366 Days of Architecture
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Wednesday 7th December 2016
Wartime mission.
We’re in wartime Glasgow today, looking down, in an RAF image at the famous John Brown’s shipyard at Clydebank, on the River Clyde. The vast scale of the yard in 1940 is clear, showing a number of ships and a submarine under repair or construction, including the battleship, HMS Duke of York, which was commissioned on the 4th November 1941, only a month later she transported Prime Minister Winston Churchill across the Atlantic to a meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. This meeting in late December came as the United States had joined the war after Japan had attacked with devastating effect the American Pacific Fleet on the morning of December 7th 1941. Roosevelt described the day as ‘a date which will live in infamy’.
Tuesday 6th December 2016
It’s Sinterklaas . . .
Which is the feast of St Nicholas, the 4th century Bishop of Myra in modern day Turkey; the patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, but also repentant thieves, children and pawnbrokers which may seem more appropriate with his reputation as a bringer of presents and the origin behind the figure of Sinterklaas or Santa Claus, who is celebrated today in large parts of Europe by the giving of gifts. There are a number of churches dedicated to Saint Nicholas across Scotland, the impressive Church of St Nicholas Uniting in Aberdeen, the Parish Church of St Nicholas in Dalkeith and here St Nicholas in Lanark, at the junction of the High Street and Castle Street on a site possibly dedicated to St Nicholas since the thirteenth century.
Monday 5th December 2016
On the road again.
It’s hard to believe that Britain’s motorways only date as far back as this day in 1958 when then Prime Minister Harold Macmillan opened the Preston by-pass, an 8 and a half mile stretch of dual carriageway. It now forms part of the M6 motorway, one of Britain’s busiest, which winds its way up and down the west of England, joining the A74(M) at Gretna on the Scottish border. Motorways are now spread out across the country and the network is expanding with new by-passes and roads ongoing, including here on the M74 where our image shows the design complexity of Junction 6 with the A723 between Hamilton and Motherwell near the East Kilbride Expressway which is currently undergoing major redevelopment.
