Monday, April 25, 2011

La Roche-Jagu, palms and purlins.

I've blogged about the château of la Roche-Jagu , where we went a week or so ago, before.  It's one of those beautifully rebuilt ancient monuments that they wouldn't do in the UK because such reconstruction is archaeologically incorrect.


(This is a postcard-type shot of the kind I said I didn't do in the 2007 post, which has a link to a site with much better ones.)

But I'm glad they did restore it, as it's really quite magnificent, inside and out.  We still like the Crusaders' Garden,




with its palm trees and rills.

But this time I thought to look up, into the delight that was to be found in the structure of palm fronds,


and then saw an echo of this in the inside the building.


(The collages do enlarge a bit if you wish)
~~~

Answers are harder than questions to find...

he says.  Nevertheless, Plutarch's doing virtuoso and thoughtful things with my jingling rhymes, over at Questions at Compasses. Don't hesitate to read!

9 comments:

marja-leena said...

Also, virtuoso collages and similarities, Lucy - just superb!

earlybird said...

Absolutely stunning

Dale said...

Oh my God.

Fire Bird said...

what loveliness. I had fun taking shots in the palm house at Kew a few years back and they are a joy to gaze upon and photograph. The roof timbers and the echoes back and forth are simply awesome. Wow.

zephyr said...

Beautiful, Lucy!

HKatz said...

I love your juxtaposition of the architecture of trees and interiors. In your collage of the building, there's something eerie and magical about the photo in the bottom right corner.

YourFireAnt said...

purlins ?

Lucy said...

Thanks me dears!

The roof space -entirely reconstructed in the last century and completely authentic, adzed timbers held together with wooden pegs, to support heavy rough local slate - at Roche-Jagu is worth the admission alone - for the gardens there is no admission and they are worth the trip alone.

The loft is darkened and spotlit for effect, but Tom opened the shutters of one of the dormer windows, which is what you see in the bottom right corner.

Purlins are the second order of roofing timbers, the horizontals between principals (the largest, vertical supports), and rafters, (the smaller, also vertical supports). It goes: principals - purlins - rafters - battens. We did our roof ourselves so we know these things; I chose purlins for alliterative reasons!

Luxembourg said...

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