What kind of building is this and where??

[apanderson]

My tuppence worth!

When I looked at the picture, it reminded me of somewhere I had been  . . . . but where?

I read and re-read everyone's posts and a lot of them made perfect sense but it still gave me that feeling of deja-va. I rummaged through dozens of photos and leaflets to try and figure out where a place like this might have been . . . and then it struck me.

Last summer we visitied Glamis Castle, which although basically just up the road, it always seemed never to get to the top of our list to visit.

Anyway, the Chapel there. I think, is very similar. Obviously architecurally it's not identical (Glamis Chapel is said to be Jacobean) but the lay out is practically identical and has the same sort of divider. although not nearly as ornate, sectioning off the atlar.

My feelings are that possibly, this place, no longer being used as a chapel was turned into a kind of early bed-sit for the offspring of some landed gentry - getting them used to 'roughing-it' with a few bits and pieces flung in from mummy and daddy's collection of curiosities.

The following link is to the home page of St. Andrew's University Library, Photographic Archive

http://special.st-andrews.ac.uk/saspecial/index.php

Once there, type in chapel, glamis and there are photographs of both the crypt (which is similar in style to goodness knows how many other crypts) and the chapel

Anne

[atom12]

Yes, Glamis is a fascinating castle to visit.

I have visited Glamis Castle a number of times.  The Chapel's flat ceiling is panelled, each panel consisting of a painted biblical scene.  The walls are similarly decorated.

Worthy of note is that the barrel-vaulted crypt with its secret room, is neither in the cellar area or the attic.   If you look up at the building from the outside, you can see where the secret room window has been 'bricked-up'.

[Gadget]

I think that this could run and run. It was quite commonplace for glass plates to be combined - instances of breaking bits and amalgamating, etc. Landscape photographers often used a plate for the sky and one for the land because of exposure problems.

Spritualism and the occult was highly popular and there are many photos of attempts to 'snap' ectoplasm and ghosts, here and in USA.

As Fred said a few pages back, there is a mass of information about all this on the web.

In this particular photgraph there are two areas that don't ring true at all: the area around the 'headless body' and the left hand side - front to rails.

Many early messages on this thread were concerned with the 'ghostly apparition' and later, the animal in the glass case and the area in front of it, with it's misty 'ectoplasm-like' smudges, drew comment.

I think that this photo was an atempt to suggest a haunted room and given that it was later owned by two sisters who were in to all things supernatural, is it not likely that they might have acquired such an example.

Locating the place that this photo was taken at/in will, hopefully,  be helped by the name of the photographer. Another possibility would be to find out who the important spiritualist groups were and where they lived.

Gadget

[Paul E]

I'm still confused about the 'two' versions of the negative that were scanned in by martian... they are both clearly pinned to a board, by pins that look identical, and in the same position.

So, we're looking at a scan of a photo of a print, are we?

(I'm easily confused, as I have to keep a large part of my brain free'd up for '44,444th Rootschater' calculations!)

[Isabel H]

 To my mind there is something odd about the perspective at the side where the bed and spooky figure are. The alignment of the bed in relation to the wall seems wrong. And could the figure be someone who moved while the exposure was being made? That might account for the blurry mass behind the right hand railing.

[Jean McGurn]

What a fascinating thread.  After reading through everyones ideas my first thought is that the room used to be either a church or chapel that fell into dis-use and has been turned into private accomodation. (I know people who bought a defunct church and now live in it.)

So maybe the next question is where can one find  churches in West Sussex that fell into dis-use? The only one that I know of is Buncton church near Wiston/Washington.  


As for all the clutter, perhaps the two sisters needed to keep their worldly goods on display?

Jean

[Gadget]

Hi Jean

Kirsty and Hadyn have said that the photograph was taken before the sister's were born (1890s) and they later acquired it. They seem to have travelled about a bit as well (France, Scotland and London have all been mentioned), so it's not likely that it's either their room and could well be outside of Sussex 


Gadget

[Lydart]

This thread has been going for only 3 days, and already we are on reply 205 !   Will it continue onto another new thread when we get to page 20, and will we get there before Easter ?  Bets, anyone ?  But at least the interest in this is giving the record offices and Ancestry a breather ! 

[martianuk]

The women's 'spiritualist' days were mostly spent in London - they retired in Worthing, but kept it up there too. Apparently, the older sister, Lilian Frances was well respected for her palmistry. I remember placards dotted around the walls of Worthing Assembly Hall (the Town Hall's stage)   - maybe 3' high boards - with her name and 'palmist' on them in huge, bold, black letters, back in the 1970's (my childhood). There wasn't another board in the room with anyone else's name and they stayed there for years - even after her death.

Lilian was an animal rights activist too and lobbied against Winston Churchill regarding tests on animals. Her address in London was Whitehall - she's in that Ancestry.com phone book collection and on the 1901 census incorrectly transcribed as "Schirton"

Kirsty