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The thread about Esta Henry; the life and times of the Queen of the High Street
On this day (January 15th) in 1963, a small silver airliner with 45 people on board took off from Sao Paulo in Brazil en route for Rio de Janeiro. Moments later it plunged into the ground in the city’s suburbs, taking with it 13 lives. The last victim to be identified was that of Esta Henry, a renowned and somewhat eccentric Edinburgh antiques dealer; her husband Paul was at her side and perished too. Thus ended the final chapter in the colourful life of the lady the papers called the Queen of the High Street. Her surprising story now follows.
Serviços Aéreos Cruzeiro do Sul Convair 340 aircraft, registration PP-CDW, the plane that crashed in January 1963. CC-by Smithsonian InstitutionShe was born Esther Louis on July 3rd 1882 in Sunderland, County Durham, to Louie Louis and his wife Eveline (née Jackson). Her parents were Jewish, her father a 1st generation Prussian immigrant and her mother 2nd generation to Dutch and German parents. Like many Jews in Britain at this time, to integrate and protect themselves somewhat from anti-Semitism, they altered their names; Louie and Evelina were thus better known as John and Eva. He worked variously as a cobbler, a clothier and an auctioneer and the family moved frequently with his work between Sunderland and Scotland. The family moved to 2 Jane Street in Leith in 1884 where Louie opened an auction room in the Kirkgate. Alas tragedy was to strike the following year. When Esta was just 2 her father died from fever and pneumonia leaving his wife with 7 hungry mouths to feed and another on the way.
Esta’s immediate family tree.Evelina and her entourage of children gravitated back to Wearside where she remarried in 1889 to Charles Goldman, a pawnbroker. Four half-siblings to Esta would follow and at the time of the 1891 census the enlarged family stayed in a small but prim end-terraced house at 4 Sorley Street in Sunderland. In her own telling of her story at this age the 9 year old Esta ran off to variously Edinburgh or Leith and sold door-to-door by barrow or bicycle to eke out a living, but we should take this with a very large pinch of salt as the records contradict the story and she made a habit of tweaking and embellishing tales of her life to suit circumstances. In 1901 they were at 12 Rutland Street in Sunderland, living above the family pawnbrokers. The 18 year old Esta was described as a General Dealer in the census; she was running a corner shop.
Rutland Street, Sunderland, 1929. Number 12, the Goldman shop and house is at the end of the row with the canopy, if you look very closes the pawnbroker’s sign is in the Goldman name. via Sunderland Antiquarian SocietyBut Esta did not stay put for much longer, by the next year we find her living at 156 Canongate in Edinburgh. Shortly thereafter she married a 25 year old jeweller, Jack H. Henry of 30 Milton Street. But like her Father, Esta’s new husband was using an alias; he was actually born Joseph Henry Abrovich in Łódź, Poland. It suited him to keep details of his past deliberately obscure; he spent his life giving different dates (between 1869-79) and places of birth in official documents and was most frequently recorded as John but sometimes also Jacob. But he married Esta as Jack. His mysteriousness was necessary as he was leading a double life; he was actually a talented concert violinist, a member of the touring orchestra of Polish piano impresario Ignacy Paderewski (who would rise to become Prime Minister of his country). Jack had skipped town in Dublin when on tour in the 1890s in order to avoid returning home to compulsory military service for the Russian Empire. It was also a difficult time for the Polish Jews in general as they faced the Russian Pogroms and waves were emigrating west. Thus he ended up in Scotland; possibly via Glasgow where there were already Abrovichs resident.
“Jack H. Henry.” Juliette Bird, via AncestryEsta and Jack settled at the tenement at 170 Canongate and soon opened a jewellery shop below at number 168. They moved into the back of the shop and began to raise a family together. Louis (Lou) was born in 1903, Philip (Philly) in 1904, Herbert (Bertie) in 1906 and Rosa (Rose) in 1908. While the Canongate was a down at heel neighbourhood at the time, one with much slum housing and a largely itinerant population that included many of the city’s poor and immigrants, they were doing well for themselves and advertised for a servant – “apply Mrs Henry” – in the newspapers.
Canongate in the late 19th century. On the left is the tower and clock of the Tolbooth, on the right the distinctive obelisk-topped gate piers of Moray House. The Henry shop and home is the lighter coloured tenement on the right hand side of the street. Beyond is the projecting gable of Huntly House; it is a neighbourhood steeped in Scottish history. Postcard, unknown artist. CC-by-NC National Galleries ScotlandAs they prospered, raising 3 children in the back of a shop ceased to be a necessity and they moved to a smart new, end-of-terrace, middle class villa at 1 Lismore Avenue in Willowbrae. It was here in 1918 that their ranks were joined by the birth of Henrietta (Bunty). 1914 saw them relocate the shope up the Royal Mile to number 51 High Street, next to the well know building known as John Knox’s House. This was the ground floor of Moubray House, one of the oldest surviving residential buildings in the city, where Daniel Defoe had once lodged. It had recently been restored by the Cockburn Association and placed in the hands of a trust. Despite raising 4 children, Esta was clearly becoming more involved in the affairs of business as classified adverts are in the name of both her and Jack. By 1920 she is styling herself “Mrs Henry, Antique Dealer” in these.
“Unidentified Man and Children”, Alexander Wilson Hill, c. 1933. This the shop at 51 High Street and it is probably Jack Henry standing outside. CC-by-NC National Galleries ScotlandThe 1921 census finds the family have moved on and up in the housing world again, now at a very large villa at 15 Mayfield Terrace in Newington. Louis Henry was following his father into the jewellery trade and Philip was training to become a dentist. Life was good but it was about to get better. In 1923 the Scottish newspapers reported the surprise visit of Queen Mary to the Henrys’ shop, where she spent an hour and bought many items, particularly Chinese curios. She was “greatly interested with both the collection and the premises” and shook hands with Esta and Jack as she left, promising to return. Her Majesty was true to her word and returned exactly one year later, buying “a score of articles” including a Louis XIV fan that had once belonged to Queen Victoria. She signed the visitors’ book and said that her purchases the previous year had been gifted to the West Kensington Museum.
Queen Mary leaving Henry’s on one of her many visits. Postcard, unknown artist. Via Canmore, SC 2649474 © Courtesy HESThe Queen was back again a year later, with over a dozen items bought, including a portrait believed to have been the property of Napoleon. The Henrys were invited to deliver the items in person to Holyroodhouse that afternoon and join the Queen for tea. They learned that some of the purchases were to stay there at the palace as part of its collection. The Queen thereafter returned almost every year on her visits to Holyrood, the newspapers reporting the purchase of items in 1927 and 1930 for Buckingham Palace and her personal collection. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, Princes Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II) and her sister Queen Margaret would carry on this royal tradition in later years and a whole section of wall in the shop was reserved for the display of their proudly framed cheques.
As the Roaring Twenties came to a close, Esta’s public profile was ascendant but Jack seems to have begun to step back somewhat from the limelight and into the shadows of the shop. In 1928 she stood for election to the Parish Council in the Canongate ward. Although she came second, there were two seats up for grabs and she was duly returned. Her election notices are the first time in print I could find where she is referring to herself as Esta, rather than just Mrs Henry. Her election was notable as she was the first Jewish woman to be elected to a public office in Scotland and also the press referred to her as Councillor Mrs Esta Henry, other married female councillors were referred to by their husband’s name, e.g Councillor Mrs Adam Millar. This is a public demonstration that she was very much her own woman.
Candidate picture of Esta Henry, Evening News, 7th November 1928The following year civic Parish Councils in Scotland – which existed largely for the purposes of poor relief – were abolished and merged into the Town Councils. Esta stood as an independent for this latter body in 1929 but came 4th behind two Socialists and a Moderate candidate. She would stand again for the Town Council in 1931, 1933 and 1935. She made very clear in her election speeches, which were reported in the press, that her priorities were housing, housewives, child welfare and the treatment of the sick and poor. Women and children were always central to her campaigns and she was known to mobilise squads of them in the Canongate to carry her election materials and to parade around the polling stations. But despite her strenuous campaign efforts on a sensible platform, her public profile and her local popularity, as an independent female candidate she stood little realistic chance of election. Edinburgh was run by the very pale, male and stale Moderates who largely owned the Council’s seats – many of which they didn’t even need to contest – and it was only in a handful of wards where the Socialists could challenge them (to find out more about the political groupings of 20th century Edinburgh and how the election system worked, you can bookmark this thread to read later).
In between election campaigns and royal visits, in 1933 the Henrys commissioned a magnificent L-plan house in a Dutch Cape Colonial style that also incorporated the latest in Moderne tastes. This was Marchdyke at 50 Pentland Terrace on the outskirts of the city’s growing suburbs and it totally eclipsed the monotonous rows of middle class bungalows that were much in favour all around it. Completed in 1935 this 4,000 square foot, 5 bedroom residence featured a Tudorbethan dining room, copious lounge and parlour, a terrazzo bathroom in a Roman style and in the basement a large garage for Jack’s cars, a wine cellar and antiques store. While many of the windows were in an ultra-fashionable fish scale style, the stained glass of the master staircase incorporated original 16th century Swiss and German panes from their collection.
Marchdyke, now known as Huntersmoon. Wilson Property Group, 2022 Property Listing – click here to see an archived copy with the full album of photos.In the 1935 Town Council election, Esta had come third behind the Socialist Party candidate and another from the Protestant Action Society (PA). This party were extreme anti-Catholics who stood on a platform of “No Popery”. Their leader was the rabble-rouser John Cormack and his political stock was rising at the time. In 1934 his party got just 6% of the popular vote in the Edinburgh municipal elections and 1 seat; in 1935 they got 21% and 3 seats. The exact order of following events are not clear but at the 1936 election Esta was already intending to stand once again on her usual independent platform. John Cormack made it be known in the press that he was inclined to lend his support to her in the Canongate (where many Catholic Irish and Italians lived). Perhaps it was a case of “if you can’t beat them, join them“, but with just a week to go before polling, Esta Henry made the shock announcement that she was now standing as a Protestant Action candidate – “the Only Party who do Not Want R. C. Votes“. So late was this change that even on the eve of election some of the papers still reported her as an independent. She topped the ballot, beating PA’s primary candidate, and was duly elected as a Town Councillor at the 5th attempt. It was a good year for PA, they got 31% of the popular vote and won 6 seats. Indeed it was their apogee and they soon slumped into bitter infighting and electoral obscurity, leaving just John Cormack to solider on for decades as their only councillor.
Election adverts, Evening News, 31st October 1936It’s never been clear just how committed Esta was to her new found political home – she certainly threw herself into public meetings on its behalf for a while, it being reported that she would stroll up and down the aisle, brandishing her umbrella at the audience. Realistically she may just have been desperate to get elected and chose the only other party than the Progressives (as the Moderates had re-branded) or Socialists with any chance of winning a seat. John Cormack was strongly criticised from within his own ranks for allowing a Jewish woman to stand on his platform – indeed much later in 1952 he organised pickets against her for suggesting public entertainments on Sundays at public meetings. She did not linger too long under his party whip and had resigned before the 1938 elections. She may have been made very uneasy with the association after a tumultuous public meeting in October 1937 in the Canongate Tolbooth. At this, her male PA colleague refused to answer questions directly and instead railed against Catholics to the boos and heckles of the crowd. Esta tried to make clear that she was there to fight the Socialists in politics but the audience deemed her guilty by association and turned on her too. Thereafter, she dedicated herself thereafter to public service for the Canongate in her own name. She would rise to become Convenor of the Baths and Washhouses Committee, a member of the Cleansing and Lighting Committee, the Streets and Buildings Committee and in 1941 was made JP (a Justice of the Peace, a lay magistrate in the lowest level of municipal courts).
Esta Henry commands the floor at a political meeting. Evening News, 8th February 1940Esta found that her official role as a councillor fitted well alongside her personal philanthropic activities and she long described herself publicly as a Social Worker in the Canongate (although she frequently embellished the timescales somewhat). In 1931 she had formed the Edinburgh United Independent Association in the Canongate to run youth projects and raise money for the city’s Royal Infirmary hospital. Her attitudes were quite progressive and she recognised the need and value for activities and exercise for her district’s youth to keep them from being led astray and getting into trouble and for their general health. She was heavily involved in the Canon Club for Boys and Girls and formed an amateur dramatic society there.
The youth of the Canongate ward is my special care… I want to mother the young people – I have done it all my days – and to impress them with the same spirit that I have myself… Never to let go, to hold on to the good things of life, because they will be rewarded in the end, the same as I have been.
Esta Henry, 1936
She also put her money where her mouth was and provided trophies for local clubs. In 1936 she presented the first of many Esta Henry Cups to the men of the Trinity College and Moray Knox Club on Cranston Street, an organisation formed for unemployed men. It was for the man who scored highest in their games league of dominoes, billiards, draughts and other pastimes with which they occupied their enforced idleness. Another such cup was presented to the local Caledonian Football Club. In November 1937, the Lord Provost gave her a leave of absence from her duties to travel officially to South Africa, where she was to spend two and a half months investigating working class housing and town planning on behalf of the city. He provided her with letters of introduction but they probably weren’t necessary, she apparently owned a fruit farm in the country and her son Phillie had settled there as a dentist! On her return she reported back that she had “travelled many hundreds of miles by air” but that it turned out things in Scotland were far more advanced and better organised for the poor than they were in South Africa! At this time she was also becoming increasingly involved with the Scottish Old Age Pensioners Association, becoming a local committee member, and in 1939 she and the Lady Provost threw a Christmas dinner for its members in the Canongate Tolbooth.
