Between the 11th and 14th centuries the practice of building “Round Churches” was championed by veterans of the Crusades. These churches are unique in that the original body of the Church is circular, rather than a round tower being attached to a conventionally shaped building. Although many were built across England, today only four survive as functioning Churches¹.

Temple Church, located in a courtyard off Fleet Street in London, was constructed by the Knights Templar – a Catholic order with considerable military and economic power during the Crusades.

The original Round Church was consecrated in 1185, with the rectangular section known as the Chancel being added about 50 years later. After the Knights Templar were abolished in 1307, the Crown seized the Church and gave it to the Knights Hospitallers, who in turn rented it to two colleges of lawyers. Over time these colleges developed into the Inner and Middle Temples – two Inns of the Court who still use the Church to this day.

The Church is noted for its 9 marble effigies of knights, as well as being a royal peculiar – meaning it is controlled by the monarch rather than the local bishop. It was badly damaged in World War 2, but has been well restored. It was featured in both the book and film versions of The Da Vinci Code.

To the north-west of London, we find the Holy Sepulchre Church in Northampton. Built several decades earlier than Temple Church, its design was heavily inspired by the Church of the same name in Jerusalem.

This Church is now bookended by a stone tower to the west, and a more conventionally-shaped building containing a nave and chancel to the east.

Of very similar inspiration – both in name and design – is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Cambridge, though typically it is simply called The Round Church.

Constructed about 30 years after the Northampton Church, it was modified in the 15th century, while a later restoration of this Church mostly went back to the original Norman design, as seen from Street View.

Our final round Church is St John the Baptist, in the village of Little Maplestead, Essex.

Built by – and still associated with – the Knights Hospitaller, this is the youngest of the four Churches, dating from the mid-14th century, with a major restoration taking place in the mid-19th century. More details at Unlocking Essex.

During my research for this post I found a couple of sites that claimed there were in fact five surviving Churches, but I can find no indication of what the fifth may be. Post a comment if you know! There are also ruins of round Churches in several locations around the country.

Canterbury, England has been the stage for many dramatic scenes throughout history. One of the first Christian missionaries brought faith to the people of the city in the 11th century. The national church was founded in that place, and later another famous Christian was brutally martyred at the order of the Crown.

Since that time, every year thousands upon thousands of tourists and pilgrims visit the city to breathe in its historical significance, view its magnificent architecture, and pay their respects at the tombs of the faithful. See if you recognise any of these scenes.

Early Christians

Augustine was sent on mission from Pope Gregory the Great to convert the King of Kent to Christianity. Arriving in Canterbury at the end of the 6th century, he found some success with both the King and the locals. Subsequently he became the first Archbishop of Canterbury.

Early into the 7th century he began work on one of England’s oldest and most treasured buildings: Canterbury Cathedral.

The Cathedral sat as the Pope’s eyes and ears in England until the 16th century when Henry VIII broke away from Rome and the Church of England was founded. Today, Canterbury Cathedral is the seat of power for the national church.

Death in the Cathedral

The city and cathedral have played a major role in literature as well. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s beloved work, The Canterbury Tales, a group of pious (and some not so pious) pilgrims set out from London to make their way to the Cathedral to pay their respects to St. Thomas Becket – whose remains were once entombed within its grounds.

Though a fictionalised account, Becket himself was a real archbishop who was murdered in 1170 at the order of Henry II who disagreed with him over the church’s rights. There are many stained glassed windows, as well as other monuments, paying homage to the martyr. Archbishop Becket’s body was buried in a tomb within the cathedral, though his bones were later destroyed – also by order of the king.

Most other Archbishops, however, are buried in St. Augustine’s Abbey, just east of the cathedral’s grounds.

Though it was originally named the Abbey of St. Peter and Paul, it was later renamed to reflect St. Augustine himself. You can see from the satellite photos that most of the abbey’s walls and structures have long since worn away or have been destroyed.

The Oldest School in England

Standing at the edge of the abbey, is another remarkable building – which is believed to be the oldest school in England.

The King’s school has been educating the next generation for just over 1400 years. It was founded on the same grounds as St. Augustine’s Abbey in the 6th century by Augustine himself. Many of the school’s classes, with its 800-odd pupils, are taught within the ancient buildings of the Abbey.

An Unrelated Castle

The last of Canterbury’s great historical buildings shown here isn’t really related to any of the others mentioned, but it makes it into this post of the basis that it is also old and pretty cool looking!

Canterbury Castle was of the three original castles built in this area. The present stone structure replaced a wooden castle from 1066. The newer one was built after the Battle of Hastings and used to guard the important route taken by William the Conquerer.

Kind of in the spirit of the Darwin Awards, someone leased the castle to a gas company in the 19th century. The building (because it was filled with gas most likely) caught fire and the top floor was destroyed. The city planners must have a sense of humour as the Castle sits at the crossroads of Castle Street and Gas Street.

The city of Canterbury is quaint and lovely, steeped in history and an enormous success with tourists. In fact, we’ve only barely uncovered some of the city’s treasures. What is your favourite spot in Canterbury?

Here in Beijing amidst multitudes of concrete high-rise office buildings, stands the ultra-modern Beijing-South Railway Station. The building was only completed in August of 2008, but is now visible on Google Maps thanks to this month’s image update, which includes satellite imagery taken just over a month ago.

Beijing-South is the Chinese capital’s hub for high-speed rail travel, and is Asia’s largest train station.

Upon its completion, the Beijing-South became the third passenger rail terminal in central Beijing, focusing on long-range inter-city travel. It replaced the comparatively minuscule Yongdingmen Station, which until 2006 had operated continuously for over a century.

Resembling an airport more than a traditional passenger railway station, the new Beijing-South Station boasts 24 platforms with the ability to send 30,000 passengers per-hour¹ zipping off to their destinations. The massive oval-shaped structure encompasses 320,000 square metres² with a waiting area that can accommodate over 10,000 passengers.

Designed to incorporate natural light as well as be environmentally-friendly, Beijing-South Station is a model of energy efficiency. Its central glass roof holds 3,246 solar panels that generate nearly all the building’s electricity!

The station was designed in a joint venture between Tianjin Design Institute and architect Terry Farrel, creator of such notable works as the Peak Tower in Hong Kong, and for you James Bond fans, the SIS building³ on the banks of the River Thames, London.

Requiring 60,000 tonnes of steel and 490,000 cubic metres of concrete to build, the Beijing South Railway Station took a workforce of 4,000 less than 3 years to construct. Looking at Google Earth historical imagery from August 2005 and April 2007 gives a great perspective to the massive scale of this project.

For some great pictures of the interior of the railway station, check out this blog.

Thanks to the Google LatLong Blog.

Halfway up a Burmese mountain we find a large, blue, mysterious building, that appears to have been built right into the side of the mountain. What could such a building be designed to house, and why would it need to be semi-submerged? One suggestion is that this is a top secret nuclear reactor, created with the help of North Korea.

An article in the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Burmese defectors that a nuclear reactor was being constructed near Naung Laing, which happens to be just 3 miles SE of this location.

The suspicious building appears to have large power cable connections, and there could well be security checkpoints on the surrounding roads, so perhaps the Burmese do have something to hide here?

Of course, none of this actually means there’s anything exciting going on at the building, it could still be an innocent sports hall.

So, is anyone convinced that we’ve got a nuclear bunker? What other things can you spot that might prove that it is a secret reactor or bomb factory?

Thanks to Arms Control Wonk, ISIS, Ogle Earth

Around 25 times a minute, 24 hours a day, this Russian shortwave radio station emits a short, monotonous buzz tone¹ on the AM frequency at 4625 kHz.

The station’s callsign is “UVB-76″, but is known amongst enthusiasts as “The Buzzer”, and the sound it transmits has been on an almost continuous loop since it was first observed in 1982.

No one knows for sure what the purpose of the signal is, and in 27 years the buzzing has only been interrupted on 3 occasions.

At 21:58 GMT on Christmas Eve 1997, 15 years after it was first observed, the buzzing abruptly stopped; to be replaced by a short series of beeps, followed by a male voice speaking Russian who repeated the following message several times:

“Ya — UVB-76. 18008. BROMAL: Boris, Roman, Olga, Mikhail, Anna, Larisa. 742, 799, 14″.

On September 12th 2002 another voice was heard, this time so distorted that only part of the message could be recognised:

“UVB-76, UVB-76. 62691 Izafet 3693 8270″.

Finally, on February 21st 2006, a third message² was transmitted which said:

“75-59-75-59. 39-52-53-58. 5-5-2-5. Konstantin-1-9-0-9-0-8-9-8-Tatiana-Oksana-Anna-Elena-Pavel-Schuka. Konstantin 8-4. 9-7-5-5-9-Tatiana. Anna Larisa Uliyana-9-4-1-4-3-4-8.”

The names used in the message are used in some Russian spelling alphabets, and although some people speculate that UVB-76 is a specialised Numbers Station, used to transmit encoded messages to spies, the messages have never been decoded, and the actual purpose of this station remains unknown.

There’s more information about the mysterious UVB-76 at WIkipedia. Thanks to Best of Wikipedia.