In all my moves over the years, I have lived and worked in some rather interesting locations. I have lived in a house that was literally right on the Oregon Trail (we could still see the ruts running from East to West). For many years I was stationed at a base that had the first Marine Recruit Depot on the West Coast, had my office in both the old Marine Brig and the infamous Naval Prison there, and ran a rifle range that dated back to World War I (Mare Island was also the first Navy Base on the west coast). I have served at the site of WWII battles, Indian Wars era Cavalry Posts, and where the US built the first atomic bomb and conducted it's first rocket tests. However, where I am working now and will be working next week is unique in itself. Now very little of San Francisco from before 1906 survives, the Great Fire took care of almost all of the town. But are still a lot of unique sites around, even if the original buildings are gone. Where I work now is the former site of "Fort Gunnybags", the headquarters of the Committee of Vigilance in 1856. I knew of it even before I moved here, and it had a pretty grim reputation. Created to help end the corruption of San Francisco, several corrupt politicians were hanged here. And it got the name because those in the committee built a wall of burlap sandbags to prevent it from being stormed (they even mounted cannons on the roof). However, it burned down in the fire of 1906. Much like the place I am moving to next week. Across the street from the Transamerica Pyramid", it was the destination and headquarters of the Pony Express when it was in operation. However, it also is gone, and I could not even find a photo or drawing of the original building.
Wow! You have a very impressive record of military service. Were you Army? You must be quite elderly. Thank you for your military service.
Well, my service is a bit split up, Marines from 1983-1993, Army from 2007 until today. But I am not all that elderly, I am only 48. And obviously several are not connected directly to the military at all, such as these 2 in San Francisco, which are with my current civilian employment.
Have you had a chance to sneak up to Coloma yet? Just up 80 an then jump onto Hwy 49. Donner pass memorial? Good day trip.
Been there many years ago, not so far recently though. Most time I go through that area I am just passing through on my way to or from Reno.
Howdy I lived on the Little Bighorn Battlefield in a town called Garryowen. That was amazing. I always felt the energy of death and battle that roared in the dead silence of the battlefield. Often at night the Crows would have Peyote Drum circles... incredible. I worked at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. This is where the Grand Ole Opry became big. Great place. Didn't live there. But did live in nashville, historical all in itself. I love history and culture. If you have any jobs or know people, hook me up. I love working in history. cheers
Agency Worker in Construction, Agency sent me to; The Shard 30 St. Mary's Axe a.k.a The Gherkin National Science Museum (UK National) (This was the night shift too so I had a week of Night at the Museum fun). Sky Sports News (at Sky Studios). (One of the big news studios here). (This was night shift too, arrived there for 8 pm, got told to wait until 1 am before I could start work, had to kill time, not many people around, I literally had this place to myself (almost) for an entire night once; the BAFTA's I found in people's unlocked offices I held)... I picked up and played with one of these in someone's office, because I could and was killing time and nobody was around to tell me otherwise. Facebook's London Office (and Instagram too), I helped them move into their new office; the amount of merchandise I grabbed/rescued from the bins of Facebook and Instagram stuff sporting their logo, pens, mouse mats, Facebook breath mints, these little Instagram thingies.... Abbey Road Studios, I worked on their expansion and garden area. These things any Londoner (like me) would think were cool and iconic. And some other things like a football stadium (Craven Cottage/Fulham F.C.) and this big French investment bank next to the LSE (London Stock Exchange). Also, I had a weekend job in a tourist trap promoting the night life in Soho (London's Soho). I became a part of the woodwork/scene there 2014 - 2016 promoting private bars and then nightclubs. This was okay, this was a spiritual home for me I guess in my love of rock guitar and music, this job was one of the funnest jobs I ever had though, they basically paid me to party/have a good time and I had a lot of fun doing this.
My house was in the newspaper once because of some unexploded bomb from WWII was found in the garden in the 1960's (before my family had anything to do with the place, the lady who sold my great grandfather the house lived as a tenant here before she died and we took over/the rent stopped and my grandmother moved in in the 1970's, it was the lady who lived here before's family who found the it, bomb disposal people came round and dug it up and took it and the reporters came, I've not seen the article, just heard about it from my family). Where the bomb was found and dug out, is where I have my bonfires, so that's handy and a cool feature I love about the place; I get to have a nice outside fire when I want and it's a great way to get rid of garden waste and other wooden objects. Had one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's houses on my paper route when I was a kid; we put plaques on houses of notable people here and I had that plaque on my paper route.
I did work for a while at the Montreal city hall, which is in Old Montreal. If you go down into the cellar you can still see the old colonial prison cells.
Having lived in Virginia most of my life I've lived in and on several historic buildings and locations. As a child I grew up near Manassas and sometimes when we want out into the woods we used to pick up Minié balls along the old stone fortifications that Union troops had built along Little Difficult Run. I was told that the defenses were set up to repel Confederate General John Mosby's raids in the area. When I got older and moved to Richmond I lived in an old house that reportedly served as a makeshift hospital around the time of the Peninsula Campaign and Seven Days Battles. After that we moved to a house east of Richmond that literally sat on the site of the Battle of White Oak Swamp. From the lithographs I've looked at our home was located where Stonewall Jackson's artillery was parked during the engagement. Today we live on an old homestead that was once part of a plantation that was established in the mid-18th Century. We've heard some wild stories about what occurred around here back in the day and probably the most interesting one involved the murder of the plantation owner after the Civil War. Evidently, he was harsh if not cruel to his slaves and at some point one of them poisoned his former master's well resulting in his death. To this day no one knows who was responsible for killing him. This story makes me wonder how many other plantation owners and managers met a similar fate. I suspect the number might surprise us.