Esta Henry (2nd left, in the beret) and the Lady Provost give a Christmas Dinner to the elderly of the Canongate in the Tolbooth. Evening News, December 22nd 1939The year 1939 also brought the clouds of war to the High Street and municipal elections were suspended for the duration. As an incumbent councillor at the end of her 3 year term, Esta would have faced re-election in November that year. She now found herself with an extra six uncontested years added to her term of office and intended to make the most of this chance. She applied her single-minded determination, boundless energy and never-ending appetite for meetings and committees to the task at hand. And so it was that Councillor Esta Henry went to war. Interviewed shortly after the outbreak, she told the People’s Journal that there was no need to conscript women to the war effort as she had not met a woman in Edinburgh “who is not prepared to do whatsoever she is called upon to do“.
People’s Journal, 16th September 1939One of her first acts, on behalf of the Scottish Old Age Pensioners Association, was to campaign for government allowances for women dependent on the wages of their sons where these men had now been called up. In the Canongate she joined the local ARP (Air Raid Precautions civil defence force), turned her shop basement into an air raid shelter (her name is against it in the Valuation Rolls) and established a corps of 40 local women to act as fire pickets. Later, the Esta Henry Ambulance Section first aiders were also formed. She was soon putting on social events to help finance these activities and found herself placed in charge of the Entertainments Committee of the Lady Provost’s Comforts Fund. This latter organisation started out with the simple of aim of knitting kilt socks for soldiers of the Highland Regiments, as had been done in the 1914-18 conflict. Esta organised bridge parties to raise funds for buying the wool and offered up her house of Marchdyke as a suitable venue. In the Canongate she formed the local women in to work parties in the Tolbooth meeting hall, and arranged free entertainments to keep them amused as they knitted the socks. Soon she was organising mass balls; in February 1940 some 600 dancers packed out the Plaza dancehall in Morningside in a charity gala. At the Eldorado dancehall in Leith though it wasn’t dancing that she put on but boxing, a sport new to her but one that she had fallen in love with. There was nothing that she would not turn her attention to in the name of raising funds; charity auctions, raising pigs and Warship Week where she matched every £1 bond bought at a public rally with £1 of her own.
Esta Henry feeding pigs she was raising for charity sale. Evening News, 26th April 1940Increasingly in the city centre on her ceaseless war work, getting to and from Marchdyke must have been proving an inconvenience as in 1941 she took possession of the flat in Moubray House above the shop and fitted it out as her own residence. She was also keen to demonstrate that old houses in the High Street could be rehabilitated for use without demolishing them. At the end of that year she paid for 800 local children to go to the cinema as a Hogmanay treat, a special programme being put on for them at the New Palace on the High Street. At the end of this screening she had new years resolutions projected onto the screen and had her audience promise en masse to be good children while their fathers were away and to help contribute to the war effort. 1942 saw the institution of the city Corporation’s Holidays at Home programme; municipal entertainments to keep people and children occupied over the summer holidays and try and reduce the temptation to travel. Esta organised outdoor public dances at the Ross Bandstand in Princes Street Gardens which were put on for 2 hours every Monday to Friday afternoon, admission 6d on the gate. She herself led off the first dance with the Lord Provost and was a regular attendee, encouraging and cajoling shy young men to get themselves a partner and join in.
Wartime dancing at the Ross Bandstand in 1945. Evening News photo, from “Living Memories” by Jennifer VeitchThere was more dancing organised by Esta Henry in 1943, as well as cycle racing at Meadowbank, mass picnics for mothers and children and – as Baths & Washhouses Committee Convenor – she arranged for Portobello outdoor swimming pool to be re-opened (some of its machinery had been removed for war use and the rest had fallen into disrepair) so that charity swimming and water polo galas could be held (the awards being more Esta Henry Cups). This also meant children and youths could go swimming in the holidays again – she was well aware that with many fathers away on service and mothers occupied with war work at home, juvenile delinquency as a result of bored children being left to their own devices was a real problem. At the end of that year she spoke at a meeting to form the East Edinburgh Anti-Fascist Committe when it was announced that British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Moseley had been released from jail.
In 1944 she instituted a scheme whereby service personnel in the city and groups of school children were invited to the City Chambers to attend meetings of the Town Councils as her guest. They watched the proceedings and afterwards could question her and other members about the mechanics of local government; she wanted to show how the Home Front was functioning, to connect people with the municipal authorities and to raise awareness of the acute difficulties faced by it at this time. That summer she pressed the Corporation to make the city’s now unnecessary civil defence resources available to house evacuee children from London in the face of the new V1 and later V2 terror bombing. Although the idea garnered wide support it ultimately came to nothing and she would latter press the city to instead give away its accumulated surplus of bunk beds, mattresses and blankets for free to those in need.
With the end of the war finally coming into sight she now turned her attention to the post war prospects. With the Rev. Selby Weight of Canongate Kirk she held public meetings for the Canongate Welcome Home Service Fund to plan for the reintegration of demobbed service personnel and provide comforts and necessities for them and their families. She joined the local Women for Westminster branch to try and get a woman MP elected for the city and repeatedly went on the record that providing for youths and children had to be central to the city’s postwar planning and foresaw the coming housing crisis in the Old Town (it had of course always been there to an extent, but it was about to get very acute). “My slogan is houses and more houses – housing priority!” she said, but she was also clear that it had to be done by reconstruction of existing communities, not by swinging the wrecking ball and scattering them to all the corners of the city. She also took a great interest in Portobello and joined a local campaign to improve the district after the war. Always one to put her money where her mouth was, at her own expense she commissioned plans and artists’ impressions for a scheme to turn “Edinburgh’s ugly sister” into a fashionable new sea-side resort and Garden City. This wasn’t just pie-in-the-sky thinking, she successfully proposed it to the city authorities who had it approved by the Lord Provost’s Committee and included in Sir Patrick Abercrombie’s 1949 “Plan for the City and Royal Burgh of Edinburgh” (you will find it on page 69 in glorious technicolour but with little additional detail). The realities of postwar economics and political priorities meant however that it would never get beyond the pages of that work.
Artist’s impression of Esta Henry’s scheme for post-war Portobello. Evening News, September 18th 1945As the war drew to its close Esta found time to join yet one more committee, that of the League of Angry Wives. These were Scottish women who had married American servicemen and as “G.I. brides” wanted the right to join their husbands in that country. A resolution was passed and representations were sent directly to President Truman – by letter – and the First Lady – by telegram. A week later, Esta henry defended her seat, which she had now held for 9 years, at the ballot box but the winds of political change blew hard and she was comprehensively defeated by Labour candidates. This was despite her being presented with a pair of boxing gloves by her supporters and urged to “go on fighting“. After further defeats at the 1946 and 1947 elections she stepped back finally from politics, but not from life!
Esta Henry addresses the League of Angry Wives, Daily Record, October 29th 1945In 1946 and 1947 she was a key organiser with the Scottish Housewives Association in an Edinburgh and Fife-based campaign against bread rationing. This culminated in her and Janet Neish of Kirkcaldy chasing the Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Trade out of the North British Hotel and across the street to his car as he sought to avoid the combined fury of their sharp tongues! Never one to turn down a committee, she was also elected as the President of the Edinburgh branch of that organisation. 1947 had however started on a sad note for her as Jack Henry finally succumbed to long-term heart disease, leaving her a widow. It was around this time that the house at Marchdyke was sold. But Esta showed no signs of retiring from life to mourn and threw herself instead to yet another new activity; women’s football. She became the director of the Edinburgh Lady Dynamos, a team formed from core members of successful pre-war teams when the women’s game had enjoyed a brief spell of public popularity. Donating another Esta Henry Trophy to the cause it was likely that she paid for their kits too and she could be relied upon to turn her formidable oratory power at the authorities when they refused to allow the women to play in public grounds.
Edinburgh Lady Dynamos football team, late 1940s. CC-by-SA-NC 0084-003, via Edinburgh Collected.
Back row L-R is Esta Henry, Kitty Russell, Betty Rae, Agnes Whitelaw, Theresa Mulvie, goalkeeper Jessie Baillie, Nan Laurie, Babs McWhinney and Walter Caesar. Front row L-R is Eleanor Wilson, Betty Davidson (?), Linda Clements, Mary Leslie, Bet Adamson.She had long been a local celebrity but in the year 1953, Esta Henry’s reputation went national on two accounts. Around the 27th of December 1952, a well dressed man entered her shop on the High Street and introduced himself as a Belgian art dealer, Paul Eugene Dillin. The pair quickly struck up a rapport and he soon confided in her that his identity was a front; he was actually a stateless Romanian Jew by the name of Pinchas Haimovici and had spent two and a half years in hiding in the Netherlands during the war. As he refused to sign a national oath pledging himself to Communism he was exiled from his country of birth and had no papers. It was at the recommendation of the renowned sculptor Benno Schotz, a prominent member of the Scottish Jewish community and whose wife came from the same village as him, that he had come to Edinburgh seeking art. Esta fell in love with the man then and there, despite an age gap of 21 years between them, and proposed to him on the condition that he took the name Henry. When he accepted she threw his fake passport on the fire and urged him to turn himself in and seek asylum so that they could be legally wed.
Pinchas and Esta, Associated Press, 27th April 1953Pinchas and Esta, Associated Press, 27th April 1953Esta perhaps imagined naïvely that her reputation and connections would make it a mere formality and booked the couple a honeymoon trip to Madeira. However when the police were invited to the shop they instead charged Pinchas with offences for landing illegally in the country on false papers under the Aliens Act 1920 and he was sent to Saughton Prison. On December 31st he pled guilty at the Sheriff Court in Edinburgh and was remanded for sentencing, which was deferred to give his solicitor a chance to arrange an application for Israeli papers and asylum so that he could travel there instead of being deported. After the hearing, Esta told the waiting reporters that she still intended to marry her “Prince Paul” (Paul Haemovitz was another alias he had used) but that she was going to go on the Honeymoon trip to Maderia anyway by herself as the stress of events would otherwise give her a stroke; the reporter noted that she was smoking at the time and confided she had smoked 100 already that day. The case rumbled on and on, the Israelis were being slow with the papers as apparently there was another Pinchas Haimovici on an Interpol watch-list, despite this being a common name in Romania, and he had to prove it was not him. The Sheriff in Edinburgh grew tired of the repeated delays and on March 13th 1953 he ordered Pinchas’ release. But no sooner had he left the courtroom than he found himself re-arrested; the Home Secretary Sir David Maxwell Fyfe had finally signed a deportation order for him and he was sent straight back to Saughton. Esta told a waiting reporter from the Daily Mirror that if he was to be deported to Romania then she would join him there; “I’m only seventy, and fit enough to crash any of Stalin’s curtains”.
Pinchas petitioned the High Court in Edinburgh to avoid deportation and his case was heard on April 10th. As a declared anti-communist he told the court that he faced “torture and death” if returned to Romania. He also asked leave from court to marry Esta (who waved the papers she had ready to the court), but this request and his protests over his captivity fell on deaf ears and the case was adjourned. Back to Saughton Prison he went were Esta, with her lawyer Lionel Daiches, continued to visit him and made a habit of finding her way uninvited into the Governor’s office to protest more directly. The case was now being reported across the national and regional British newspapers and had become quite embarrassing for the Government. And so it was that the Home Secretary cancelled his previous order and on Friday 24th April 1953 Pinchas Haimovici was released and met by Esta with a pony and trap to drive him home and a brass band she had hired to serenade his freedom. The couple announced that they were to be married on the Monday morning and after a brief registry office ceremony, so they were. Esta insisted that they returned immediately to the shop to re-open for business but outside they were met by an immense crowd of well-wishers who lifted her into the air as they cheered for her and her husband. She lost her shoes in the process and the police had to attend to find the couple a path through the throng.
Esta and Pinchas are met by jubilant crowds of well-wishers in Hunter Square after their marriage. Daily Mirror, April 28th 1953The crowd followed them all the way back to the shop where they posed for the press and thanked their well-wishers while Esta fumbled through the 20 different keys she kept for the various locks on the premises. They were back behind the counter and at work within an hour of their ceremony starting. The next day they took a taxi out to Saughton Prison and thanked the warders with wedding cake and champagne, Pinchas let the press know that they had treated him very kindly. A few days later he formally changed his name to Paul Henry in line with Esta’s prenuptial wishes.
Pinchas and Esta re-open the shop after wedding, Associated Press, 27th April 1953To celebrate their union and to thank Benno Schotz for helping bring them together they commissioned him to produce a brass bust of them. Schotz insisted that Pinchas should be holding something in his hand and, knowing that Esta was immensely fond of rings, designed an Adam & Eve ring for the purpose. The finished work was unveiled to mark their first wedding anniversary as the centrepiece of an exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy on Princes Street.
