365 rooms with a view
QUESTION The Doffcocker Inn in Bolton is called the Calendar Pub because it has four floors, 12 rooms in the cellar, 52 doors and so on. Are there any other calendar buildings?
The Grand hotel in Scarborough was designed by hull architect Cuthbert Brodrick as a calendar building.
Opened in 1867, it had four towers to represent the seasons, 12 floors for the months of the year, 52 chimneys to symbolise the number of weeks and 365 bedrooms, one for each day of the year.
It was built in the shape of a ‘V’ in honour of Queen Victoria.
Following renovation, the number of bedrooms was reduced to 280.
Boughton house, Northamptonshire, was built for Ralph, 1st Duke of Montagu, and completed in the 1690s. It has seven courtyards, 12 entrances, 52 chimney stacks and 365 windows.
Still in the same family and largely unaltered, it is one of Britain’s greatest houses in private ownership.
holme eden hall in Cumbria was built in 1837 and has 365 windows, 52 chimneys, 12 passageways, seven entrances and four storeys. The house was built for a family of cotton barons, the Dixons, by the great northern architect John Dobson.
The Towers, a manor in Didsbury, then in Lancashire, was built between 1868 and 1872 as a rural escape for the proprietor and editor of the Manchester Guardian, John edward Taylor. It features 365 panes of glass, 52 rooms and 12 towers.
Salisbury cathedral in Wiltshire is often cited as a famous example of a calendar building. The notion is derived from the traditional rhyme: ‘As many days as in one year there be, So many windows in this church you see, As many marble pillars here appear, As there are hours throughout the
fleeting year, As many gates as moons one here does view, Strange tale to tell, yet not more strange
than true.’ however, this is demonstrably untrue. Kevin Sawyer, Stanford in the Vale, Oxon. The most dramatic example of a calendar building is Castle eggenberg in Graz, Austria. Its design is based on strict number symbolism.
Construction started in 1625, just three decades after the Gregorian reform of 1582, which followed the great calendar dispute when the Julian calendar was replaced and ten days were ‘lost’.
The castle has 52 doors, 365 windows and each floor consists of 31 rooms. If the planetary room, chapel and theatre are subtracted, you get 30, 29 and 28 — all the possible variants of the number of days in a month.
The 24 hours of the day correspond to the 24 state rooms, 12 on each side of a symmetrical axis, representing the 12 hours for the day and night. The 24 rooms have a total of 52 windows for the weeks in a year.
Adding the eight windows in the planetary room, you get 60, which stands for the number of seconds and minutes.
even the park wall has 12 doors opening towards the outside, seven of which face towards the city.
Olivia Fleck, Truro, Cornwall.
QUESTION What is the oldest martial art?
The term martial art refers to all of the various systems of training that have a system or ritual.
Wrestling and boxing might be considered the oldest martial arts, as they date back to the beginnings of civilisation.
however, we generally link the term to more stylised forms, often from the Far east, such as kung-fu, karate, judo and jiu-jitsu. Malla-yuddha is an ancient form of wrestling that originated in South Asia and dates back to at least 3000BC. It is divided into four styles, each named after a hindu god: hanumanti — technical superiority; Jambuvanti — locks and holds to force submission; Jarasandhi — breaking the limbs and joints; and Bhimaseni — pure strength.
It is still practised by small communities in South Asia.
Jiao di (which means horn clashing) was an ancient form of Chinese wrestling, the forebear of today’s shuai jiao.
Its first literary appearance is in the Shiji (Records Of the Grand historian), written around 94BC, but legend holds that it began during the reign of the Yellow emperor (2698-2598 BC).
Pankration is a martial art from Greece that combined boxing with wrestling, but also allowed kicking.
According to Greek mythology, it was first used by heracles (hercules) to fight the Nemean Lion, and Theseus, who used it to overpower the Minotaur.
Perhaps the first true marital art form was Kalaripayattu. Originating in Kerala, southern India, in the third century BC, it includes strikes, kicks, grappling and weaponry, as well as more peaceful stretching, yoga moves and healing techniques.
T. C. Holder, Dudley, W. Mids.
QUESTION What is known about the sinking of the submarine HMS Affray?
WITH reference to the tragic loss of the submarine HMS Affray, described in a previous answer, I was a young seaman on the destroyer HMS Agincourt at the time.
A group of us had marched from Portsmouth dockyard to the Royal Naval Barracks for our annual X-ray.
We were stripped to the waist and waiting for our turn when suddenly a voice shouted: ‘Sub Smash 1 — HMS Agincourt crew back to their ship.’
For three days and nights we sailed up and down the area looking for wreckage or any other signs from the submarine.
During this time every available man, whether they were meant to be on duty or not, lined the guard rails desperately looking for any signs of life. however, sadly, we did not find anything.
Peter Jones, Gloucester.
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