Religious sites in United Kingdom
St. Clement Parish Church
The Parish Church of St Clement"s origins lie with a privately owned wooded chapel which is thought to have been destroyed during the Norman raids. Construction of the stone church began around the year 911, starting with a chapel which is now the nave. The church became a parish church no later than 1067, because it is known that Duke William II of Normandy granted half the tithes of the church to the Abbey of Monti ...Struell Wells
Of all the wells throughout Ireland dedicated to Saint Patrick, the Struell wells must be the most famous. It is said that Saint Patrick travelled throughout Ireland using wells to baptize his new converts and in some cases to demonstrate the power of God with healing acts or with expressions of powerful piety and dedication. At Struell wells, there is a story of how Patrick used to bathe under a fountain of flowing water ...Torteval Church
The original Church of St Philippe fell into a state of disrepair and was demolished when the current Church replaced it in 1816. The States of Guernsey funded the construction as the parishoners had been unable to maintain its upkeep. It features an unusual round tower with the tallest spire in the island. It contains the oldest bell in the Channel Islands, cast in France in 1432. Thankfully it survived both the Reformat ...St. Moluag's Church
St Moluag"s church (Teampall Mholuaidh in Scottish Gaelic) was built in the 13th century. The church has a basic T shaped structure, with two small chapels on either side of the main body of the church. The southern chapel can only be accessed from outside. There is a lot of speculation about the ancient origins of this place of worship; one tradition tells that St. Ronan founded the church, before retiring to the Is ...Maghera Church and Round Tower
It is believed that Saint Domangard or Donard founded a monastery in Maghera in the early christian period, c. 500 AD. He lived as a hermit on Slieve Donard, a nearby mountain that is named after him. There are no antiquities remaining from the early foundation but excavations in 1965 produced evidence of occupation around the tower during the Early Christian period. The medieval church situated behind the more modern c ...Inchkenneth Chapel Ruins
Inchkenneth, ‘Kenneth’s Island’, is dedicated to Kenneth of Aghaboe, a contemporary of St Columba. However, no evidence survives for an early Christian monastery on the island. The present ruin is a rectangular chapel dating from the 1200s. In form it is like many medieval churches in the Highlands – small, sparsely lit and simply arranged. The entrance was through a door at the west end of the no ...St. Andrew's Church
The church of St André de la Pommeraye (St Andrews of the Apple Orchard) is one of the smallest in Guernsey and originally consisted of a nave and chancel only. There is little doubt that the walls of these date from the 12th century but, French slate now replaces the early wooden roof and the stone vaulting was added in the early part of the 13th century. The north aisle and tower are 15th century additions, whic ...Eilean Mor
Eilean Mor, ‘the big isle’ at the south end of Loch Sween, has three ancient monuments – a cave, a chapel and a cross. Together, they tell the story of Christianity in this corner of Scotland. The cave is known as St Cormac’s Cave, after the Irish saint Cormaig, legendary founder of nearby Keills Chapel, who is reputed to have used the cave as his hermitage, or retreat. It is now entered through a fissure in the ...Loughinisland Churches
The Loughinisland Churches are the remains of three ruined churches, dating from the 13th to the 17th centuries. They are situated in Tievenadarragh townland, in a large graveyard on an island in Loughinisland Lake, now reached by a causeway. The earliest recorded reference is to a parish church on the site in 1306. The Middle Church is the oldest, probably from the 13th century. The large North Church was built in t ...Eynhallow Church Ruins
Eynhallow Church is probably the ruin of a 12th-century Benedicitne monastery. Because of the name of the isle it is likely that Eynhallow was an important religious centre. Eyin-Helha is Old Norse for Holy Isle. Eynhallow Church was deserted before the reformation (circa 1560). The church was converted into dwellings in the 16th century. In 1851 the inhabitants of Eynhallow were transferred elsewhere and the church and ...Dunnet Church
Dunnet Parish Church was mentioned first time in the 13th century, and there are pre-16th century gravestones in the churchyard. It undoubtedly has pre-reformation origins, and the cartographer Timothy Pont was a notable minister here in 1610.Arbuthnott Church
Arbuthnott church is one of the oldest in Scotland dating back to the pre-reformation days. Consecrated in 1242 the church was dedicated to the memory of St Ternan. The oldest part of the building is the chancel, with the rest of the building added around 1500. After the reformation the first minister was a member of the Arbuthnott family, who later went on to become a moderator of the Church of Scotland.Ardtole Church Ruins
Ardtole was formerly the Parish Church of Ardglass and is dedicated to St Nicholas, the patron saint of sailors. The structure is of a characteristic Anglo-Irish parish church of the Middle Ages. The long narrow church seems largely of 15th century date, with a huge east window and opposed north and south doors, one with a draw-bar hole. In 1791 a cross-decorated slab of the Early Christian period was found, showing ...Featured Historic Landmarks, Sites & Buildings
Historic Site of the week
Kromeriz Castle and Gardens
Kroměříž stands on the site of an earlier ford across the River Morava. The gardens and castle of Kroměříž are an exceptionally complete and well-preserved example of a European Baroque princely residence and its gardens and described as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The first residence on the site was founded by bishop Stanislas Thurzo in 1497. The building was in a Late Gothic style, with a modicum of Renaissance detail. During the Thirty Years' War, the castle was sacked by the Swedish army (1643).
It was not until 1664 that a bishop from the powerful Liechtenstein family charged architect Filiberto Lucchese with renovating the palace in a Baroque style. The chief monument of Lucchese's work in Kroměříž is the Pleasure Garden in front of the castle. Upon Lucchese's death in 1666, Giovanni Pietro Tencalla completed his work on the formal garden and had the palace rebuilt in a style reminiscent of the Turinese school to which he belonged.
After the castle was gutted by a major fire in March 1752, Bishop Hamilton commissioned two leading imperial artists, Franz Anton Maulbertsch and Josef Stern, arrived at the residence in order to decorate the halls of the palace with their works. In addition to their paintings, the palace still houses an art collection, generally considered the second finest in the country, which includes Titian's last mythological painting, The Flaying of Marsyas. The largest part of the collection was acquired by Bishop Karel in Cologne in 1673. The palace also contains an outstanding musical archive and a library of 33,000 volumes.
UNESCO lists the palace and garden among the World Heritage Sites. As the nomination dossier explains, 'the castle is a good but not outstanding example of a type of aristocratic or princely residence that has survived widely in Europe. The Pleasure Garden, by contrast, is a very rare and largely intact example of a Baroque garden'. Apart from the formal parterres there is also a less formal nineteenth-century English garden, which sustained damage during floods in 1997.
Interiors of the palace were extensively used by Miloš Forman as a stand-in for Vienna's Hofburg Imperial Palace during filming of Amadeus (1984), based on the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who actually never visited Kroměříž. The main audience chamber was also used in the film Immortal Beloved (1994), in the piano concerto scene.