Unveiling the bust with Benno Schotz, 23rd April 1954. Paul is holding the ring in his hand.Returning to the events of 1953, it was while her Prince Paul was still incarcerated that the other event took place that garnered national reporting for Esta; she was robbed! Perhaps she had been distracted by the events surrounding Paul’s case, but she allowed herself to be taken in by a group of well-organised confidence tricksters posing as American buyers. Having taken the time and effort to establish her routines and build up a rapport with her, they arranged a distraction and took their chance to steal jewellery that she valued at £20,000 from a lock box, £320 and $600 in cash and the pass books for her life savings. Esta told the press that amongst the items stolen was an amethyst fob which had once been part of the Hungarian crown jewels. Bits and pieces of the loot turned up in sale rooms afterwards and she was forced to buy them back at half of what the other dealer had paid for them; she was not impressed. The police eventually caught up with her trio of robbers due to their amateurish attempts to pass her stolen valuables off to on an antique dealer for far less than their actual worth. Roy Fontaine got 4 years for theft, Arthur Wooton 3 years for reset and George Ross-Wham had already been jailed on a separate offence by the time his sentencing came up. Fontaine was a career jewel thief, confidence trickster and blackmailer but Esta had found him charming and visited him in jail. She left money for him to try and start up a better life after he was released. This he tried, but it was not to be. It turned out that she may have gotten off lightly from Fontaine’s gang; he was actually the Glaswegian Archibald Hall who gained notoriety some 20 years later as a serial killer who the press dubbed the Monster Butler. His modus operandi was robbing and killing wealthy elderly and high-profile clients that he had worked his charm on to gain work as a butler. He was sentenced to life without parole in 1978.
Archibald Hall being taken to Jail, Daily Record, May 1978Esta Henry would have one last high-profile adventure before settling down to a quieter married life keeping shop with Paul. In 1954 the Egyptian Junta let it be known that they were auctioning off part of the personal collection of art and objets accumulated by the now deposed King Farouk at the state’s expense. She told the press she was determined to bag herself a bargain and flew to Cairo to the auction at the Koubbeh Palace; they were there at Turnhouse Airport to wave her off. In Egypt, when the Sotheby’s auctioneer initially announced the lots only in French and Arabic she interrupted to protest – “English was good enough for Shakespeare, it should be good enough for these people”. He yielded to her request and began to also announce the lots in English. She next stopped proceedings to ask an Egyptian army major to bring her some tea; tea was brought. When asked not to smoke she refused and instead asked for one of King Farouk’s diamond-studded, gold ashtrays – an auction lot – be brought to her.
Esta Henry, glasses in hand, berates the auctioneer yet again. The other bidders seem much amused. Sphere, 20th March 1954She eventually brought the proceedings into complete farce by repeatedly protesting when, at the behest of the Egyptian organisers, multiple auction lots were withdrawn, joint lots were split up and opening bids were significantly above the catalogue reserve price. The other bidders, and indeed the Sotheby’s auctioneers, were actually on her side – they too were less than impressed with how the sale was being conducted. When she eventually walked out, labelling the Egyptians “a bunch of twisters”, a number of fellow dealers followed her out. She was chased into the car park by the auctioneer and a senior Egyptian officer who begged her to return. Realising she had made her point, she acquiesced, and went back into the sale room where she publicly hugged and kissed the astonished auctioneer. She now stopped making a nuisance of herself and got down to the business of buying, eventually spending some £15,000 (c. £360,000 in 2025). She allowed herself one last moment of pantomime when, outbid on a 16th century Scottish clock, did jump up, grab the item from the auctioneer’s desk and announce to all that it was Scottish, she was Scottish and “I am going to have it!”. Her delighted fellow buyers let her have it. When she returned home, the gossip columnists and society magazines were waiting and she told them she was left with only the 2/6d in her pocket having spent the rest in Egypt. Her treasures arrived at the end of the following month, and she was met by both the press and by Customs to assess the haul.
Esta and Paul Henry demonstrate one of the Egyptian auction items to a customs officer and the press. Sunday Post, 2nd May 1954Esta and Paul Henry spent a happy decade together behind the counter at 51 High Street surrounded by the antiques and art that had brought them together. Esta through numerous exhibitions at Moubray House and contributed rare pieces to others. She began to form plans to perhaps leave the house and the best parts of her collection to the nation. In 1960 a fellow Edinburgh antique dealer told the press that they probably had the best collection in the country inside their shop. For their 10th wedding anniversary the couple decided to take a long overdue honeymoon and booked a round the world trip, perhaps to acquire yet more pieces or perhaps with a view to scouting out somewhere warm to retire to.
Copy of Esta Henry’s entry card into Brazil, issued by the Consul General in London on 10th December 1962It was for this reason that they were in Sao Paulo, en route to Rio de Janiero on January 15th when Serviços Aéreos Cruzeiro do Sul Flight 144 came down shortly after takeoff, killing them both. The long reign of the Queen of the High Street was over and the Brazilian authorities had her buried together with her Prince in Sao Paulo. Back home her vast collection of treasure that formed the bulk of her estate was split up and sold off. Her shop became home to a succession of trinket and tourist businesses but her flat above fared better, remaining in the care of the Cockburn association before being restored by a wealthy American benefactor and in 2012 gifted to the nation under the care of Historic Environment Scotland.
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The thread about Esta Henry; the life and times of the Queen of the High Street
On this day (January 15th) in 1963, a small silver airliner with 45 people on board took off from Sao Paulo in Brazil en route for Rio de Janeiro. Moments later it plunged into the ground in the city’s suburbs, taking with it 13 lives. The last victim to be identified was that of Esta Henry, a renowned and somewhat eccentric Edinburgh antiques dealer; her husband Paul was at her side and perished too. Thus ended the final chapter in the colourful life of the lady the papers called the Queen of the High Street. Her surprising story now follows.
Serviços Aéreos Cruzeiro do Sul Convair 340 aircraft, registration PP-CDW, the plane that crashed in January 1963. CC-by Smithsonian InstitutionShe was born Esther Louis on July 3rd 1882 in Sunderland, County Durham, to Louie Louis and his wife Eveline (née Jackson). Her parents were Jewish, her father a 1st generation Prussian immigrant and her mother 2nd generation to Dutch and German parents. Like many Jews in Britain at this time, to integrate and protect themselves somewhat from anti-Semitism, they altered their names; Louie and Evelina were thus better known as John and Eva. He worked variously as a cobbler, a clothier and an auctioneer and the family moved frequently with his work between Sunderland and Scotland. The family moved to 2 Jane Street in Leith in 1884 where Louie opened an auction room in the Kirkgate. Alas tragedy was to strike the following year. When Esta was just 2 her father died from fever and pneumonia leaving his wife with 7 hungry mouths to feed and another on the way.
Esta’s immediate family tree.Evelina and her entourage of children gravitated back to Wearside where she remarried in 1889 to Charles Goldman, a pawnbroker. Four half-siblings to Esta would follow and at the time of the 1891 census the enlarged family stayed in a small but prim end-terraced house at 4 Sorley Street in Sunderland. In her own telling of her story at this age the 9 year old Esta ran off to variously Edinburgh or Leith and sold door-to-door by barrow or bicycle to eke out a living, but we should take this with a very large pinch of salt as the records contradict the story and she made a habit of tweaking and embellishing tales of her life to suit circumstances. In 1901 they were at 12 Rutland Street in Sunderland, living above the family pawnbrokers. The 18 year old Esta was described as a General Dealer in the census; she was running a corner shop.
Rutland Street, Sunderland, 1929. Number 12, the Goldman shop and house is at the end of the row with the canopy, if you look very closes the pawnbroker’s sign is in the Goldman name. via Sunderland Antiquarian SocietyBut Esta did not stay put for much longer, by the next year we find her living at 156 Canongate in Edinburgh. Shortly thereafter she married a 25 year old jeweller, Jack H. Henry of 30 Milton Street. But like her Father, Esta’s new husband was using an alias; he was actually born Joseph Henry Abrovich in Łódź, Poland. It suited him to keep details of his past deliberately obscure; he spent his life giving different dates (between 1869-79) and places of birth in official documents and was most frequently recorded as John but sometimes also Jacob. But he married Esta as Jack. His mysteriousness was necessary as he was leading a double life; he was actually a talented concert violinist, a member of the touring orchestra of Polish piano impresario Ignacy Paderewski (who would rise to become Prime Minister of his country). Jack had skipped town in Dublin when on tour in the 1890s in order to avoid returning home to compulsory military service for the Russian Empire. It was also a difficult time for the Polish Jews in general as they faced the Russian Pogroms and waves were emigrating west. Thus he ended up in Scotland; possibly via Glasgow where there were already Abrovichs resident.
“Jack H. Henry.” Juliette Bird, via AncestryEsta and Jack settled at the tenement at 170 Canongate and soon opened a jewellery shop below at number 168. They moved into the back of the shop and began to raise a family together. Louis (Lou) was born in 1903, Philip (Philly) in 1904, Herbert (Bertie) in 1906 and Rosa (Rose) in 1908. While the Canongate was a down at heel neighbourhood at the time, one with much slum housing and a largely itinerant population that included many of the city’s poor and immigrants, they were doing well for themselves and advertised for a servant – “apply Mrs Henry” – in the newspapers.
Canongate in the late 19th century. On the left is the tower and clock of the Tolbooth, on the right the distinctive obelisk-topped gate piers of Moray House. The Henry shop and home is the lighter coloured tenement on the right hand side of the street. Beyond is the projecting gable of Huntly House; it is a neighbourhood steeped in Scottish history. Postcard, unknown artist. CC-by-NC National Galleries ScotlandAs they prospered, raising 3 children in the back of a shop ceased to be a necessity and they moved to a smart new, end-of-terrace, middle class villa at 1 Lismore Avenue in Willowbrae. It was here in 1918 that their ranks were joined by the birth of Henrietta (Bunty). 1914 saw them relocate the shope up the Royal Mile to number 51 High Street, next to the well know building known as John Knox’s House. This was the ground floor of Moubray House, one of the oldest surviving residential buildings in the city, where Daniel Defoe had once lodged. It had recently been restored by the Cockburn Association and placed in the hands of a trust. Despite raising 4 children, Esta was clearly becoming more involved in the affairs of business as classified adverts are in the name of both her and Jack. By 1920 she is styling herself “Mrs Henry, Antique Dealer” in these.
“Unidentified Man and Children”, Alexander Wilson Hill, c. 1933. This the shop at 51 High Street and it is probably Jack Henry standing outside. CC-by-NC National Galleries ScotlandThe 1921 census finds the family have moved on and up in the housing world again, now at a very large villa at 15 Mayfield Terrace in Newington. Louis Henry was following his father into the jewellery trade and Philip was training to become a dentist. Life was good but it was about to get better. In 1923 the Scottish newspapers reported the surprise visit of Queen Mary to the Henrys’ shop, where she spent an hour and bought many items, particularly Chinese curios. She was “greatly interested with both the collection and the premises” and shook hands with Esta and Jack as she left, promising to return. Her Majesty was true to her word and returned exactly one year later, buying “a score of articles” including a Louis XIV fan that had once belonged to Queen Victoria. She signed the visitors’ book and said that her purchases the previous year had been gifted to the West Kensington Museum.
Queen Mary leaving Henry’s on one of her many visits. Postcard, unknown artist. Via Canmore, SC 2649474 © Courtesy HESThe Queen was back again a year later, with over a dozen items bought, including a portrait believed to have been the property of Napoleon. The Henrys were invited to deliver the items in person to Holyroodhouse that afternoon and join the Queen for tea. They learned that some of the purchases were to stay there at the palace as part of its collection. The Queen thereafter returned almost every year on her visits to Holyrood, the newspapers reporting the purchase of items in 1927 and 1930 for Buckingham Palace and her personal collection. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, Princes Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II) and her sister Queen Margaret would carry on this royal tradition in later years and a whole section of wall in the shop was reserved for the display of their proudly framed cheques.
As the Roaring Twenties came to a close, Esta’s public profile was ascendant but Jack seems to have begun to step back somewhat from the limelight and into the shadows of the shop. In 1928 she stood for election to the Parish Council in the Canongate ward. Although she came second, there were two seats up for grabs and she was duly returned. Her election notices are the first time in print I could find where she is referring to herself as Esta, rather than just Mrs Henry. Her election was notable as she was the first Jewish woman to be elected to a public office in Scotland and also the press referred to her as Councillor Mrs Esta Henry, other married female councillors were referred to by their husband’s name, e.g Councillor Mrs Adam Millar. This is a public demonstration that she was very much her own woman.
Candidate picture of Esta Henry, Evening News, 7th November 1928The following year civic Parish Councils in Scotland – which existed largely for the purposes of poor relief – were abolished and merged into the Town Councils. Esta stood as an independent for this latter body in 1929 but came 4th behind two Socialists and a Moderate candidate. She would stand again for the Town Council in 1931, 1933 and 1935. She made very clear in her election speeches, which were reported in the press, that her priorities were housing, housewives, child welfare and the treatment of the sick and poor. Women and children were always central to her campaigns and she was known to mobilise squads of them in the Canongate to carry her election materials and to parade around the polling stations. But despite her strenuous campaign efforts on a sensible platform, her public profile and her local popularity, as an independent female candidate she stood little realistic chance of election. Edinburgh was run by the very pale, male and stale Moderates who largely owned the Council’s seats – many of which they didn’t even need to contest – and it was only in a handful of wards where the Socialists could challenge them (to find out more about the political groupings of 20th century Edinburgh and how the election system worked, you can bookmark this thread to read later).
