Picture Puzzle Thread Part 12, or thereabouts...

[FrostyBoy]

No Bermuda is English and its too far out into the Atlantic.

So how about Canary Islands?

[Adam Smith]

Originally posted by molly bloom
And you don't have to be daft to visit....

Scilly Islands off Cornwall. A climatological freak of nature.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Adam Smith
Scilly Islands off Cornwall. A climatological freak of nature.

Spot on.

It's the Isle of Tresco, world famous for its Abbey Gardens and lush tropical/semi-tropical vegetation.

It's not so much a freak of nature, rather blessed with the warming currents of the Gulf Stream.

Winston:

There aren't any hummingbirds outside of the Americas, as far as I know. In the wild, that is..

The creature in the photo is a moth, or 'meurth' as Inspector Clouseau might say.

It has antennae...

The first clues:

1. This place was at war with the Dutch until the 20th Century.

2. The tower is named after a famous military leader, with a blemished face, if not reputation.

3. The island sounds like a trilling supermarket chain.

4. And you don't have to be daft to visit....

The answers:

1. The Scilly Isles (through an oversight) were indeed still at war with the Dutch until 1985:

Whitelocke's 'Memorials' dated 17th April, 1651

"Tromp came to Pendennis and related that he had been to Scilly to demand reparation for the Dutch ships and good taken by them; and receiving no satisfactory answer, he had, according to his Comission, declared war on them."

http://scillynews.severecci.net/?p=11138

2. It's Cromwell's Tower. Oliver Cromwell famously insisted that his portrait be painted thus:

"I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me ... warts and everything."

His military activities in Ireland have since been (somewhat anachronistically) blemished as 'genocidal', although his military campaign was not in fact anything out of the ordinary for the times.

3. TRRResco = Tesco.

4. 'Scilly' sounds like 'silly' = daft.

Clue 5. They have strong links to poetry too, but older than Housman's...

5.They have been suggested as the site of the lost lands of Lyonesse, the Isles of The Blest and much else in Celtic and Mediaeval literature and Greek and Phoenician history and cartography.

And the rest:

6. There was a famous shipwreck in these parts in 1707, involving a man with a name like a rainy spade.

7. These isles have a unique climate.

8. They are linked to an ancient kingdom which is now a duchy- a duke of the duchy was once King of the Germans.

9. There was a church presence here from 550 a.d. onwards.

Answers:

6. Poor Admiral Sir Clowdisley Shovell, shipwrecked in the Scillies:

Returning home from an attack on Toulon in 1707, in his flagship 'Association', he was lost with 800 or 900 men when his ship was wrecked off the Isles of Scilly.

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/mag/pages/mnuExplore/PaintingDetail.cfm?letter=A&ID=BHC3026

Rainy spade, geddit ?

7. The islands do indeed have a unique climate for these parts:

http://www.scillyonline.co.uk/scilly.html

and Tresco in particular:

Tresco Abbey Gardens

The Abbey Gardens are a home to over 20,000 exotic plants from 80 countries across the globe (Brazil, New Zealand Africa).

The unique micro climate at the sheltered southern tip of Tresco, has formed a unique environment with many species of plants thriving here that would not survive on the Cornish mainland, just 30 miles away. Statues and figurines, symbolising the 'natural forces' accentuate the gardens overall beauty, whilst shipwrecked figureheads in the Valhalla Museum remind you of storms and the remoteness of these small islands amidst the large expanse of the Atlantic Ocean.

http://www.cornwall-online.co.uk/islesofscilly/tresco.htm

8. Linked to the ancient kingdom of Kernow, and then the Duchy of Cornwall. Richard, Earl of Cornwall was also 'King of Almaine':

“Henrie, the brother of this Edmund, and son to the foresaid King of Almaine (Richard, brother of Henry III of England), as he returned from Affrike, where he had been with Prince Edward, was slain at Viterbo in Italy by the hand of Guy de Montfort, the son of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, in revenge of the same Simon’s death. The murther was committed afore the high altar, as the same Henrie kneeled there to hear divine service.” A. D. 1272.—Holinshed’s Chron., p. 275.

http://www.bartleby.com/20/112.html

9. The church in the Scillies:

Thomas/1985a, 178: `The placing of the lettering down what would have been an upright pillar, the shape of certain letters and the probability that the final -I of the second name was set sideways are factors combining to favour a date between AD 550 and 600'.

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/cisp/database/stone/trsco_1.html

The Abbey itself dates from around the 950s-960s.

Glad to have provided such a hard nut to crack.

Adam Smith's turn...

Lovely Tresco:

[BlackCat]

Hard nut to crack ???? You gave us feathers to break a coconut

Anyway, a good nut

[Adam Smith]

Next up, name, location, and historical significance of this building.

[Adam Smith]

And a view from the back.

[BlackCat]

That building seriously need a hint - only someone who has been there have a chance.

[FrostyBoy]

I'm just gonna have a wild guess


This is where Isaac Newton studied.

:P

[Adam Smith]

Further hints, as requested:

View of front gate, which contains some important clues.

[duke o' york]

I don't know the name or location, but is this where the (US) Declaration of Independence was signed?

[Adam Smith]

This relief is named for a one-time Poly poster. It reflects the current use of the building, not its historical importance.

Further hints:

The historical event occurred in 1944.

A Stravinsky Concerto is named for the building.

[BlackCat]

Same as before - no clues if you haven't been there. Enlargement of pic doesn't tell anything.

[duke o' york]

Dumbarton Oaks!
(thanks for the Stravinsky clue )

[Adam Smith]

Dumbarton Oaks, in Washington DC, site of the 1944 Washington Conference that organized the UN, and currently owned by Harvard's Department of Byzantine Studies.

Duke, its yours now.

[duke o' york]

Can someone else go instead? Thanks.