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The Wessex Collection
Longleat is a stately home about west of Warminster in Wiltshire, England. A leading and early example of the Elizabethan prodigy house, it is a Grade I listed building and the seat of the Marquesses of Bath. Longleat is set in of parkland landscaped by Capability Brown, along with of let farmland and of woodland, which includes a Center Parcs holiday village. It was the first stately home to open to the public, and the Longleat estate has the first safari park outside Africa and other attractions including a hedge maze. The house was built by Sir John Thynne and designed mainly by Robert Smythson, after Longleat Priory was destroyed by fire in 1567. It took 12 years to complete and is widely regarded as one of the finest examples of Elizabethan architecture in Britain. It continues to be the seat of the Thynn family, who have held the title of Marquess of Bath since 1789; the eighth and present Marquess is Ceawlin Thynn. History Longleat was previously an Augustinian ...
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Prodigy House
Prodigy houses are large and showy English country houses built by courtiers and other wealthy families, either "noble palaces of an awesome scale" or "proud, ambitious heaps" according to taste. The prodigy houses stretch over the periods of Tudor architecture, Tudor, Elizabethan architecture, Elizabethan, and Jacobean architecture, though the term may be restricted to a core period of roughly 1570 to 1620. Many of the grandest were built with a view to housing Elizabeth I and her large retinue as they made their annual royal progress around her realm. Many are therefore close to major roads, often in the English Midlands. The term originates with the architectural historian Sir John Summerson, and has been generally adopted. He called them "... the most daring of all English buildings." The houses fall within the broad style of Renaissance architecture, but represent a distinctive English take on the style, mainly reliant on books for their knowledge of developments o ...
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Ceawlin Thynn, 8th Marquess Of Bath
Ceawlin Henry Laszlo Thynn, 8th Marquess of Bath (; ; born 6 June 1974), styled Viscount Weymouth between 1992 and 2020, is a British peer, landowner, and businessman, active in companies in the leisure, tourism, real estate and financial services sectors. Early life Born in Hammersmith, the first son and second child of Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath, and his wife Anna Thynn, Marchioness of Bath, Anna Gyarmathy,London Evening Standard
Ceawlin Thynn was educated at Horningsham Primary School, a village school near the family estate of Longleat, in Wiltshire, then at Kingdown School in Warminster and Bedales School in Hampshire; he finally read economics and philosophy at University College London. He is named after Ceawlin of Wessex, having been born shortly af ...
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Thomas Thynne (died 1682)
Thomas Thynne (1647/8–12 February 1682) was an English landowner of the family that is now headed by the Marquess of Bath and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1670 to 1682. He went by the nickname "Tom of Ten Thousand" due to his great wealth. He was a friend of the Duke of Monmouth, a relationship referred to in John Dryden's satirical work ''Absalom and Achitophel'' where Thynne is described as "Issachar, his wealthy western friend". Thynne was the son of Sir Thomas Thynne, and his wife Stuarta Balquanquill, daughter of Dr. Walter Balquanquill.Charles Mosley, ed., ''Burke's Peerage and Baronetage'', 106th edition (Burke's Peerage Ltd, 1999), vol. 1, p. 212 His father was a younger son of Sir Thomas Thynne of Longleat, Wiltshire. In 1670 Thynne succeeded to the family estates at Longleat on the death of his uncle Sir James Thynne without issue. He also succeeded his uncle as Member of Parliament for Wiltshire, and sat until his death in 1682. On 15 N ...
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Christopher Wren
Sir Christopher Wren FRS (; – ) was an English architect, astronomer, mathematician and physicist who was one of the most highly acclaimed architects in the history of England. Known for his work in the English Baroque style, he was accorded responsibility for rebuilding 52 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including what is regarded as his masterpiece, St Paul's Cathedral, on Ludgate Hill, completed in 1710. The principal creative responsibility for a number of the churches is now more commonly attributed to others in his office, especially Nicholas Hawksmoor. Other notable buildings by Wren include the Royal Hospital Chelsea, the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, and the south front of Hampton Court Palace. Educated in Latin and Aristotelian physics at the University of Oxford, Wren was a founder of the Royal Society and served as its president from 1680 to 1682. His scientific work was highly regarded by Isaac Newton and Blaise ...
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James Thynne
Sir James Thynne (1605 – 12 October 1670) was an English landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons in two periods between 1640 and 1670. Life Thynne was born in 1605, the eldest son of Maria and Sir Thomas Thynne, of Longleat, Wiltshire. His parents' marriage and his legitimacy were the basis of a long legal dispute. He was knighted at Berwick on 23 June 1639. In November 1640, Thynne was elected Member of Parliament for Wiltshire in the Long Parliament. He was disabled from sitting in 1642. In 1655, Thynne founded an almshouse at Longbridge Deverill. Following the Restoration, he was High Sheriff of Wiltshire in 1661. Sir Christopher Wren advised him on improvements to the house at Longleat which included the great stairs and stone terrace. In 1664 he was re-elected MP for Wiltshire in the Cavalier Parliament and sat until his death in 1670. Thynne married Lady Isabella Rich, daughter of Henry Rich, 1st Earl of Holland and his wife Isabel Cope. He died wit ...
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Romeo And Juliet
''The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet'', often shortened to ''Romeo and Juliet'', is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare about the romance between two young Italians from feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with ''Hamlet'', is one of his most frequently performed. Today, the Title character, title characters are regarded as Archetype, archetypal young lovers. ''Romeo and Juliet'' belongs to a tradition of tragic Romance (love), romances stretching back to Ancient history, antiquity. The plot is based on an Italian tale written by Matteo Bandello, translated into verse as ''The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet'' by Arthur Brooke (poet), Arthur Brooke in 1562, and retold in prose in ''Palace of Pleasure'' by William Painter (author), William Painter in 1567. Shakespeare borrowed heavily from both but expanded the plot by developing a number of supporting characters, in particular Mercutio a ...
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Thomas Thynne (died 1639)
Sir Thomas Thynne (''c.''1578–1639), of Longleat, Wiltshire, was an English landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1601 and 1629. His romance with the daughter of his family's enemies may have inspired Shakespeare to pen Romeo and Juliet. Life Thynne was the son and heir of Sir John Thynne of Longleat, a knight of the shire,'Parliamentary history : 1529–1629', in '' A History of the County of Wiltshire'', vol. 5 (1957)pp. 111–132 accessed 7 July 2011 and Joan Hayward, daughter of Sir Rowland Hayward, a Lord Mayor of London. Thynne first made his mark in May 1594, at the age of sixteen, when he clandestinely married Maria (or Mary) Touchet, also sixteen, a gentlewoman at the court of Queen Elizabeth and a daughter of Lord Audley. The two were married on the day they first met and for some time kept their marriage secret because their fathers were bitterly opposed to each other, continuing a feud which had begun in the prev ...
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John Thynne (died 1604)
Sir John Thynne (21 September 1555 – 21 November 1604) of Longleat House, Wiltshire, was an English landowner and Member of Parliament. He was the eldest son of Sir John Thynne of Longleat and Christian, the daughter of Sir Richard Gresham, a London mercer. He was educated at Oxford, graduating BA in 1573. He succeeded his father in 1580, inheriting Longleat House, which his father had built, and was knighted in 1603. He married Joan, the daughter of Sir Rowland Heyward, Lord Mayor of London, of Cripplegate, London, with whom he had two sons. He served as a Justice of the Peace in Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Hampshire and Shropshire and was appointed High Sheriff of Wiltshire for 1593–94. He was elected a Member (MP) of the Parliament of England for Heytesbury in 1584, 1586, 1593, 1597 and 1601, and for Wiltshire in 1589 and 1604. His wife's father gave her Caus Castle in Shropshire, but its ownership was disputed. After he and Joan took the castle by force in 1 ...
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Earl Of Hertford
Earl () is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. In modern Britain, an earl is a member of the Peerages in the United Kingdom, peerage, ranking below a marquess and above a viscount. A feminine form of ''earl'' never developed; instead, ''countess'' is used. The title originates in the Old English word , meaning "a man of noble birth or rank". The word is cognate with the Old Norse, Scandinavian form ''jarl''. After the Norman Conquest, it became the equivalent of the continental count. In Scotland, it assimilated the concept of mormaer. Since the 1960s, earldoms have typically been created only for members of the British royal family, royal family. The last non-royal earldom, Earl of Stockton, was created in 1984 for Harold Macmillan, prime minister from 1957 to 1963. Alternative names for the rank equivalent to "earl" or "count" in the nobility structure are used in other countries, such as the ''hakushaku'' (伯爵) of the post-restoration Japanese Imperial era. Et ...
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Somerset House
Somerset House is a large neoclassical architecture, neoclassical building complex situated on the south side of the Strand, London, Strand in central London, overlooking the River Thames, just east of Waterloo Bridge. The Georgian era quadrangle is built on the site of a Tudor period, Tudor palace ("Old Somerset House") originally belonging to the Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, Duke of Somerset. The present Somerset House was designed by William Chambers (architect), Sir William Chambers, begun in 1776, and was further extended with Victorian era outer wings to the east and west in 1831 and 1856 respectively. The site of Somerset House stood directly on the River Thames until the Victoria Embankment was built in the late 1860s. The great Georgian era structure was built to be a grand public building housing various government and public-benefit society offices. Its present tenants are a mixture of various organisations, generally centred around the arts and education. ...
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Baltonsborough
Baltonsborough is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England. The parish had a population of 864 at the 2011 Census. As well as Baltonsborough village, the parish contains the hamlets of Ham Street, Catsham and Southwood. History The parish was part of the hundred of Glaston Twelve Hides. The first clue as to the origins of Baltonsborough lies in the name. The village stands on a slight rise beyond what would have been a sea of water between it and Glastonbury. The highest point, now known as Windmill Hill, would have been the site of the settlement, ringed round with ditches and palisades. One authority gives the possible translation of Baltonsborough as Bealdhas Hill, another as Baldurs Stockade. Legend has it that men of Baltonsborough joined King Arthur in his wars against the Saxons in the 6th century, although the earliest written evidence is from a deed dated 744AD, in which ten hides of land in Baltunesberghe was given to the Abbot of Glastonbury. Other variation ...
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Watermill
A watermill or water mill is a mill that uses hydropower. It is a structure that uses a water wheel or water turbine to drive a mechanical process such as mill (grinding), milling (grinding), rolling, or hammering. Such processes are needed in the production of many material goods, including flour, lumber, paper, textiles, and many metal products. These watermills may comprise gristmills, sawmills, paper mills, textile mills, hammermills, trip hammering mills, rolling mills, and wire drawing mills. One major way to classify watermills is by wheel orientation (vertical or horizontal), one powered by a vertical waterwheel through a Gear train, gear mechanism, and the other equipped with a horizontal waterwheel without such a mechanism. The former type can be further subdivided, depending on where the water hits the wheel paddles, into undershot, overshot, breastshot and pitchback (backshot or reverse shot) waterwheel mills. Another way to classify water mills is by an essential tr ...
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