In between election campaigns and royal visits, in 1933 the Henrys commissioned a magnificent L-plan house in a Dutch Cape Colonial style that also incorporated the latest in Moderne tastes. This was Marchdyke at 50 Pentland Terrace on the outskirts of the city’s growing suburbs and it totally eclipsed the monotonous rows of middle class bungalows that were much in favour all around it. Completed in 1935 this 4,000 square foot, 5 bedroom residence featured a Tudorbethan dining room, copious lounge and parlour, a terrazzo bathroom in a Roman style and in the basement a large garage for Jack’s cars, a wine cellar and antiques store. While many of the windows were in an ultra-fashionable fish scale style, the stained glass of the master staircase incorporated original 16th century Swiss and German panes from their collection.
Marchdyke, now known as Huntersmoon. Wilson Property Group, 2022 Property Listing – click here to see an archived copy with the full album of photos.In the 1935 Town Council election, Esta had come third behind the Socialist Party candidate and another from the Protestant Action Society (PA). This party were extreme anti-Catholics who stood on a platform of “No Popery”. Their leader was the rabble-rouser John Cormack and his political stock was rising at the time. In 1934 his party got just 6% of the popular vote in the Edinburgh municipal elections and 1 seat; in 1935 they got 21% and 3 seats. The exact order of following events are not clear but at the 1936 election Esta was already intending to stand once again on her usual independent platform. John Cormack made it be known in the press that he was inclined to lend his support to her in the Canongate (where many Catholic Irish and Italians lived). Perhaps it was a case of “if you can’t beat them, join them“, but with just a week to go before polling, Esta Henry made the shock announcement that she was now standing as a Protestant Action candidate – “the Only Party who do Not Want R. C. Votes“. So late was this change that even on the eve of election some of the papers still reported her as an independent. She topped the ballot, beating PA’s primary candidate, and was duly elected as a Town Councillor at the 5th attempt. It was a good year for PA, they got 31% of the popular vote and won 6 seats. Indeed it was their apogee and they soon slumped into bitter infighting and electoral obscurity, leaving just John Cormack to solider on for decades as their only councillor.
Election adverts, Evening News, 31st October 1936It’s never been clear just how committed Esta was to her new found political home – she certainly threw herself into public meetings on its behalf for a while, it being reported that she would stroll up and down the aisle, brandishing her umbrella at the audience. Realistically she may just have been desperate to get elected and chose the only other party than the Progressives (as the Moderates had re-branded) or Socialists with any chance of winning a seat. John Cormack was strongly criticised from within his own ranks for allowing a Jewish woman to stand on his platform – indeed much later in 1952 he organised pickets against her for suggesting public entertainments on Sundays at public meetings. She did not linger too long under his party whip and had resigned before the 1938 elections. She may have been made very uneasy with the association after a tumultuous public meeting in October 1937 in the Canongate Tolbooth. At this, her male PA colleague refused to answer questions directly and instead railed against Catholics to the boos and heckles of the crowd. Esta tried to make clear that she was there to fight the Socialists in politics but the audience deemed her guilty by association and turned on her too. Thereafter, she dedicated herself thereafter to public service for the Canongate in her own name. She would rise to become Convenor of the Baths and Washhouses Committee, a member of the Cleansing and Lighting Committee, the Streets and Buildings Committee and in 1941 was made JP (a Justice of the Peace, a lay magistrate in the lowest level of municipal courts).
Esta Henry commands the floor at a political meeting. Evening News, 8th February 1940Esta found that her official role as a councillor fitted well alongside her personal philanthropic activities and she long described herself publicly as a Social Worker in the Canongate (although she frequently embellished the timescales somewhat). In 1931 she had formed the Edinburgh United Independent Association in the Canongate to run youth projects and raise money for the city’s Royal Infirmary hospital. Her attitudes were quite progressive and she recognised the need and value for activities and exercise for her district’s youth to keep them from being led astray and getting into trouble and for their general health. She was heavily involved in the Canon Club for Boys and Girls and formed an amateur dramatic society there.
The youth of the Canongate ward is my special care… I want to mother the young people – I have done it all my days – and to impress them with the same spirit that I have myself… Never to let go, to hold on to the good things of life, because they will be rewarded in the end, the same as I have been.
Esta Henry, 1936
She also put her money where her mouth was and provided trophies for local clubs. In 1936 she presented the first of many Esta Henry Cups to the men of the Trinity College and Moray Knox Club on Cranston Street, an organisation formed for unemployed men. It was for the man who scored highest in their games league of dominoes, billiards, draughts and other pastimes with which they occupied their enforced idleness. Another such cup was presented to the local Caledonian Football Club. In November 1937, the Lord Provost gave her a leave of absence from her duties to travel officially to South Africa, where she was to spend two and a half months investigating working class housing and town planning on behalf of the city. He provided her with letters of introduction but they probably weren’t necessary, she apparently owned a fruit farm in the country and her son Phillie had settled there as a dentist! On her return she reported back that she had “travelled many hundreds of miles by air” but that it turned out things in Scotland were far more advanced and better organised for the poor than they were in South Africa! At this time she was also becoming increasingly involved with the Scottish Old Age Pensioners Association, becoming a local committee member, and in 1939 she and the Lady Provost threw a Christmas dinner for its members in the Canongate Tolbooth.
Esta Henry (2nd left, in the beret) and the Lady Provost give a Christmas Dinner to the elderly of the Canongate in the Tolbooth. Evening News, December 22nd 1939The year 1939 also brought the clouds of war to the High Street and municipal elections were suspended for the duration. As an incumbent councillor at the end of her 3 year term, Esta would have faced re-election in November that year. She now found herself with an extra six uncontested years added to her term of office and intended to make the most of this chance. She applied her single-minded determination, boundless energy and never-ending appetite for meetings and committees to the task at hand. And so it was that Councillor Esta Henry went to war. Interviewed shortly after the outbreak, she told the People’s Journal that there was no need to conscript women to the war effort as she had not met a woman in Edinburgh “who is not prepared to do whatsoever she is called upon to do“.
People’s Journal, 16th September 1939One of her first acts, on behalf of the Scottish Old Age Pensioners Association, was to campaign for government allowances for women dependent on the wages of their sons where these men had now been called up. In the Canongate she joined the local ARP (Air Raid Precautions civil defence force), turned her shop basement into an air raid shelter (her name is against it in the Valuation Rolls) and established a corps of 40 local women to act as fire pickets. Later, the Esta Henry Ambulance Section first aiders were also formed. She was soon putting on social events to help finance these activities and found herself placed in charge of the Entertainments Committee of the Lady Provost’s Comforts Fund. This latter organisation started out with the simple of aim of knitting kilt socks for soldiers of the Highland Regiments, as had been done in the 1914-18 conflict. Esta organised bridge parties to raise funds for buying the wool and offered up her house of Marchdyke as a suitable venue. In the Canongate she formed the local women in to work parties in the Tolbooth meeting hall, and arranged free entertainments to keep them amused as they knitted the socks. Soon she was organising mass balls; in February 1940 some 600 dancers packed out the Plaza dancehall in Morningside in a charity gala. At the Eldorado dancehall in Leith though it wasn’t dancing that she put on but boxing, a sport new to her but one that she had fallen in love with. There was nothing that she would not turn her attention to in the name of raising funds; charity auctions, raising pigs and Warship Week where she matched every £1 bond bought at a public rally with £1 of her own.
Esta Henry feeding pigs she was raising for charity sale. Evening News, 26th April 1940Increasingly in the city centre on her ceaseless war work, getting to and from Marchdyke must have been proving an inconvenience as in 1941 she took possession of the flat in Moubray House above the shop and fitted it out as her own residence. She was also keen to demonstrate that old houses in the High Street could be rehabilitated for use without demolishing them. At the end of that year she paid for 800 local children to go to the cinema as a Hogmanay treat, a special programme being put on for them at the New Palace on the High Street. At the end of this screening she had new years resolutions projected onto the screen and had her audience promise en masse to be good children while their fathers were away and to help contribute to the war effort. 1942 saw the institution of the city Corporation’s Holidays at Home programme; municipal entertainments to keep people and children occupied over the summer holidays and try and reduce the temptation to travel. Esta organised outdoor public dances at the Ross Bandstand in Princes Street Gardens which were put on for 2 hours every Monday to Friday afternoon, admission 6d on the gate. She herself led off the first dance with the Lord Provost and was a regular attendee, encouraging and cajoling shy young men to get themselves a partner and join in.
Wartime dancing at the Ross Bandstand in 1945. Evening News photo, from “Living Memories” by Jennifer VeitchThere was more dancing organised by Esta Henry in 1943, as well as cycle racing at Meadowbank, mass picnics for mothers and children and – as Baths & Washhouses Committee Convenor – she arranged for Portobello outdoor swimming pool to be re-opened (some of its machinery had been removed for war use and the rest had fallen into disrepair) so that charity swimming and water polo galas could be held (the awards being more Esta Henry Cups). This also meant children and youths could go swimming in the holidays again – she was well aware that with many fathers away on service and mothers occupied with war work at home, juvenile delinquency as a result of bored children being left to their own devices was a real problem. At the end of that year she spoke at a meeting to form the East Edinburgh Anti-Fascist Committe when it was announced that British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Moseley had been released from jail.
In 1944 she instituted a scheme whereby service personnel in the city and groups of school children were invited to the City Chambers to attend meetings of the Town Councils as her guest. They watched the proceedings and afterwards could question her and other members about the mechanics of local government; she wanted to show how the Home Front was functioning, to connect people with the municipal authorities and to raise awareness of the acute difficulties faced by it at this time. That summer she pressed the Corporation to make the city’s now unnecessary civil defence resources available to house evacuee children from London in the face of the new V1 and later V2 terror bombing. Although the idea garnered wide support it ultimately came to nothing and she would latter press the city to instead give away its accumulated surplus of bunk beds, mattresses and blankets for free to those in need.
With the end of the war finally coming into sight she now turned her attention to the post war prospects. With the Rev. Selby Weight of Canongate Kirk she held public meetings for the Canongate Welcome Home Service Fund to plan for the reintegration of demobbed service personnel and provide comforts and necessities for them and their families. She joined the local Women for Westminster branch to try and get a woman MP elected for the city and repeatedly went on the record that providing for youths and children had to be central to the city’s postwar planning and foresaw the coming housing crisis in the Old Town (it had of course always been there to an extent, but it was about to get very acute). “My slogan is houses and more houses – housing priority!” she said, but she was also clear that it had to be done by reconstruction of existing communities, not by swinging the wrecking ball and scattering them to all the corners of the city. She also took a great interest in Portobello and joined a local campaign to improve the district after the war. Always one to put her money where her mouth was, at her own expense she commissioned plans and artists’ impressions for a scheme to turn “Edinburgh’s ugly sister” into a fashionable new sea-side resort and Garden City. This wasn’t just pie-in-the-sky thinking, she successfully proposed it to the city authorities who had it approved by the Lord Provost’s Committee and included in Sir Patrick Abercrombie’s 1949 “Plan for the City and Royal Burgh of Edinburgh” (you will find it on page 69 in glorious technicolour but with little additional detail). The realities of postwar economics and political priorities meant however that it would never get beyond the pages of that work.
Artist’s impression of Esta Henry’s scheme for post-war Portobello. Evening News, September 18th 1945As the war drew to its close Esta found time to join yet one more committee, that of the League of Angry Wives. These were Scottish women who had married American servicemen and as “G.I. brides” wanted the right to join their husbands in that country. A resolution was passed and representations were sent directly to President Truman – by letter – and the First Lady – by telegram. A week later, Esta henry defended her seat, which she had now held for 9 years, at the ballot box but the winds of political change blew hard and she was comprehensively defeated by Labour candidates. This was despite her being presented with a pair of boxing gloves by her supporters and urged to “go on fighting“. After further defeats at the 1946 and 1947 elections she stepped back finally from politics, but not from life!
Esta Henry addresses the League of Angry Wives, Daily Record, October 29th 1945In 1946 and 1947 she was a key organiser with the Scottish Housewives Association in an Edinburgh and Fife-based campaign against bread rationing. This culminated in her and Janet Neish of Kirkcaldy chasing the Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Trade out of the North British Hotel and across the street to his car as he sought to avoid the combined fury of their sharp tongues! Never one to turn down a committee, she was also elected as the President of the Edinburgh branch of that organisation. 1947 had however started on a sad note for her as Jack Henry finally succumbed to long-term heart disease, leaving her a widow. It was around this time that the house at Marchdyke was sold. But Esta showed no signs of retiring from life to mourn and threw herself instead to yet another new activity; women’s football. She became the director of the Edinburgh Lady Dynamos, a team formed from core members of successful pre-war teams when the women’s game had enjoyed a brief spell of public popularity. Donating another Esta Henry Trophy to the cause it was likely that she paid for their kits too and she could be relied upon to turn her formidable oratory power at the authorities when they refused to allow the women to play in public grounds.
Edinburgh Lady Dynamos football team, late 1940s. CC-by-SA-NC 0084-003, via Edinburgh Collected.
Back row L-R is Esta Henry, Kitty Russell, Betty Rae, Agnes Whitelaw, Theresa Mulvie, goalkeeper Jessie Baillie, Nan Laurie, Babs McWhinney and Walter Caesar. Front row L-R is Eleanor Wilson, Betty Davidson (?), Linda Clements, Mary Leslie, Bet Adamson.She had long been a local celebrity but in the year 1953, Esta Henry’s reputation went national on two accounts. Around the 27th of December 1952, a well dressed man entered her shop on the High Street and introduced himself as a Belgian art dealer, Paul Eugene Dillin. The pair quickly struck up a rapport and he soon confided in her that his identity was a front; he was actually a stateless Romanian Jew by the name of Pinchas Haimovici and had spent two and a half years in hiding in the Netherlands during the war. As he refused to sign a national oath pledging himself to Communism he was exiled from his country of birth and had no papers. It was at the recommendation of the renowned sculptor Benno Schotz, a prominent member of the Scottish Jewish community and whose wife came from the same village as him, that he had come to Edinburgh seeking art. Esta fell in love with the man then and there, despite an age gap of 21 years between them, and proposed to him on the condition that he took the name Henry. When he accepted she threw his fake passport on the fire and urged him to turn himself in and seek asylum so that they could be legally wed.
