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World and Press January 1 2023

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6 Britain

6 Britain January 1 2023 | World and Press English Heritage to host ghost story tours at five monasteries HISTORY Tours at sites in north of England aim to be academically rigorous and shed light on the ruins’ deeper histories. mit Audiodatei und By Mark Brown 1 “IT ISautumnal, isn’t it; you can feel the death and decay,” said the clearly delighted historian Michael Carter as he prepared to embark on a new venture at some of England’s most spectacular and atmospheric ruins. 2 English Heritage will this weekend begin a new series of ghost story tours at five of its northern monasteries. A collaboration between Carter, a senior historian at English Heritage, and Dale Townshend, professor of gothic literature at Manchester Metropolitan University, the tours will use ghost stories to shine light on places that have deeper, more fascinating histories than visitors sometimes realise. 3 It is a joke, but it is also true, said Carter, that “it is about using the dead to keep medieval monasteries alive”. The stories include accounts of saintly visions, the walking dead, divine retribution, and demonic visitations. Carter said they were steering clear of the “ethereal grey lady” or “headless horsemen” stories that many heritage sites have in their arsenal; stories that were “modern fabulations”, he said. 4 Instead, they were using historical sources “to get to the heart of the purpose of the monasteries”. He hopes it will be academically rigorous but entertaining and bring in new audiences who may soon find themselves sharing Carter’s abundant passion for medieval monasteries. The tours will be at the Rievaulx Abbey in North Yorkshire – the first Cistercian abbey in the north of England – Furness Abbey in Barrow, Roche Abbey in South Yorkshire, Lanercost Priory in North Cumbria, and Byland Abbey in the Übungsmaterial North Yorkshire’s Rievaulx Abbey, seen in 2020. |Photo: Getty Images North York Moors – once one of the greatest abbeys in England. 5 Byland is the place where a monk wrote one of the most important collections of ghost stories to survive from medieval Europe. They were collected and published in their original Latin by the horror writer MR James in 1922. They are generally stories of what awful things happen if you die without confessing sins or righting a wrong and are often about “affirming the role of the monasteries”, said Carter. … 6 Carter said that in the Middle Ages “the monasteries were considered to be a glimpse of heaven here on earth. Passing through the gatehouse, you entered what would have been considered the heavenly Jerusalem. Life as a monk is thought to provide the opportunity to live the angelic life here on earth.” 7 Today, the monasteries are ruins because of Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, which will also be explored in the tours. Carter said there were still many things to be learned about the period, particularly around the dissolution. 8 There has been a wealth of new historical and fictional work but, said Carter: “It still isn’t fully explained why somewhere like Rievaulx Abbey can go from, in 1535, receiving requests from people for the singing of masses for the souls to being a pile of ruins a few years later. I don’t have a full explanation for it although people have put forward various theses. Monasteries have always been criticised from the time of St Benedict onwards, and there was nothing about monastic life in the 1530s that was any worse than at any other point in the Middle Ages. In some cases, their observances had been better then than they ever had been.” © 2022 Guardian News and Media Ltd Galleries and libraries to act as ‘warm banks’ for the struggling COST OF LIVING By Debbie White and Tom Whipple 1 PEOPLEstruggling to heat their homes amid rising energy prices will be able to gather at art galleries, community centres, and libraries earmarked as communal “warm banks” in council-led initiatives around the country. Birmingham, Bristol, Dundee, Glasgow, and Aberdeen councils are among those investigating using public spaces as refuges for people unable to afford to heat their homes, in the same way that food banks are available for those who cannot afford essentials. The response came amid fears that household energy bills, expected to rise by 80 per cent to an average of £3,549 in October, could make it too expensive for millions to heat their homes. 2 Birmingham was the latest council to announce a scheme to combat this, using public buildings. Residents would be able to access their nearest “warm bank” by searching a “heat bank map”. Council officers are looking at local community centres, places of worship, or libraries to include, said John Cotton, a council cabinet member for social justice, community safety, and equalities. The Labour councillor posted on Twitter that “households are on the brink and the Tory government is missing in action”. He added that the Birmingham Labour group “will not stand idly by when so many Brummies will struggle to keep warm this winter”. … 3 Ofgem, the energy regulator, told the government that it must act urgently to “match the scale of the crisis we have before us” when it raised the energy price cap by 80 per cent last week. The rise will affect about 24 million households in England, Scotland, and Wales when it takes effect on October 1. It will stay in place until December 31, when it will be adjusted again. The latest estimates predict that average bills could surge again to about £5,400 in January and £7,000 in April. 