Posts Tagged ‘hall of clestrain’
Explorer John Rae lives! Still going strong at age 202. . .
In Stromness, Orkney, the John Rae Society will unveil a plaque this afternoon (Sept. 30) at the Hall of Clestrain on the occasion of Rae’s 202nd birthday. Born in 1813, yes! the explorer lives on. Awarded by Historic Scotland, the National Commemorative Plaque recognizes Rae for having solved the two great mysteries of 19th-century Arctic…
Read MoreThe Hall of Clestrain will rise again!
Here in Stromness, we filled in some blanks while visiting the Hall of Clestrain, John Rae’s boyhood home. The wealthy Honeyman family, descended from an early bishop of Orkney, built the place in the 1760s. They had just returned from a trip to Italy, where symmetry and balance were all the rage, and applied those…
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