Pinchas and Esta, Associated Press, 27th April 1953Pinchas and Esta, Associated Press, 27th April 1953Esta perhaps imagined naïvely that her reputation and connections would make it a mere formality and booked the couple a honeymoon trip to Madeira. However when the police were invited to the shop they instead charged Pinchas with offences for landing illegally in the country on false papers under the Aliens Act 1920 and he was sent to Saughton Prison. On December 31st he pled guilty at the Sheriff Court in Edinburgh and was remanded for sentencing, which was deferred to give his solicitor a chance to arrange an application for Israeli papers and asylum so that he could travel there instead of being deported. After the hearing, Esta told the waiting reporters that she still intended to marry her “Prince Paul” (Paul Haemovitz was another alias he had used) but that she was going to go on the Honeymoon trip to Maderia anyway by herself as the stress of events would otherwise give her a stroke; the reporter noted that she was smoking at the time and confided she had smoked 100 already that day. The case rumbled on and on, the Israelis were being slow with the papers as apparently there was another Pinchas Haimovici on an Interpol watch-list, despite this being a common name in Romania, and he had to prove it was not him. The Sheriff in Edinburgh grew tired of the repeated delays and on March 13th 1953 he ordered Pinchas’ release. But no sooner had he left the courtroom than he found himself re-arrested; the Home Secretary Sir David Maxwell Fyfe had finally signed a deportation order for him and he was sent straight back to Saughton. Esta told a waiting reporter from the Daily Mirror that if he was to be deported to Romania then she would join him there; “I’m only seventy, and fit enough to crash any of Stalin’s curtains”.
Pinchas petitioned the High Court in Edinburgh to avoid deportation and his case was heard on April 10th. As a declared anti-communist he told the court that he faced “torture and death” if returned to Romania. He also asked leave from court to marry Esta (who waved the papers she had ready to the court), but this request and his protests over his captivity fell on deaf ears and the case was adjourned. Back to Saughton Prison he went were Esta, with her lawyer Lionel Daiches, continued to visit him and made a habit of finding her way uninvited into the Governor’s office to protest more directly. The case was now being reported across the national and regional British newspapers and had become quite embarrassing for the Government. And so it was that the Home Secretary cancelled his previous order and on Friday 24th April 1953 Pinchas Haimovici was released and met by Esta with a pony and trap to drive him home and a brass band she had hired to serenade his freedom. The couple announced that they were to be married on the Monday morning and after a brief registry office ceremony, so they were. Esta insisted that they returned immediately to the shop to re-open for business but outside they were met by an immense crowd of well-wishers who lifted her into the air as they cheered for her and her husband. She lost her shoes in the process and the police had to attend to find the couple a path through the throng.
Esta and Pinchas are met by jubilant crowds of well-wishers in Hunter Square after their marriage. Daily Mirror, April 28th 1953The crowd followed them all the way back to the shop where they posed for the press and thanked their well-wishers while Esta fumbled through the 20 different keys she kept for the various locks on the premises. They were back behind the counter and at work within an hour of their ceremony starting. The next day they took a taxi out to Saughton Prison and thanked the warders with wedding cake and champagne, Pinchas let the press know that they had treated him very kindly. A few days later he formally changed his name to Paul Henry in line with Esta’s prenuptial wishes.
Pinchas and Esta re-open the shop after wedding, Associated Press, 27th April 1953To celebrate their union and to thank Benno Schotz for helping bring them together they commissioned him to produce a brass bust of them. Schotz insisted that Pinchas should be holding something in his hand and, knowing that Esta was immensely fond of rings, designed an Adam & Eve ring for the purpose. The finished work was unveiled to mark their first wedding anniversary as the centrepiece of an exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy on Princes Street.
Unveiling the bust with Benno Schotz, 23rd April 1954. Paul is holding the ring in his hand.Returning to the events of 1953, it was while her Prince Paul was still incarcerated that the other event took place that garnered national reporting for Esta; she was robbed! Perhaps she had been distracted by the events surrounding Paul’s case, but she allowed herself to be taken in by a group of well-organised confidence tricksters posing as American buyers. Having taken the time and effort to establish her routines and build up a rapport with her, they arranged a distraction and took their chance to steal jewellery that she valued at £20,000 from a lock box, £320 and $600 in cash and the pass books for her life savings. Esta told the press that amongst the items stolen was an amethyst fob which had once been part of the Hungarian crown jewels. Bits and pieces of the loot turned up in sale rooms afterwards and she was forced to buy them back at half of what the other dealer had paid for them; she was not impressed. The police eventually caught up with her trio of robbers due to their amateurish attempts to pass her stolen valuables off to on an antique dealer for far less than their actual worth. Roy Fontaine got 4 years for theft, Arthur Wooton 3 years for reset and George Ross-Wham had already been jailed on a separate offence by the time his sentencing came up. Fontaine was a career jewel thief, confidence trickster and blackmailer but Esta had found him charming and visited him in jail. She left money for him to try and start up a better life after he was released. This he tried, but it was not to be. It turned out that she may have gotten off lightly from Fontaine’s gang; he was actually the Glaswegian Archibald Hall who gained notoriety some 20 years later as a serial killer who the press dubbed the Monster Butler. His modus operandi was robbing and killing wealthy elderly and high-profile clients that he had worked his charm on to gain work as a butler. He was sentenced to life without parole in 1978.
Archibald Hall being taken to Jail, Daily Record, May 1978Esta Henry would have one last high-profile adventure before settling down to a quieter married life keeping shop with Paul. In 1954 the Egyptian Junta let it be known that they were auctioning off part of the personal collection of art and objets accumulated by the now deposed King Farouk at the state’s expense. She told the press she was determined to bag herself a bargain and flew to Cairo to the auction at the Koubbeh Palace; they were there at Turnhouse Airport to wave her off. In Egypt, when the Sotheby’s auctioneer initially announced the lots only in French and Arabic she interrupted to protest – “English was good enough for Shakespeare, it should be good enough for these people”. He yielded to her request and began to also announce the lots in English. She next stopped proceedings to ask an Egyptian army major to bring her some tea; tea was brought. When asked not to smoke she refused and instead asked for one of King Farouk’s diamond-studded, gold ashtrays – an auction lot – be brought to her.
Esta Henry, glasses in hand, berates the auctioneer yet again. The other bidders seem much amused. Sphere, 20th March 1954She eventually brought the proceedings into complete farce by repeatedly protesting when, at the behest of the Egyptian organisers, multiple auction lots were withdrawn, joint lots were split up and opening bids were significantly above the catalogue reserve price. The other bidders, and indeed the Sotheby’s auctioneers, were actually on her side – they too were less than impressed with how the sale was being conducted. When she eventually walked out, labelling the Egyptians “a bunch of twisters”, a number of fellow dealers followed her out. She was chased into the car park by the auctioneer and a senior Egyptian officer who begged her to return. Realising she had made her point, she acquiesced, and went back into the sale room where she publicly hugged and kissed the astonished auctioneer. She now stopped making a nuisance of herself and got down to the business of buying, eventually spending some £15,000 (c. £360,000 in 2025). She allowed herself one last moment of pantomime when, outbid on a 16th century Scottish clock, did jump up, grab the item from the auctioneer’s desk and announce to all that it was Scottish, she was Scottish and “I am going to have it!”. Her delighted fellow buyers let her have it. When she returned home, the gossip columnists and society magazines were waiting and she told them she was left with only the 2/6d in her pocket having spent the rest in Egypt. Her treasures arrived at the end of the following month, and she was met by both the press and by Customs to assess the haul.
Esta and Paul Henry demonstrate one of the Egyptian auction items to a customs officer and the press. Sunday Post, 2nd May 1954Esta and Paul Henry spent a happy decade together behind the counter at 51 High Street surrounded by the antiques and art that had brought them together. Esta through numerous exhibitions at Moubray House and contributed rare pieces to others. She began to form plans to perhaps leave the house and the best parts of her collection to the nation. In 1960 a fellow Edinburgh antique dealer told the press that they probably had the best collection in the country inside their shop. For their 10th wedding anniversary the couple decided to take a long overdue honeymoon and booked a round the world trip, perhaps to acquire yet more pieces or perhaps with a view to scouting out somewhere warm to retire to.
Copy of Esta Henry’s entry card into Brazil, issued by the Consul General in London on 10th December 1962It was for this reason that they were in Sao Paulo, en route to Rio de Janiero on January 15th when Serviços Aéreos Cruzeiro do Sul Flight 144 came down shortly after takeoff, killing them both. The long reign of the Queen of the High Street was over and the Brazilian authorities had her buried together with her Prince in Sao Paulo. Back home her vast collection of treasure that formed the bulk of her estate was split up and sold off. Her shop became home to a succession of trinket and tourist businesses but her flat above fared better, remaining in the care of the Cockburn association before being restored by a wealthy American benefactor and in 2012 gifted to the nation under the care of Historic Environment Scotland.
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The thread about Esta Henry; the life and times of the Queen of the High Street
On this day (January 15th) in 1963, a small silver airliner with 45 people on board took off from Sao Paulo in Brazil en route for Rio de Janeiro. Moments later it plunged into the ground in the city’s suburbs, taking with it 13 lives. The last victim to be identified was that of Esta Henry, a renowned and somewhat eccentric Edinburgh antiques dealer; her husband Paul was at her side and perished too. Thus ended the final chapter in the colourful life of the lady the papers called the Queen of the High Street. Her surprising story now follows.
Serviços Aéreos Cruzeiro do Sul Convair 340 aircraft, registration PP-CDW, the plane that crashed in January 1963. CC-by Smithsonian InstitutionShe was born Esther Louis on July 3rd 1882 in Sunderland, County Durham, to Louie Louis and his wife Eveline (née Jackson). Her parents were Jewish, her father a 1st generation Prussian immigrant and her mother 2nd generation to Dutch and German parents. Like many Jews in Britain at this time, to integrate and protect themselves somewhat from anti-Semitism, they altered their names; Louie and Evelina were thus better known as John and Eva. He worked variously as a cobbler, a clothier and an auctioneer and the family moved frequently with his work between Sunderland and Scotland. The family moved to 2 Jane Street in Leith in 1884 where Louie opened an auction room in the Kirkgate. Alas tragedy was to strike the following year. When Esta was just 2 her father died from fever and pneumonia leaving his wife with 7 hungry mouths to feed and another on the way.
Esta’s immediate family tree.Evelina and her entourage of children gravitated back to Wearside where she remarried in 1889 to Charles Goldman, a pawnbroker. Four half-siblings to Esta would follow and at the time of the 1891 census the enlarged family stayed in a small but prim end-terraced house at 4 Sorley Street in Sunderland. In her own telling of her story at this age the 9 year old Esta ran off to variously Edinburgh or Leith and sold door-to-door by barrow or bicycle to eke out a living, but we should take this with a very large pinch of salt as the records contradict the story and she made a habit of tweaking and embellishing tales of her life to suit circumstances. In 1901 they were at 12 Rutland Street in Sunderland, living above the family pawnbrokers. The 18 year old Esta was described as a General Dealer in the census; she was running a corner shop.
Rutland Street, Sunderland, 1929. Number 12, the Goldman shop and house is at the end of the row with the canopy, if you look very closes the pawnbroker’s sign is in the Goldman name. via Sunderland Antiquarian SocietyBut Esta did not stay put for much longer, by the next year we find her living at 156 Canongate in Edinburgh. Shortly thereafter she married a 25 year old jeweller, Jack H. Henry of 30 Milton Street. But like her Father, Esta’s new husband was using an alias; he was actually born Joseph Henry Abrovich in Łódź, Poland. It suited him to keep details of his past deliberately obscure; he spent his life giving different dates (between 1869-79) and places of birth in official documents and was most frequently recorded as John but sometimes also Jacob. But he married Esta as Jack. His mysteriousness was necessary as he was leading a double life; he was actually a talented concert violinist, a member of the touring orchestra of Polish piano impresario Ignacy Paderewski (who would rise to become Prime Minister of his country). Jack had skipped town in Dublin when on tour in the 1890s in order to avoid returning home to compulsory military service for the Russian Empire. It was also a difficult time for the Polish Jews in general as they faced the Russian Pogroms and waves were emigrating west. Thus he ended up in Scotland; possibly via Glasgow where there were already Abrovichs resident.
“Jack H. Henry.” Juliette Bird, via AncestryEsta and Jack settled at the tenement at 170 Canongate and soon opened a jewellery shop below at number 168. They moved into the back of the shop and began to raise a family together. Louis (Lou) was born in 1903, Philip (Philly) in 1904, Herbert (Bertie) in 1906 and Rosa (Rose) in 1908. While the Canongate was a down at heel neighbourhood at the time, one with much slum housing and a largely itinerant population that included many of the city’s poor and immigrants, they were doing well for themselves and advertised for a servant – “apply Mrs Henry” – in the newspapers.
