Anglo Saxon Landscapes During the Norman Conquest
Anglo Saxon Landscapes During the Norman Conquest Anglo-Saxons experienced great adjustments to their day-to-day lives in the latter half of the eleventh century due to the accession of the Normans. The skill of the Normans surpassed the Anglo-Saxons' in architecture and agriculture at the time of the conquest. Nonetheless the Normans had to pacify the entire territory before they could focus on home life, domestic architecture, and decoration. Castles were more standard designs and often built on blustery hills, where their people spent both time and space to exercising offense and defense, while monasteries were considerable stone buildings, regularly located in the widest, most fruitful hollows.
The bare fortresses did not provide for the peaceful avocation of farming. Berkeley Castle is possibly the most complete model in existence nowadays of the early Anglo-Norman form of architecture. The keep is said to date from William the Conqueror's time period. A significant terrace serves as a deterrent to invaders who would attempt to mine the walls of the building. One of these terraces, a charming bowling green, is covered grass and flanked by an aged yew hedge trimmed into the shape of crude battlements.
Where did Large Garden Fountains Come From?
Where did Large Garden Fountains Come From? A fountain, an incredible piece of engineering, not only supplies drinking water as it pours into a basin, it can also launch water high into the air for an extraordinary effect.The central purpose of a fountain was originally strictly functional. Inhabitants of urban areas, townships and small towns used them as a source of drinking water and a place to wash, which meant that fountains needed to be linked to nearby aqueduct or spring. Used until the 19th century, in order for fountains to flow or shoot up into the air, their source of water such as reservoirs or aqueducts, had to be higher than the water fountain in order to benefit from the power of gravity. Fountains were not only utilized as a water source for drinking water, but also to decorate homes and celebrate the designer who created it. Roman fountains usually depicted imagery of animals or heroes made of bronze or stone masks. Muslims and Moorish garden designers of the Middle Ages included fountains to re-create smaller models of the gardens of paradise. To show his prominence over nature, French King Louis XIV included fountains in the Garden of Versailles.
The Romans of the 17th and 18th centuries manufactured baroque decorative fountains to exalt the Popes who commissioned them as well as to mark the location where the restored Roman aqueducts entered the city.
The end of the nineteenth century saw the rise in usage of indoor plumbing to provide drinking water, so urban fountains were relegated to strictly decorative elements. Fountains using mechanical pumps instead of gravity enabled fountains to bring recycled water into living spaces as well as create unique water effects.
Beautifying city parks, honoring people or events and entertaining, are some of the uses of modern-day fountains.