Our city is very historic, many wooden houses date back to the turn of the Century, some of downtown... the courthouse The "hanging tree" some race baiting politician wants cut down over rumors even though the historical society has ample evidence, no such events ever occurred there.
Worked in many in various countries over the years, as a contractor setting up commo stuff and linking to the early GPS projects, all of which became obsolete almost before I finished my last contract in that field. I was most impressed by the Indian Hindu temples, and some of the elaborate and very well done wall carvings around them that must have taken centuries. Buddhist temples get pretty boring and repetitive after a while, not bad but nearly as impressive in general an the older Hindu ones. Less impressive, but still pretty grand, are the old abstract mosaics popular with Islamic temples, on floors, walls, and windows. in Turkey and Egypt, and Iran before the 'Revolution'. If I ever win a big lottery on my two quick picks a month budget, I'm going to hire Muslim artists who do that work to do my floors and ceilings. I like 'modern' art anyway, and their abstracts will go great with my prints.
So many. Suckling Hall in Norwich, a 16th century merchants hall now a cinema. The kitchen had a crypted roof and the main dinning hall/bar had a minstrel gallery. Louis Marchesi pub Norwich. Late 15th century Inn. St Peters Hall restaurant and bar. Dating from 1280, former half moated manor house. Duxford Imperial War Museum Herts where I had the pleasure of walking past their Blackbird every day. This was when working on a documentary film about Hiroshima where they were filming in the cockpit of a B29 Super Fortress. We also went to some other historic locations on this job including Lincoln castle and HMS Belfast moored opposite the houses of Parliament. Also as part of my location catering I worked at Pinewood studios where we were working on the frozen lake battle scene from King Arthur (the Kiera Knightley one). Not only are Pinewood and the huge water tank first built over 70 years ago for Cruel Seas historical in themselves but the main building has a wonderful door taken from a fireplace in a 16th century hall in Derbyshire. I currently work in a 16th century pub, well I did until the latest lockdown.
Fyrkat ring fortress (or remains thereof). It was one of several Viking Age ring forts constructed by king Harald Bluetooth, the first (according to himself) who united Denmark, and "made the Danes Christian" (according to his runestone at Jelling, anyway, yet it's precisely at Fyrkat our museum found the grave of a "vølve", or Norse pagan seeress, so the Christianization claim was probably more political than real, at that time). The forts were part military outposts, part taxation and administration centers. I can see the bottom of the earthworks from my window at the in here: Currently work in this close-by building that is part of a large, multiple-sites museum in North Jutland (in Denmark) and which works as both the local administration for that region and has a small store and ticket sale. The building I work in itself is an old watermill, its foundation dating back to the 15th century (current buildings are mostly of newer make, though, 18th and 19th century). Both the watermill and the ring fort is managed by the museum. I do registration work on (modern history) artifacts, and some archival work. And hi Monte, St. Peter's Hall looks like a grand place.
Good to see you Bjorn. St Peter's hall is a great building. Like most really old places it spans many centuries in construction. It started out as a fairly humble farmhouse but evolved into a rather grand fortified Manor house. Some of the stonework came from the nearby Flixton Priory. Several local monastic buildings were dissolved by Cardinal Wolsey in the 1520s and he used the funds acquired to endow Christchurch College at Oxford university. It's said that this was the inspiration for Henry VIII's wholesale dissolution of the monasteries in the late 1530s and the reformation in 1540. My favourite bit was the narrow winding oak staircase going from the current kitchen to the floors above. Halfway up it forks into two and you have to turn sideways to get past the fork. The main hall has a 16th century tapestry hanging on the wall. The moat may have been dug to protect the house from your lot.
That's interesting, I always thought that castles and the bureaucracy which came with them were developed by the Norsemen after they settled in Normandy but it makes sense that there was a previous tradition of building forts and taxing the population.
The ring forts are speculated to have been inspired by the same Frankish seaside forts built in the wake of repeated Viking raids. The Normans settled Normandy before the building of those forts. Dendrochronology puts their creation in the 980's, Rollo settled in Normandy in 911 and died in 930. It's quite possible that the continual contacts between Normans and Danes could have led to the adoption of widespread castle-building. Despite the work that must have been required to build them during Harald Bluetooth's regin, the forts were abandoned already during the reign of his son, Sven Forkbeard.
When you think about it the first significant forts or castles on the British Isles would have been built by the Romans. Bamburgh castle in Northumberland was built on the site of a Celtic fort from 420AD known as Din Guarie (destroyed by Vikings in 993 and replaced by the Normans in the 11th century). There were also Bronze age hill forts and even Neolithic examples of hill forts but they were more like defensive enclosures rather than true forts or castles. All would have required some form of bureaucracy and taxation of labour and resources to get built. Maiden castle hillfort in Dorset goes back to around 600BC and is the largest in Europe.