Canongate in the late 19th century. On the left is the tower and clock of the Tolbooth, on the right the distinctive obelisk-topped gate piers of Moray House. The Henry shop and home is the lighter coloured tenement on the right hand side of the street. Beyond is the projecting gable of Huntly House; it is a neighbourhood steeped in Scottish history. Postcard, unknown artist. CC-by-NC National Galleries ScotlandAs they prospered, raising 3 children in the back of a shop ceased to be a necessity and they moved to a smart new, end-of-terrace, middle class villa at 1 Lismore Avenue in Willowbrae. It was here in 1918 that their ranks were joined by the birth of Henrietta (Bunty). 1914 saw them relocate the shope up the Royal Mile to number 51 High Street, next to the well know building known as John Knox’s House. This was the ground floor of Moubray House, one of the oldest surviving residential buildings in the city, where Daniel Defoe had once lodged. It had recently been restored by the Cockburn Association and placed in the hands of a trust. Despite raising 4 children, Esta was clearly becoming more involved in the affairs of business as classified adverts are in the name of both her and Jack. By 1920 she is styling herself “Mrs Henry, Antique Dealer” in these.
“Unidentified Man and Children”, Alexander Wilson Hill, c. 1933. This the shop at 51 High Street and it is probably Jack Henry standing outside. CC-by-NC National Galleries ScotlandThe 1921 census finds the family have moved on and up in the housing world again, now at a very large villa at 15 Mayfield Terrace in Newington. Louis Henry was following his father into the jewellery trade and Philip was training to become a dentist. Life was good but it was about to get better. In 1923 the Scottish newspapers reported the surprise visit of Queen Mary to the Henrys’ shop, where she spent an hour and bought many items, particularly Chinese curios. She was “greatly interested with both the collection and the premises” and shook hands with Esta and Jack as she left, promising to return. Her Majesty was true to her word and returned exactly one year later, buying “a score of articles” including a Louis XIV fan that had once belonged to Queen Victoria. She signed the visitors’ book and said that her purchases the previous year had been gifted to the West Kensington Museum.
Queen Mary leaving Henry’s on one of her many visits. Postcard, unknown artist. Via Canmore, SC 2649474 © Courtesy HESThe Queen was back again a year later, with over a dozen items bought, including a portrait believed to have been the property of Napoleon. The Henrys were invited to deliver the items in person to Holyroodhouse that afternoon and join the Queen for tea. They learned that some of the purchases were to stay there at the palace as part of its collection. The Queen thereafter returned almost every year on her visits to Holyrood, the newspapers reporting the purchase of items in 1927 and 1930 for Buckingham Palace and her personal collection. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, Princes Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II) and her sister Queen Margaret would carry on this royal tradition in later years and a whole section of wall in the shop was reserved for the display of their proudly framed cheques.
As the Roaring Twenties came to a close, Esta’s public profile was ascendant but Jack seems to have begun to step back somewhat from the limelight and into the shadows of the shop. In 1928 she stood for election to the Parish Council in the Canongate ward. Although she came second, there were two seats up for grabs and she was duly returned. Her election notices are the first time in print I could find where she is referring to herself as Esta, rather than just Mrs Henry. Her election was notable as she was the first Jewish woman to be elected to a public office in Scotland and also the press referred to her as Councillor Mrs Esta Henry, other married female councillors were referred to by their husband’s name, e.g Councillor Mrs Adam Millar. This is a public demonstration that she was very much her own woman.
Candidate picture of Esta Henry, Evening News, 7th November 1928The following year civic Parish Councils in Scotland – which existed largely for the purposes of poor relief – were abolished and merged into the Town Councils. Esta stood as an independent for this latter body in 1929 but came 4th behind two Socialists and a Moderate candidate. She would stand again for the Town Council in 1931, 1933 and 1935. She made very clear in her election speeches, which were reported in the press, that her priorities were housing, housewives, child welfare and the treatment of the sick and poor. Women and children were always central to her campaigns and she was known to mobilise squads of them in the Canongate to carry her election materials and to parade around the polling stations. But despite her strenuous campaign efforts on a sensible platform, her public profile and her local popularity, as an independent female candidate she stood little realistic chance of election. Edinburgh was run by the very pale, male and stale Moderates who largely owned the Council’s seats – many of which they didn’t even need to contest – and it was only in a handful of wards where the Socialists could challenge them (to find out more about the political groupings of 20th century Edinburgh and how the election system worked, you can bookmark this thread to read later).
In between election campaigns and royal visits, in 1933 the Henrys commissioned a magnificent L-plan house in a Dutch Cape Colonial style that also incorporated the latest in Moderne tastes. This was Marchdyke at 50 Pentland Terrace on the outskirts of the city’s growing suburbs and it totally eclipsed the monotonous rows of middle class bungalows that were much in favour all around it. Completed in 1935 this 4,000 square foot, 5 bedroom residence featured a Tudorbethan dining room, copious lounge and parlour, a terrazzo bathroom in a Roman style and in the basement a large garage for Jack’s cars, a wine cellar and antiques store. While many of the windows were in an ultra-fashionable fish scale style, the stained glass of the master staircase incorporated original 16th century Swiss and German panes from their collection.
Marchdyke, now known as Huntersmoon. Wilson Property Group, 2022 Property Listing – click here to see an archived copy with the full album of photos.In the 1935 Town Council election, Esta had come third behind the Socialist Party candidate and another from the Protestant Action Society (PA). This party were extreme anti-Catholics who stood on a platform of “No Popery”. Their leader was the rabble-rouser John Cormack and his political stock was rising at the time. In 1934 his party got just 6% of the popular vote in the Edinburgh municipal elections and 1 seat; in 1935 they got 21% and 3 seats. The exact order of following events are not clear but at the 1936 election Esta was already intending to stand once again on her usual independent platform. John Cormack made it be known in the press that he was inclined to lend his support to her in the Canongate (where many Catholic Irish and Italians lived). Perhaps it was a case of “if you can’t beat them, join them“, but with just a week to go before polling, Esta Henry made the shock announcement that she was now standing as a Protestant Action candidate – “the Only Party who do Not Want R. C. Votes“. So late was this change that even on the eve of election some of the papers still reported her as an independent. She topped the ballot, beating PA’s primary candidate, and was duly elected as a Town Councillor at the 5th attempt. It was a good year for PA, they got 31% of the popular vote and won 6 seats. Indeed it was their apogee and they soon slumped into bitter infighting and electoral obscurity, leaving just John Cormack to solider on for decades as their only councillor.
Election adverts, Evening News, 31st October 1936It’s never been clear just how committed Esta was to her new found political home – she certainly threw herself into public meetings on its behalf for a while, it being reported that she would stroll up and down the aisle, brandishing her umbrella at the audience. Realistically she may just have been desperate to get elected and chose the only other party than the Progressives (as the Moderates had re-branded) or Socialists with any chance of winning a seat. John Cormack was strongly criticised from within his own ranks for allowing a Jewish woman to stand on his platform – indeed much later in 1952 he organised pickets against her for suggesting public entertainments on Sundays at public meetings. She did not linger too long under his party whip and had resigned before the 1938 elections. She may have been made very uneasy with the association after a tumultuous public meeting in October 1937 in the Canongate Tolbooth. At this, her male PA colleague refused to answer questions directly and instead railed against Catholics to the boos and heckles of the crowd. Esta tried to make clear that she was there to fight the Socialists in politics but the audience deemed her guilty by association and turned on her too. Thereafter, she dedicated herself thereafter to public service for the Canongate in her own name. She would rise to become Convenor of the Baths and Washhouses Committee, a member of the Cleansing and Lighting Committee, the Streets and Buildings Committee and in 1941 was made JP (a Justice of the Peace, a lay magistrate in the lowest level of municipal courts).
Esta Henry commands the floor at a political meeting. Evening News, 8th February 1940Esta found that her official role as a councillor fitted well alongside her personal philanthropic activities and she long described herself publicly as a Social Worker in the Canongate (although she frequently embellished the timescales somewhat). In 1931 she had formed the Edinburgh United Independent Association in the Canongate to run youth projects and raise money for the city’s Royal Infirmary hospital. Her attitudes were quite progressive and she recognised the need and value for activities and exercise for her district’s youth to keep them from being led astray and getting into trouble and for their general health. She was heavily involved in the Canon Club for Boys and Girls and formed an amateur dramatic society there.
The youth of the Canongate ward is my special care… I want to mother the young people – I have done it all my days – and to impress them with the same spirit that I have myself… Never to let go, to hold on to the good things of life, because they will be rewarded in the end, the same as I have been.
Esta Henry, 1936
She also put her money where her mouth was and provided trophies for local clubs. In 1936 she presented the first of many Esta Henry Cups to the men of the Trinity College and Moray Knox Club on Cranston Street, an organisation formed for unemployed men. It was for the man who scored highest in their games league of dominoes, billiards, draughts and other pastimes with which they occupied their enforced idleness. Another such cup was presented to the local Caledonian Football Club. In November 1937, the Lord Provost gave her a leave of absence from her duties to travel officially to South Africa, where she was to spend two and a half months investigating working class housing and town planning on behalf of the city. He provided her with letters of introduction but they probably weren’t necessary, she apparently owned a fruit farm in the country and her son Phillie had settled there as a dentist! On her return she reported back that she had “travelled many hundreds of miles by air” but that it turned out things in Scotland were far more advanced and better organised for the poor than they were in South Africa! At this time she was also becoming increasingly involved with the Scottish Old Age Pensioners Association, becoming a local committee member, and in 1939 she and the Lady Provost threw a Christmas dinner for its members in the Canongate Tolbooth.
Esta Henry (2nd left, in the beret) and the Lady Provost give a Christmas Dinner to the elderly of the Canongate in the Tolbooth. Evening News, December 22nd 1939The year 1939 also brought the clouds of war to the High Street and municipal elections were suspended for the duration. As an incumbent councillor at the end of her 3 year term, Esta would have faced re-election in November that year. She now found herself with an extra six uncontested years added to her term of office and intended to make the most of this chance. She applied her single-minded determination, boundless energy and never-ending appetite for meetings and committees to the task at hand. And so it was that Councillor Esta Henry went to war. Interviewed shortly after the outbreak, she told the People’s Journal that there was no need to conscript women to the war effort as she had not met a woman in Edinburgh “who is not prepared to do whatsoever she is called upon to do“.
People’s Journal, 16th September 1939One of her first acts, on behalf of the Scottish Old Age Pensioners Association, was to campaign for government allowances for women dependent on the wages of their sons where these men had now been called up. In the Canongate she joined the local ARP (Air Raid Precautions civil defence force), turned her shop basement into an air raid shelter (her name is against it in the Valuation Rolls) and established a corps of 40 local women to act as fire pickets. Later, the Esta Henry Ambulance Section first aiders were also formed. She was soon putting on social events to help finance these activities and found herself placed in charge of the Entertainments Committee of the Lady Provost’s Comforts Fund. This latter organisation started out with the simple of aim of knitting kilt socks for soldiers of the Highland Regiments, as had been done in the 1914-18 conflict. Esta organised bridge parties to raise funds for buying the wool and offered up her house of Marchdyke as a suitable venue. In the Canongate she formed the local women in to work parties in the Tolbooth meeting hall, and arranged free entertainments to keep them amused as they knitted the socks. Soon she was organising mass balls; in February 1940 some 600 dancers packed out the Plaza dancehall in Morningside in a charity gala. At the Eldorado dancehall in Leith though it wasn’t dancing that she put on but boxing, a sport new to her but one that she had fallen in love with. There was nothing that she would not turn her attention to in the name of raising funds; charity auctions, raising pigs and Warship Week where she matched every £1 bond bought at a public rally with £1 of her own.
Esta Henry feeding pigs she was raising for charity sale. Evening News, 26th April 1940Increasingly in the city centre on her ceaseless war work, getting to and from Marchdyke must have been proving an inconvenience as in 1941 she took possession of the flat in Moubray House above the shop and fitted it out as her own residence. She was also keen to demonstrate that old houses in the High Street could be rehabilitated for use without demolishing them. At the end of that year she paid for 800 local children to go to the cinema as a Hogmanay treat, a special programme being put on for them at the New Palace on the High Street. At the end of this screening she had new years resolutions projected onto the screen and had her audience promise en masse to be good children while their fathers were away and to help contribute to the war effort. 1942 saw the institution of the city Corporation’s Holidays at Home programme; municipal entertainments to keep people and children occupied over the summer holidays and try and reduce the temptation to travel. Esta organised outdoor public dances at the Ross Bandstand in Princes Street Gardens which were put on for 2 hours every Monday to Friday afternoon, admission 6d on the gate. She herself led off the first dance with the Lord Provost and was a regular attendee, encouraging and cajoling shy young men to get themselves a partner and join in.
Wartime dancing at the Ross Bandstand in 1945. Evening News photo, from “Living Memories” by Jennifer VeitchThere was more dancing organised by Esta Henry in 1943, as well as cycle racing at Meadowbank, mass picnics for mothers and children and – as Baths & Washhouses Committee Convenor – she arranged for Portobello outdoor swimming pool to be re-opened (some of its machinery had been removed for war use and the rest had fallen into disrepair) so that charity swimming and water polo galas could be held (the awards being more Esta Henry Cups). This also meant children and youths could go swimming in the holidays again – she was well aware that with many fathers away on service and mothers occupied with war work at home, juvenile delinquency as a result of bored children being left to their own devices was a real problem. At the end of that year she spoke at a meeting to form the East Edinburgh Anti-Fascist Committe when it was announced that British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Moseley had been released from jail.