4 A poll published yesterday found that almost one in four adults, 23 per cent, plan to keep their heating turned off this winter. The Savanta ComRes survey of 2,000 adults, which was carried out before the price cap rise was announced, found that among parents with children under 18, the figure was even higher, at 27 per cent. © The Times, London/ News Licensing This article originally appeared in The Times, London. | Photo: Getty Images/ RealPeopleGroup 0 – 1 ENGLISH HERITAGEengl. Denkmalschutzorganisation — monastery; s.w.u. priory; abbey Kloster — academically rigorous wissenschaftl. fundiert — to shed/shine light on (fig) beleuchten — autumnal herbstlich — decay Verfall — historian Historiker(in) — to embark on beginnen — venture Projekt 2 – 3 collaboration gemeinsames Projekt — gothic Schauer- — medieval mittelalterlich — saintly visions Visionen von Heiligen — walking dead Untote — divine retribution Gottesstrafe — demonic visitation Heimsuchung von Dämonen — to steer clear of (fig) e-n Bogen machen um — ethereal geisterhaft — grey lady häufige Gestalt in Geistergeschichten — headless horseman Kopfloser Reiter — fabulation Erfindung 4 – 5 to get to the heart of s.th. (fig) zum Kern e-r S. vordringen — abundant ausgeprägt — Cistercian Zisterzienser- — monk Mönch — sin Sünde — to right a wrong (fig) ein Unrecht wiedergutmachen — to affirm bekräftigen 6 – 8 Middle Ages Mittelalter — glimpse flüchtiger Blick — the angelic life das Leben der Engel — dissolution Auflösung — a wealth of e-e Fülle an — mass Messe — to put forward a thesis e-e Theorie aufstellen — monastic life Klosterleben — observance Einhalten der Ordensregeln 0 – 1 WARM BANK Wärmestube — the struggling Menschen in Not — amid angesichts — to earmark vormerken — council-led … … der Stadt- und Gemeinderäte — refuge Zufluchtsort — food bank Tafel — essentials Lebensnotwendiges 2 to combat bekämpfen — place of worship Gotteshaus — council cabinet member Mitglied der Lokalregierung — equalities Gleichstellung — councillor Stadt- oder Gemeinderat(-rätin) — to be on the brink am Rande des Abgrunds stehen — to be missing in action h.: ihrer Verantwortung nicht nachkommen — to stand idly by tatenlos zusehen — Brummie (BE, coll) Einwohner(in) Birminghams 3 – 4 regulator Aufsichtsbehörde — price cap Preisdeckel — to surge steil ansteigen — poll Umfrage

World and Press | January 1 2023 Britain 7 The town that Charles built MONARCHY Before King Charles III inherited Britain’s throne, he was a prince with strong views on architecture. By Alex Marshall 1 ON QUEENMother Square in Poundbury, a quaint town in southern England, sits a huge neo-Classical apartment block, painted bright yellow and decorated with Romanesque columns. A short walk away are several rows of mock-Georgian houses, some with fake clock towers; several red brick “Victorian” warehouses, built a few years ago; and a pink home that resembles a castle, with a modern conservatory attached. 2 Poundbury is relatively new – construction on it began in the 1990s and is not scheduled to finish for several years – but it is built in a range of architectural styles that had their heyday at least 100 years ago. There are no concrete buildings, as are found in many British city centers, or glass towers with floor-to-ceiling windows. The town of about 4,600 people has been widely mocked as a prince’s plaything and architectural theme park. Yet for one very important man – King Charles III, Britain’s new monarch – Poundbury is what British towns should look like. 3 For nearly four decades, Charles has sought to influence the shape of Britain’s urban landscape, using speeches and books to attack modern architecture and highlight alternatives based on classical forms. He has used his wealth and land, too. Before becoming king, Charles was in charge of the Duchy of Cornwall, whose estates make up more than 200 square miles of England and Wales. Since 1987, he has developed several model towns on its land, including Poundbury, to show how his preferences can work in practice. 4 Now Charles, as king, is constrained by tradition from speaking out, and he will have to keep his opinions to himself. This Queen Mother Square in Poundbury, a small town in Dorset, southern England. | Photos: Francesca Jones/The New York Times A street in Poundbury. month, in his first speech as monarch, Charles pledged to follow the example of public restraint set by his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, adding that he would not be able to devote “time and energies to the charities and issues for which I care so deeply.” If Charles might have once hoped to transform British architecture so that it looked more like Poundbury’s, he will now have to sit back and watch silently. In that case, Poundbury could end up as the king’s most significant architectural legacy. 5 The town is governed by some rules that seem to come straight from feudal times. Nobody is allowed to paint their home a new color “without the consent of His Royal Highness,” for example. A playground in Poundbury. Other regulations are more modern: Residents aren’t allowed a TV antenna or satellite dish, and they need royal permission to park a motor home outside their properties. This year, a Poundbury resident was ordered to remove almost 100 potted plants from outside her home. 6 Charles set out his architectural philosophy in 1987 in a book called ‘A Vision of Britain.’ In it, he wrote that the country’s architecture should focus on historical and regional styles, and resist the “creeping cancer” of modernism that was making “everywhere – from Riyadh to Rangoon” look similar. He also set forth ten architectural principles, including that buildings should not dominate the landscape, that they should be built with local materials to lessen environmental impact, and that they should feature enclosures and courtyards to foster a sense of community. 7 Poundbury, planned by architect Léon Krier, incorporated those principles as well as several more of Charles’s ideas, including that public housing should be integrated with, and indistinguishable from, private homes and that towns should be walkable. 8 Quinlan Terry, a British architect who designed many of the buildings in Queen Mother Square, said that Poundbury was a success story: It showed that classical buildings were “easier on the eye” and preferable to brutal, modern architecture. Developers across Britain were now copying its approach, Terry added, with members of the public asking, “Why can’t I live in something like that?” 9 Yet other British architects say Poundbury is far from perfect. Ian Ritchie, an architect who has criticized what he called Charles’s attempts to “scupper modern architecture,” said that Poundbury was more “a visual statement” and a “romantic notion of what architecture should be” than a deep engagement with questions about how people should live. “There’s nothing remarkable about it, apart from it was done by the Prince of Wales,” Ritchie said. 10 David Chipperfield, a highprofile architect who Charles once praised for his renovation of Berlin’s 19th-century Neues Museum, said that he supported many of the ideas that informed Poundbury’s design, including the notion that buildings should have a low environmental impact. The problem, he said, was that many developers who were inspired by Poundbury ignored those wider ideas and focused simply on its mix of historical styles. “Now we have developments all over England which are little traditional buildings,” Chipperfield said, “but with no notion of public space, no idea of community, or the environment.” 11 Charles, who studied history at university, said in a 2009 speech that his interest in architecture had emerged as a teenager when he “became profoundly aware of the brutal destruction that was being wrought” on Britain’s towns and cities by modernist developers with their concrete designs. 12 Yet most of the British public were unaware of this passion until 1984, when he gave a speech at an event for the Royal Institute of British Architects. “For far too long, planners and architects have consistently ignored the feelings and wishes of the mass of ordinary people in this country,” he said. Architects were designing homes for critics, not tenants, Charles added, and they were filling London’s skyline with one “giant glass stump” after another. … © 2022 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times. 0 – 1 TO INHERITerben — quaint malerisch — neo-Classical neoklassizistisch — Romanesque romanisch — mock-… pseudo-… — Georgian georgianisch — red brick Backstein- — warehouse Lagerhaus — to resemble ähneln — conservatory Wintergarten 2 – 3 architectural architektonisch — heyday Blütezeit — floor-to-ceiling window raumhohes Fenster — to mock verspotten — plaything h.: Spielplatz — to seek to do versuchen zu tun — duchy Herzogtum — 200 square miles ca. 518 km 2 — to develop errichten (lassen); s.w.u. developer Bauunternehmen; development Siedlung 4 – 5 to be constrained from doing daran gehindert sein zu tun — to speak out seine Meinung äußern — to pledge to do versprechen zu tun — restraint Zurückhaltung — to transform umgestalten — to sit back (fig) s. zurückhalten — legacy Erbe — consent Zustimmung — His Royal Highness Seine Königliche Hoheit — satellite dish Satellitenantenne — motor home Wohnmobil — potted plant Topfpflanze 6 to set out; s.w.u. to set forth darlegen — creeping schleichend — modernism Moderne; s.w.u. modernist modern — principle Grundsatz — environmental impact Umweltauswirkung(en) — enclosure Einfriedung — courtyard Hof — to foster fördern 7 – 9 to incorporate einfließen lassen — public housing Sozialwohnungen — indistinguishable nicht zu unterscheiden — walkable zu Fuß zu erlaufen — to be easy on the eye (fig) schön anzusehen sein — to be preferable to s.th. etw. vorzuziehen sein — far from bei Weitem nicht — to scupper (coll) zerstören — notion Vorstellung; Auffassung — engagement Auseinandersetzung — remarkable bemerkenswert 10 – 12 high-profile bekannt — to inform s.th. etw. zugrunde liegen — profoundly zutiefst — wrought angerichtet — consistently durchgehend — tenant Mieter(in) — stump Stumpf

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