Local spots of historical significance -- what are they now?

[Neonanocyborgasm]

Since taking my exam (and hopefully passing it), I have been bored at home and have nothing to do, so I have been surfing the net and discovered some interesting things.

In keeping with the earlier post about what happened to great ancient cities, I present: What happened to historical locales. In New York, there is history everywhere, of course. However, some places have declined into obscurity.

For example, I discovered that Thomas Paine lived, and eventually died only a couple of blocks from my old apartment in Greenwich Village, at 59 Grove St. The building is now home to a gay piano bar, called Marie's Crisis.

I also discovered that the infamous Tammany Hall was originally located on the corner of 3rd Avenue and 14th St. It is now the Con Edison building.

Are there any local spots in your area that are now shadows of their former selves?

 

[Kafka2]

Many. There were Saxon palaces at nearby Frome and Cheddar, where the Wessex kings rested. A few miles away is Sedgemoor- site of the last true pitched battle on Englished soil. In my favourite local pub, the Duke of Monmouth survived an assassination attempt during the Pitchfork Rebellion.

All quaint and sleepy little backwaters now.

 

[privatehudson]

Where I live on the Wirral* there's whole towns that have lost an enormous amount of really beautiful buildings and parks. They survive now only as memories and in postcards unfortunately with some exceptions like Port Sunlight.

I've been taking an increasing interest in local history recently and especially in comparison photos using those old postcards as a basis to work from and the way the area has changed is often very suprising. At the same time though I'm always glad to see where the scene has remained similar, or where links to the past remained. Near my house is a pub called the Great Eastern, which I thought was just a run of the mill pub. When I was looking through a local history book though I discovered that the actual Great Eastern itself had been anchored in the Mersey near the pub for some years before being scrapped. The owner of the pub bought a stained glass window and wooden bar from the ship which is still there to this day which suprised me to say the least

*The Wirral is by Liverpool in England.

 

[North King]

Plenty of buildings here which were spectacular but died after the copper boom in the area died. Now we're just another tiny town in the middle of nowhere.

 

[SeleucusNicator]

The first sustained nuclear reaction took place across the street from where I currently live. It is currently a tennis court in which we occasionally play soccer. We play it in the winter when they take the tennis nets down. I've never actually played tennis there.

In 2009, the tennis courts will be bulldozed and the spot will become part of a library.

 

[Che Guava]

Halifax is blessed with an abundance of points of interest to canadian history buffs, even my apartment is pretty old by North American standards (built in 1865). Among the more macabre spots to visit is the Deadman's Island: a lonely bit of island outside the harbour that is home to 188 US soldiers (or privateers, depending on who you talk to..!) taken prisoner during the war of 1812, along with some runaway slaves from the South, a few Irish potato famine victims, and even some french and spanish Napoleonic war prisoners. If you're dead and in Nova Scotia, it's the place to be...

 

[Plotinus]

Well, I live half the time in London (which I think is, in its entirety, probably a shadow of its former self, although perhaps it really was always that ghastly), and the other half in Singapore (which is, in its entirety, an incredible advance and improvement on its former self). So there's quite a contrast!

 

[Kafka2]

Where I live on the Wirral*

You're close to the where I believe to be the site of the most important battle on English soil- the battle of Brunnanburh. I suspect that "Brunnanburh" is a archaic form of "Bromborough".

 

[Alphawolf]

Fort Negley(sp?) in Nashville. The Battle of Nashville was the largest single battle of the Civil War (80,000 total). They have start to reconstruct the old Fort, but it even had building on top of it.

-the Wolf

 

[privatehudson]

You're close to the where I believe to be the site of the most important battle on English soil- the battle of Brunnanburh. I suspect that "Brunnanburh" is a archaic form of "Bromborough".

Yes that's right, I live about 4 miles up the road from Bromborough

There was a discussion about the battle and the chances of it being there some months back. I believe they found that the site of part of the current Golf Course matches the battlefield description and some of the early names for the village mirror the battle name. If you had any more info on the battle I'd be very interested to see it Kafka

 

[silver 2039]

Pottery dating back to 4000 BCE and silver coins of Roman emperors, Augustus, Tyberius and Claudius have been excavated in and around present-day Bangalore district, but have not revealed much about its inhabitants.

The inscription stone found near Begur reveals, that the district was part of the Ganga kingdom of Gangavadi until 1004 and was known as 'Benga-val-oru' or City of Guards in Telugu. The Cholas of Tamil Nadu captured the city in 1015 AD and collected taxes through the local chieftans until 1116. The district came under the rule of Hoysala kingdom of Vira Ballala Raya II until the establishment of the Vijayanagara empire in 1336. Kempe Gowda I (1510 - 1570), who migrated from Kancheepuram back to Bangalore due to a personal fued with the chief of Kancheepuram established the city of Bangalore under the Vijayanagar empire. The document describing the city as he conceptualised it, written in Jelugu the commonly spoken language of this region, is still preserved. This language is still spoken in the villages of Bangalore, Yelahanka, Devanhalli, Doddaballapur, Hoskote, Anekal and Hosur districts.

The reign of Bangalore changed hands several times. It was captured by the Maratha chief Shahji Bhonsle working for Adil Shahi the sultans of Bijapur in 1638. It was then conquered by the Mughals in 1686. The Mughals leased it to the Mysore ruler Chikkadevaraya in 1689. Later Haider Ali captured Bangalore in 1759. The British under Lord Cornwallis conquered the place in 1799 after defeating Tipu Sultan and gave it back to the Mysore King.

I believe there is an Asoka pillar somewhere around here. There is the Bangalore Palace the summer retreat of the King of Mysore. Along with sevreal ancient tempals and such. Then there are the British era government buildiings like the Vidhna Soudha I can see from my terrace and such.....