In 1944 she instituted a scheme whereby service personnel in the city and groups of school children were invited to the City Chambers to attend meetings of the Town Councils as her guest. They watched the proceedings and afterwards could question her and other members about the mechanics of local government; she wanted to show how the Home Front was functioning, to connect people with the municipal authorities and to raise awareness of the acute difficulties faced by it at this time. That summer she pressed the Corporation to make the city’s now unnecessary civil defence resources available to house evacuee children from London in the face of the new V1 and later V2 terror bombing. Although the idea garnered wide support it ultimately came to nothing and she would latter press the city to instead give away its accumulated surplus of bunk beds, mattresses and blankets for free to those in need.
With the end of the war finally coming into sight she now turned her attention to the post war prospects. With the Rev. Selby Weight of Canongate Kirk she held public meetings for the Canongate Welcome Home Service Fund to plan for the reintegration of demobbed service personnel and provide comforts and necessities for them and their families. She joined the local Women for Westminster branch to try and get a woman MP elected for the city and repeatedly went on the record that providing for youths and children had to be central to the city’s postwar planning and foresaw the coming housing crisis in the Old Town (it had of course always been there to an extent, but it was about to get very acute). “My slogan is houses and more houses – housing priority!” she said, but she was also clear that it had to be done by reconstruction of existing communities, not by swinging the wrecking ball and scattering them to all the corners of the city. She also took a great interest in Portobello and joined a local campaign to improve the district after the war. Always one to put her money where her mouth was, at her own expense she commissioned plans and artists’ impressions for a scheme to turn “Edinburgh’s ugly sister” into a fashionable new sea-side resort and Garden City. This wasn’t just pie-in-the-sky thinking, she successfully proposed it to the city authorities who had it approved by the Lord Provost’s Committee and included in Sir Patrick Abercrombie’s 1949 “Plan for the City and Royal Burgh of Edinburgh” (you will find it on page 69 in glorious technicolour but with little additional detail). The realities of postwar economics and political priorities meant however that it would never get beyond the pages of that work.
Artist’s impression of Esta Henry’s scheme for post-war Portobello. Evening News, September 18th 1945As the war drew to its close Esta found time to join yet one more committee, that of the League of Angry Wives. These were Scottish women who had married American servicemen and as “G.I. brides” wanted the right to join their husbands in that country. A resolution was passed and representations were sent directly to President Truman – by letter – and the First Lady – by telegram. A week later, Esta henry defended her seat, which she had now held for 9 years, at the ballot box but the winds of political change blew hard and she was comprehensively defeated by Labour candidates. This was despite her being presented with a pair of boxing gloves by her supporters and urged to “go on fighting“. After further defeats at the 1946 and 1947 elections she stepped back finally from politics, but not from life!
Esta Henry addresses the League of Angry Wives, Daily Record, October 29th 1945In 1946 and 1947 she was a key organiser with the Scottish Housewives Association in an Edinburgh and Fife-based campaign against bread rationing. This culminated in her and Janet Neish of Kirkcaldy chasing the Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Trade out of the North British Hotel and across the street to his car as he sought to avoid the combined fury of their sharp tongues! Never one to turn down a committee, she was also elected as the President of the Edinburgh branch of that organisation. 1947 had however started on a sad note for her as Jack Henry finally succumbed to long-term heart disease, leaving her a widow. It was around this time that the house at Marchdyke was sold. But Esta showed no signs of retiring from life to mourn and threw herself instead to yet another new activity; women’s football. She became the director of the Edinburgh Lady Dynamos, a team formed from core members of successful pre-war teams when the women’s game had enjoyed a brief spell of public popularity. Donating another Esta Henry Trophy to the cause it was likely that she paid for their kits too and she could be relied upon to turn her formidable oratory power at the authorities when they refused to allow the women to play in public grounds.
Edinburgh Lady Dynamos football team, late 1940s. CC-by-SA-NC 0084-003, via Edinburgh Collected.
Back row L-R is Esta Henry, Kitty Russell, Betty Rae, Agnes Whitelaw, Theresa Mulvie, goalkeeper Jessie Baillie, Nan Laurie, Babs McWhinney and Walter Caesar. Front row L-R is Eleanor Wilson, Betty Davidson (?), Linda Clements, Mary Leslie, Bet Adamson.She had long been a local celebrity but in the year 1953, Esta Henry’s reputation went national on two accounts. Around the 27th of December 1952, a well dressed man entered her shop on the High Street and introduced himself as a Belgian art dealer, Paul Eugene Dillin. The pair quickly struck up a rapport and he soon confided in her that his identity was a front; he was actually a stateless Romanian Jew by the name of Pinchas Haimovici and had spent two and a half years in hiding in the Netherlands during the war. As he refused to sign a national oath pledging himself to Communism he was exiled from his country of birth and had no papers. It was at the recommendation of the renowned sculptor Benno Schotz, a prominent member of the Scottish Jewish community and whose wife came from the same village as him, that he had come to Edinburgh seeking art. Esta fell in love with the man then and there, despite an age gap of 21 years between them, and proposed to him on the condition that he took the name Henry. When he accepted she threw his fake passport on the fire and urged him to turn himself in and seek asylum so that they could be legally wed.
Pinchas and Esta, Associated Press, 27th April 1953Pinchas and Esta, Associated Press, 27th April 1953Esta perhaps imagined naïvely that her reputation and connections would make it a mere formality and booked the couple a honeymoon trip to Madeira. However when the police were invited to the shop they instead charged Pinchas with offences for landing illegally in the country on false papers under the Aliens Act 1920 and he was sent to Saughton Prison. On December 31st he pled guilty at the Sheriff Court in Edinburgh and was remanded for sentencing, which was deferred to give his solicitor a chance to arrange an application for Israeli papers and asylum so that he could travel there instead of being deported. After the hearing, Esta told the waiting reporters that she still intended to marry her “Prince Paul” (Paul Haemovitz was another alias he had used) but that she was going to go on the Honeymoon trip to Maderia anyway by herself as the stress of events would otherwise give her a stroke; the reporter noted that she was smoking at the time and confided she had smoked 100 already that day. The case rumbled on and on, the Israelis were being slow with the papers as apparently there was another Pinchas Haimovici on an Interpol watch-list, despite this being a common name in Romania, and he had to prove it was not him. The Sheriff in Edinburgh grew tired of the repeated delays and on March 13th 1953 he ordered Pinchas’ release. But no sooner had he left the courtroom than he found himself re-arrested; the Home Secretary Sir David Maxwell Fyfe had finally signed a deportation order for him and he was sent straight back to Saughton. Esta told a waiting reporter from the Daily Mirror that if he was to be deported to Romania then she would join him there; “I’m only seventy, and fit enough to crash any of Stalin’s curtains”.
Pinchas petitioned the High Court in Edinburgh to avoid deportation and his case was heard on April 10th. As a declared anti-communist he told the court that he faced “torture and death” if returned to Romania. He also asked leave from court to marry Esta (who waved the papers she had ready to the court), but this request and his protests over his captivity fell on deaf ears and the case was adjourned. Back to Saughton Prison he went were Esta, with her lawyer Lionel Daiches, continued to visit him and made a habit of finding her way uninvited into the Governor’s office to protest more directly. The case was now being reported across the national and regional British newspapers and had become quite embarrassing for the Government. And so it was that the Home Secretary cancelled his previous order and on Friday 24th April 1953 Pinchas Haimovici was released and met by Esta with a pony and trap to drive him home and a brass band she had hired to serenade his freedom. The couple announced that they were to be married on the Monday morning and after a brief registry office ceremony, so they were. Esta insisted that they returned immediately to the shop to re-open for business but outside they were met by an immense crowd of well-wishers who lifted her into the air as they cheered for her and her husband. She lost her shoes in the process and the police had to attend to find the couple a path through the throng.
Esta and Pinchas are met by jubilant crowds of well-wishers in Hunter Square after their marriage. Daily Mirror, April 28th 1953The crowd followed them all the way back to the shop where they posed for the press and thanked their well-wishers while Esta fumbled through the 20 different keys she kept for the various locks on the premises. They were back behind the counter and at work within an hour of their ceremony starting. The next day they took a taxi out to Saughton Prison and thanked the warders with wedding cake and champagne, Pinchas let the press know that they had treated him very kindly. A few days later he formally changed his name to Paul Henry in line with Esta’s prenuptial wishes.
Pinchas and Esta re-open the shop after wedding, Associated Press, 27th April 1953To celebrate their union and to thank Benno Schotz for helping bring them together they commissioned him to produce a brass bust of them. Schotz insisted that Pinchas should be holding something in his hand and, knowing that Esta was immensely fond of rings, designed an Adam & Eve ring for the purpose. The finished work was unveiled to mark their first wedding anniversary as the centrepiece of an exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy on Princes Street.
Unveiling the bust with Benno Schotz, 23rd April 1954. Paul is holding the ring in his hand.Returning to the events of 1953, it was while her Prince Paul was still incarcerated that the other event took place that garnered national reporting for Esta; she was robbed! Perhaps she had been distracted by the events surrounding Paul’s case, but she allowed herself to be taken in by a group of well-organised confidence tricksters posing as American buyers. Having taken the time and effort to establish her routines and build up a rapport with her, they arranged a distraction and took their chance to steal jewellery that she valued at £20,000 from a lock box, £320 and $600 in cash and the pass books for her life savings. Esta told the press that amongst the items stolen was an amethyst fob which had once been part of the Hungarian crown jewels. Bits and pieces of the loot turned up in sale rooms afterwards and she was forced to buy them back at half of what the other dealer had paid for them; she was not impressed. The police eventually caught up with her trio of robbers due to their amateurish attempts to pass her stolen valuables off to on an antique dealer for far less than their actual worth. Roy Fontaine got 4 years for theft, Arthur Wooton 3 years for reset and George Ross-Wham had already been jailed on a separate offence by the time his sentencing came up. Fontaine was a career jewel thief, confidence trickster and blackmailer but Esta had found him charming and visited him in jail. She left money for him to try and start up a better life after he was released. This he tried, but it was not to be. It turned out that she may have gotten off lightly from Fontaine’s gang; he was actually the Glaswegian Archibald Hall who gained notoriety some 20 years later as a serial killer who the press dubbed the Monster Butler. His modus operandi was robbing and killing wealthy elderly and high-profile clients that he had worked his charm on to gain work as a butler. He was sentenced to life without parole in 1978.
Archibald Hall being taken to Jail, Daily Record, May 1978Esta Henry would have one last high-profile adventure before settling down to a quieter married life keeping shop with Paul. In 1954 the Egyptian Junta let it be known that they were auctioning off part of the personal collection of art and objets accumulated by the now deposed King Farouk at the state’s expense. She told the press she was determined to bag herself a bargain and flew to Cairo to the auction at the Koubbeh Palace; they were there at Turnhouse Airport to wave her off. In Egypt, when the Sotheby’s auctioneer initially announced the lots only in French and Arabic she interrupted to protest – “English was good enough for Shakespeare, it should be good enough for these people”. He yielded to her request and began to also announce the lots in English. She next stopped proceedings to ask an Egyptian army major to bring her some tea; tea was brought. When asked not to smoke she refused and instead asked for one of King Farouk’s diamond-studded, gold ashtrays – an auction lot – be brought to her.
Esta Henry, glasses in hand, berates the auctioneer yet again. The other bidders seem much amused. Sphere, 20th March 1954She eventually brought the proceedings into complete farce by repeatedly protesting when, at the behest of the Egyptian organisers, multiple auction lots were withdrawn, joint lots were split up and opening bids were significantly above the catalogue reserve price. The other bidders, and indeed the Sotheby’s auctioneers, were actually on her side – they too were less than impressed with how the sale was being conducted. When she eventually walked out, labelling the Egyptians “a bunch of twisters”, a number of fellow dealers followed her out. She was chased into the car park by the auctioneer and a senior Egyptian officer who begged her to return. Realising she had made her point, she acquiesced, and went back into the sale room where she publicly hugged and kissed the astonished auctioneer. She now stopped making a nuisance of herself and got down to the business of buying, eventually spending some £15,000 (c. £360,000 in 2025). She allowed herself one last moment of pantomime when, outbid on a 16th century Scottish clock, did jump up, grab the item from the auctioneer’s desk and announce to all that it was Scottish, she was Scottish and “I am going to have it!”. Her delighted fellow buyers let her have it. When she returned home, the gossip columnists and society magazines were waiting and she told them she was left with only the 2/6d in her pocket having spent the rest in Egypt. Her treasures arrived at the end of the following month, and she was met by both the press and by Customs to assess the haul.
Esta and Paul Henry demonstrate one of the Egyptian auction items to a customs officer and the press. Sunday Post, 2nd May 1954Esta and Paul Henry spent a happy decade together behind the counter at 51 High Street surrounded by the antiques and art that had brought them together. Esta through numerous exhibitions at Moubray House and contributed rare pieces to others. She began to form plans to perhaps leave the house and the best parts of her collection to the nation. In 1960 a fellow Edinburgh antique dealer told the press that they probably had the best collection in the country inside their shop. For their 10th wedding anniversary the couple decided to take a long overdue honeymoon and booked a round the world trip, perhaps to acquire yet more pieces or perhaps with a view to scouting out somewhere warm to retire to.
