Friday night quiz

[piper]

The quad is a considerable distance (50 miles or so) from the gate (which is, indeed in Ely), and English Heritage have recently spent a lot of money on it.

I'm afraid I can't resist a bit of annoying pedantry; Quads are in Oxford colleges, Cambridge ones have COURTS (same thing of course).

Now another picture. Clues are that it's miles from anywhere, at the end of a forest track, and that Nemesis would probably know it if she were still here (come back Ev, we miss you. Creating one's own blog-ghetto is no substitute)

 

[Jon Maine]

Biddlestone RC Chapel, near Netherton, Northumberland
Listed Grade II*

 

[Jon Maine]

Ok, what are these? why are they there? and where are they?

 

[Moo]

I think there's something very like it deep in the grounds of one of our E.Anglian stately homes (Houghton?)


*Jon got in first with his new puzzle - I was thinking about the chapel

 

[piper]

Biddlestone RC Chapel, near Netherton, Northumberland
Listed Grade II*

Well done. I was involved in a concert there last summer (on one of the few really nice warm sunny days we had).

It's an extraordinary place - isolated in the middle of hills and forest north of Rothbury, and furnished inside in full catholic Victorian Gothic style. It's all that's left of Biddlestone Hall, (demolished 1950's IIRC?) home of the Selby family since at least the late 14th century, though the hall was rebuilt around 1820, when the chapel was constructed over the undercroft of a defensive tower. They were one of the old catholic families that the Reformation never reached. The Historic Chapel Trust maintains the building.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Biddlestone RC Chapel, near Netherton, Northumberland
Listed Grade II*

Well done. I was involved in a concert there last summer (on one of the few really nice warm sunny days we had).

It's an extraordinary place - isolated in the middle of hills and forest north of Rothbury, and furnished inside in full catholic Victorian Gothic style. It's all that's left of Biddlestone Hall, (demolished 1950's IIRC?) home of the Selby family since at least the late 14th century, though the hall was rebuilt around 1820, when the chapel was constructed over the undercroft of a defensive tower. They were one of the old catholic families that the Reformation never reached. The Historic Chapel Trust maintains the building.

Here it is with the hall still attached - a curious, bleak-looking house http://ourpasthistory.com/Gallery/in-progress/Untitled_Scanned_58?full=1

 

[piper]

Thanks for that, Gareth - fascinating.
The wine cellar is apparently still there, under the bracken, though unfortunately without the wine!

 

[Jon Maine]

50 views and not even a comment or a guess?

Must be time for a clue, around 1400 miles south east as the crow flies from London and underground.

 

[Cloudscape]

Greece? But I've no idea what the photo shows.

 

[Wren]

Holes in the wall to store something? Could be food but don't think so. I am guessing something to do with the dead - ashes and/or associated objects. Went to Rome years ago and saw the catacombs, but seem to remember that they were burying rather than cremating so not sure the idea of catacombs fits.

 

[Jon Maine]

Definately on the right track Wren. Although north of Rome.

Yes whilst there are burial catacombs in the same complex of excavations the picture is of the home of food. Just what food are we talking about?

 

[Penners]

it does look remarkably unlike a country house, and very like a Cambridge College.

I have to agree. But I still think the question points to a particularly evil mind.

the picture is of the home of food. Just what food are we talking about?

Doves?

 

[Jon Maine]

Penners I will give you doves, infact it is pigeons.

So now you only have to work out the significance of why they are there and where they are.

I will give you another clue. The town in question has Etruscan origins and has a well known name.

 

[piper]

I don't know where this one is, but the clues "Etruscan" and "pigeons" ("doves" would have been right too, surely?) suggest that this is a "columbarium" - named because it looks like a dovecote - used by the Etruscans, or possibly Romans following the ancient Etruscan burial practice, to deposit the urns containing cremated ashes of the dead.

 

[piper]

Second thoughts - Jon said it was for food, burial places were nearby, and has told us it was pigeons. It couldn't be a real dovecote underground, so was it for dead pigeons to be food for the dead people in the catacombs?

 

[piper]

Orvieto. Live pigeons were reared next to the Etruscan catacombs and sold for food. Jon - you shouldn't tempt me to waste time searching for answers on the internet when I should be working!

 

[Jon Maine]

So nearly there Piper, I will explain the missing part.

Orvieto being a fortified hill town, very difficult to attack so cutting off supplies was the chosen option by attackers by laying siege. The Pigeons would fly out over the heads of the enemy and forage only to return home breed more and have their little necks wrung so they could be put in the pot.

This happened many times during the last couple of thousand years with great success apparently.

Neat trick Eh?

 

[Penners]

Jon - I'm ashamed that I didn't think of Orvieto, having spent a magical holiday in the hills just outside the town, some years ago. It's a gorgeous place.

I remember visiting the Etruscan catacombs and seeing the wells that they dug right down through the volcanic plug into the water table of the surrounding plain. Our guide explained that it would have quite impossible for wells of such depth to have been dug without the diggers having a pumped air supply - and this was in the pre-Roman era. Remarkable!

 

[Jon Maine]

Its certainly most beautiful there, i think the wells in Orvieto are 90m deep :shock:

How can one forget it anyhow with such lovely wine bearing its name??

 

[Penners]

Well, for me, Orvieto Classico is the victim of what I call 'holiday haze'.

While we there, we drank nothing else, and we thought it was the most wonderful wine on earth. When we got home, we bought some from a local wine merchant... and hated it! It was too sweet and bland-tasting.

It was either holiday haze, or the Orvietans are keeping all the good stuff for themselves!