 

[Yellowbelly]

London, UK -
Tyburn tree - the principal scaffold from which convicted criminals werre hanged - is now Marble Arch, a celebratory structure at the North end of Hyde Park.

 

[Hornblower]

Near my house is a pub called the Great Eastern, which I thought was just a run of the mill pub. When I was looking through a local history book though I discovered that the actual Great Eastern itself had been anchored in the Mersey near the pub for some years before being scrapped. The owner of the pub bought a stained glass window and wooden bar from the ship which is still there to this day which suprised me to say the.

For a ship lover like myself that is seriously cool. I had no idea that pieces of the biggest ship of her day still existed!

For a young country like Australia it is very difficult to stumble across historic sites. No battlefields or ancient ruins down the road from me I am afraid.

 

[Leonel]

The Lewis and Clark expedition route is now a series of highways.

 

[bhsup]

Many. There were Saxon palaces at nearby Frome and Cheddar, where the Wessex kings rested. A few miles away is Sedgemoor- site of the last true pitched battle on Englished soil. In my favourite local pub, the Duke of Monmouth survived an assassination attempt during the Pitchfork Rebellion.

All quaint and sleepy little backwaters now.

You know, it's things like this that I really wish we had here. We in America talk about old, forgotten stuff and we're going back a century or two. You all across the pond can go back a millenium or more at the drop of a hat.

 

[Companiero]

Not really much historical significance here, but anyway. The house where Mother Theresa was born is now concrete all over. In downtown Skopje, just in the center, near the main square, only small unnoticable markings outline the grounds of her former home.
Also in a several kilometer radius somewhere, it's beleieved Emperor Justinian I was born.

 

[Bugfatty300]

Nothing here in Wilkesboro except a big oak tree where some loyalist where hanged by patriots during the revolution. But the tree its self was torn down a few years ago so there is nothing there now but a little sappling.

But our county seal, flag, and police cars, even my school yearbooks all have that damn tree on them.

 

[Kyriakos]

There are a few historical sites here (Thessalonike).

---Hellenistic era. Thessalonike was the capital of the kingdom of Macedonia, under Cassander and his epigonoi---

1* the agora and forum

---Roman tetrarchy period (Thessalonike was the regional capital, 1/4 of the roman empire)--

1* The arch of (the tetrarch) Galerius

2* the remains of the palace of Galerius

3*The church of Rotunda, paliochristian 3rd century church of st. George

--- Byzantine era (Thessalonike was the 'symbasileuousa' which means co-reigning, city)

1* The church of Agia Sophia

2* The church of Agios Demetrios

3* later byzantine church of Panagia Chalkeon, or 'the red church'. This is my favourite, because it is deeply below ground level, and it has a garden there

There are tens of other important old churches, but i either cannot find pics of them (the Acheiropoietos for example) or it would be too much to post pics of all of them.

---Ottoman era (the city remained the second most important city of the empire, and its most european one, as it was before, in byzantine times)---

1* The white tower. Also known as 'the tower of blood', because it was used as a prison. It is disputed if it was really built by ottomans, or venetians, but it is highly probable that it was built by ottomans.

---Industrial era---

1* The 'Aristotle's square'. This is the heart of the city, designed by the french architect Embrar, and completed a few years after the great fire of 1917.

 

[Plotinus]

Folkestone, my home town, has a hill overlooking the town called Caesar's Camp, because that's what it was. You can walk over the ditches and things on the top that show where the Roman fort stood. Of course, it's not as spectacular as Dover, which has a Roman lighthouse still standing in the grounds of the castle (incongruously almost touching the church - I don't have a picture to hand, but Pinktilapia used it as the Wonder Splash for the Pharos in Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire!). However, this has the disadvantage of being in Dover... Luckily the castle is pretty good. It was once Henry VIII's major bastion of defence against any attacks by the dastardly continentals.

Along the seafront of this area are many "Martello Towers", which were built in the early nineteenth century to repel Napoleon. They look like sandcastles and originally each one had a big gun on the top. Now most of them have been turned into private houses. There was one for sale a little while ago by Dymchurch!

Still, all the really interesting stuff is up the road at Canterbury, "our" former capital... Not only the seat of the most powerful Saxon king of his day, but the starting point for the Church of England. There are a few Roman ruins there, but the Saxon and Norman things are much more interesting. There have been really big archaeological digs throughout the town centre there for some years now. Last time I went they were excavating a medieval latrine. Rather them than me!

I lived for many years in Oxford, but that's rather a recent town (founded, according to legend, by that arriviste Alfred the Great) compared to Canterbury, with relatively little history... So we look down our noses at that!

 

[Asclepius]

Dordrecht, the town where I live in southern Holland, has quite a varied history. It is generally accepted to be the oldest town in Holland, its original name, Thuredricht, deriving from the the Thuringiers who passed through and settled in this area.

It is the site of the oldest church in the Netherlands (built 1293).

From 1367 the first Dutch coins (the Guilder) were struck here. This continued on the same site until 1806.

The very first Dutch Parliament was held here in 1572 when William of Orange was recognised as the leader of the Dutch in the 80 years war.

Its last claim to fame was during WWII. The city of Dordrecht sits in a very strategic position on an island protecting the southern approach to Rotterdam. In 1940 the advancing Germans air landed troops behind the front line to capture the only bridges (Moerdijk) across the Maas to ensure Dutch resistance crumbled quickly. There was heavy fighting even though only rearguard troops were present in the town. Over 250 Dutch soldiers died trying to defend the town.

Nowadays its a pretty quiet, insignificant town where nothing much at all seems to happen!

German Paratroopers on the Moerdijk bridge: