have been bought as well, war or no war.

The 14th century Church of St. Giles is protected, and holds church services once a year. The graveyard remains open, so former residents who were evicted from the town in life can return in death.