Copy of Esta Henry’s entry card into Brazil, issued by the Consul General in London on 10th December 1962It was for this reason that they were in Sao Paulo, en route to Rio de Janiero on January 15th when Serviços Aéreos Cruzeiro do Sul Flight 144 came down shortly after takeoff, killing them both. The long reign of the Queen of the High Street was over and the Brazilian authorities had her buried together with her Prince in Sao Paulo. Back home her vast collection of treasure that formed the bulk of her estate was split up and sold off. Her shop became home to a succession of trinket and tourist businesses but her flat above fared better, remaining in the care of the Cockburn association before being restored by a wealthy American benefactor and in 2012 gifted to the nation under the care of Historic Environment Scotland.
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Continuing with adventures I, personally, hadn’t read through from previous editions, and also continuing our trend of looking at the UK series of adventures, our next adventure is Beyond the Crystal Cave. While the plot doesn’t directly follow any one story, there are some elements in this adventure borrowed from Shakespear, most notably with the NPCs the group is hired to find, with their feuding families and forbidden love. While I knew about the AD&D 1e version of the adventure, I only recently realized that this adventure was adapted for a season of D&D Encounters during the D&D 4e era.
As with the previous adventure, I can’t speak to what has been changed from the original, other than what the adventure itself notes. The original lovers who created the Eternal Garden were originally male and female presenting characters, and for this adventure, both original lovers that created The Eternal Garden are women. The archfey that appears in this adventure, the Gardener, was originally The Green Man, a character from real world folk lore.
Original Credits for Beyond the Crystal Cave
Design and Development: David J. Browne, Tom Kirby, Graeme Morris
Editing: Tom Kirby, Carole Morris, Graeme Morris, Don Turnbull
Art: De Leuw, Timothy Truman
Cartography: Graeme Morris
Playtesting: Jim Bambra, Jeanette Blaaser, Clive F. Booth, Michael W. Brunton, Chris Hall, Bill Howard, Kate Kirby, Gary Kirkham, Steve Mote, Chris Rick, Dave Tant, Don Turnbull, Pat WhiteheadArtwork
There are 15 pieces of art in this chapter. This includes nine images drawn from encounters in the adventure, three maps, two-character portraits, and the image of the doorway leading to the adventure that appears on the Infinite Staircase. In addition to the artwork in this chapter, there is also a picture of the Gardener that appears in the stat block appendix to the book.
The opening portrait of the two lovers who originally created the garden is my favorite piece in the book so far. It features the two women in robes of green and purple, surrounded by flowers and greenery, in the company of a young centaur, a treant, and a pair of dryads.
The Framing Device
The wish that Nafas asks the PCs to facilitate is a plea from two formerly waring families to find and bring home their children, who fell in love and ran away from their home. If the PCs aren’t going to be working for Nafas, the suggested hooks include the PCs arriving at the island as part of another trip, or as survivors of a shipwreck, and being recruited by one of the family members. The other hook assumes that the PCs were old friends of the characters and have just learned about their disappearance.
The original adventure was set in Greyhawk, so it’s got a canonical location that the introduction mentions, but it gives suggestions for placing it in Dragonlance, Eberron, and Theros. I wasn’t expecting a Magic setting to be thrown in there, but I like the reference. I appreciate that the Eberron placement mentions the unique planar structure of that setting. The Dragonlance suggestion is to make the children inhabitants of two traditionally unfriendly nations, such as the Qualinesti and the Silvanesti elves, but honestly, make it a Neidar clan dwarf and a Hylar clan dwarf and expand your horizons.
Adventure Overview
Don’t get your heart set on reading through this review if you plan on being a player in this adventure, because there are spoilers on the horizon. Seek your heart’s desire elsewhere and come back to the blog later.
Once the PCs arrive on the isle of Sybarate, they are approached by Governor Folcarae, a member of one of the two formerly feuding families. She explains about the feud, the children running off, and that she has hired multiple adventurers over the past two years to find them. She’s hoping the PCs will have better luck. She gives the PCs their last known location, the Cave of Echoes.
Inside the Cave of Echoes, if the PCs speak too loudly, they get feedback in the form of thunder damage. If they determine that the word “ask” on the wall means something will happen when they ask for assistance, the cave will answer them, potentially gaining the results of up to an 8th level spell, including a response similar to a Divination spell if they ask a general question.
While most of this adventure is designed to be resolved without combat, the cave has a few creatures that can get vicious, including some mud elementals, an ooze, and some poltergeists. The far end of the cave has a portal to the Eternal Garden, where the PCs can find the lost lovers, but they need to find a way to tame the waterfall that’s raining down with enough force that it’s almost a solid wall. There isn’t one solution here, the key is for the PCs to have some kind of creative way of dealing with the waterfall to allow them to pass through it, with some examples provided.
Past the waterfall, the PCs find the portal to the Eternal Garden, which is now a Domain of Delight, a region of the Feywild controlled by an archfey. The PCs arrive in a fairy ring and have some leprechans they can interact with, who provide several limericks that give them clues about the rest of the domain. If you aren’t the type to be able to decipher clues, none of the clues are necessary, but they are helpful.
The PCs can encounter a bronze dragon, some dryads, satyrs, awakened bears, awakened toads, awakened otters, sprites, a treant, centaurs, unicorns, or a chimera. Each one of these encounters provides the PCs the opportunity to learn more about what may have happened to the lovers that ran away and may potentially learn that the inhabitants consider the lovers to be the reincarnation of the creators of the garden, so they’re pretty happy with them sticking around.
There is a location in this domain, the Fountain All Heal, which can provide the effects of spells like Greater Restoration or Heal. However, if you avail yourself of this fountain, you no longer want to leave the domain. The only exceptions are characters that are fey or have fey ancestry. The only way to remove this effect is via a Wish.
Since there isn’t much in the way of combat, unless the PCs are terrible people, there is one encounter where the PCs may be afflicted, and thus tempted to use the fountain. Creatures called barkburs inhabit a grove, and they can turn people affected by their toxin into wood.
Eventually the PCs run into the Gardener, who invites the PCs to sit with them for some refreshments. They may pick up the benefit of the Hero’s Feat spell now, and the Gardener will provide general answers about where the lovers may be, telling the PCs to navigate the Hedge Maze nearby to get more answers.
There is an ongoing puzzle seeded by the leprechauns that will point the PCs at collecting certain leaves. Various locations mention what leaves are available there, so if the PCs have picked up on the clue, they can start gathering what they need. We’ll come back to this.
The Hedge Maze, thankfully, isn’t about navigating an actual maze. Well, it is, but not one that the players must deal with. It takes a group ability check to navigate the maze, but they can also plow through the walls of the maze, if they don’t mind taking damage from the massive thorns that will pierce them as they barrel through. At the center of the maze is a sundial with impressions for different leaves that should be set in it, which will teleport the PCs into the Palace of Spires, where the runaway lovers currently live.
In addition to the lovers Juliana and Orlando, there is another couple, two guards who are also romantic partners, who will protect the palace, Juliana, and Orlando, if threatened. Juliana and Orlando don’t want to leave, because they have both been affected by the fountain. If the PCs find Caerwyn and Porphura’s tomb (the creators of the garden), and they are respectful, the inscription on the tomb instructs them that they can make a wish, which they can use to free anyone from the effects of the fountain. Once Orlando and Juliana are free, the PCs just need to explain that their families are no longer at war to get them to leave.
The PCs need more leaves to teleport back out of the palace courtyard, however, all of the NPCs that live in the palace have tokens of the leaves that can be used to activate the teleportation effect, and some of the NPCs are noted as having an additional set of the leaf tokens. Now, if they tried to raid the tomb, things go downhill. The PCs are confronted by the Gardner and banished from the domain, which changes from a pleasant summer land to a chilling winter domain.
Assuming the PCs don’t upset the Gardener, they can leave with Orlando and Juliana, return them to their families, and collect their reward.
Thoughts on Chapter 4: Beyond the Crystal Cave
I like having more options for adventures that lean more heavily on roleplaying and exploration, although you may want to know how much your party wants that content before you use this back-to-back with When a Star Falls. I am onboard with more archfey being introduced. I would love to have the same kind of diversity in archfey in D&D lore that we already have for creatures like demon lords, archdevils, archoelementals, etc. I wouldn’t mind seeing the literal Green Man as an archfey, since we’ve got lots of other examples of singular planar beings drawn from Earth’s folklore.
I don’t think the leprechaun’s limerick about the leaves is too difficult to follow, but since the leprechans have six total limericks, one of which doesn’t mean anything, and four of with are more foreshadowing then an actual riddle the PCs need to solve to advance the plot, I’m a little concerned about limerick overload and the PCs not knowing what is immediately useful and what isn’t. I appreciate that the PCs aren’t penalized if they don’t think to bring two sets of leaves, so they can leave the palace. I also like that you can blunt force the hedge maze if you don’t manage to navigate it with your group check.
I like all the little interactions with the various creatures that populate the domain. I appreciate the callback to some well-known faerie lore, i.e. its potentially dangerous to eat or drink in the fey realm. This was a fun read through, and I think I would enjoy running it. Ready to look at the next doorway!
If you don’t mind contributing to my ability to pick up new games, and you want to look at some of the history behind this adventure, you can use the affiliate links below. It’s much appreciated!
#33cccc #5eSRD #666699 #BeyondTheCrystalCave #DD #DD5e #dnd #DnD5e #DungeonsDragons #DungeonsDragons5e #DungeonsAndDragons #QuestsFromTheInfiniteStaircase #rpgs #TalesFromTheInfiniteStaircase #ttrpg #ttrpgs
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Continuing with adventures I, personally, hadn’t read through from previous editions, and also continuing our trend of looking at the UK series of adventures, our next adventure is Beyond the Crystal Cave. While the plot doesn’t directly follow any one story, there are some elements in this adventure borrowed from Shakespear, most notably with the NPCs the group is hired to find, with their feuding families and forbidden love. While I knew about the AD&D 1e version of the adventure, I only recently realized that this adventure was adapted for a season of D&D Encounters during the D&D 4e era.
As with the previous adventure, I can’t speak to what has been changed from the original, other than what the adventure itself notes. The original lovers who created the Eternal Garden were originally male and female presenting characters, and for this adventure, both original lovers that created The Eternal Garden are women. The archfey that appears in this adventure, the Gardener, was originally The Green Man, a character from real world folk lore.
Original Credits for Beyond the Crystal Cave
Design and Development: David J. Browne, Tom Kirby, Graeme Morris
Editing: Tom Kirby, Carole Morris, Graeme Morris, Don Turnbull
Art: De Leuw, Timothy Truman
Cartography: Graeme Morris
Playtesting: Jim Bambra, Jeanette Blaaser, Clive F. Booth, Michael W. Brunton, Chris Hall, Bill Howard, Kate Kirby, Gary Kirkham, Steve Mote, Chris Rick, Dave Tant, Don Turnbull, Pat WhiteheadArtwork
There are 15 pieces of art in this chapter. This includes nine images drawn from encounters in the adventure, three maps, two-character portraits, and the image of the doorway leading to the adventure that appears on the Infinite Staircase. In addition to the artwork in this chapter, there is also a picture of the Gardener that appears in the stat block appendix to the book.
The opening portrait of the two lovers who originally created the garden is my favorite piece in the book so far. It features the two women in robes of green and purple, surrounded by flowers and greenery, in the company of a young centaur, a treant, and a pair of dryads.
The Framing Device
The wish that Nafas asks the PCs to facilitate is a plea from two formerly waring families to find and bring home their children, who fell in love and ran away from their home. If the PCs aren’t going to be working for Nafas, the suggested hooks include the PCs arriving at the island as part of another trip, or as survivors of a shipwreck, and being recruited by one of the family members. The other hook assumes that the PCs were old friends of the characters and have just learned about their disappearance.
The original adventure was set in Greyhawk, so it’s got a canonical location that the introduction mentions, but it gives suggestions for placing it in Dragonlance, Eberron, and Theros. I wasn’t expecting a Magic setting to be thrown in there, but I like the reference. I appreciate that the Eberron placement mentions the unique planar structure of that setting. The Dragonlance suggestion is to make the children inhabitants of two traditionally unfriendly nations, such as the Qualinesti and the Silvanesti elves, but honestly, make it a Neidar clan dwarf and a Hylar clan dwarf and expand your horizons.
Adventure Overview
Don’t get your heart set on reading through this review if you plan on being a player in this adventure, because there are spoilers on the horizon. Seek your heart’s desire elsewhere and come back to the blog later.
Once the PCs arrive on the isle of Sybarate, they are approached by Governor Folcarae, a member of one of the two formerly feuding families. She explains about the feud, the children running off, and that she has hired multiple adventurers over the past two years to find them. She’s hoping the PCs will have better luck. She gives the PCs their last known location, the Cave of Echoes.
Inside the Cave of Echoes, if the PCs speak too loudly, they get feedback in the form of thunder damage. If they determine that the word “ask” on the wall means something will happen when they ask for assistance, the cave will answer them, potentially gaining the results of up to an 8th level spell, including a response similar to a Divination spell if they ask a general question.
While most of this adventure is designed to be resolved without combat, the cave has a few creatures that can get vicious, including some mud elementals, an ooze, and some poltergeists. The far end of the cave has a portal to the Eternal Garden, where the PCs can find the lost lovers, but they need to find a way to tame the waterfall that’s raining down with enough force that it’s almost a solid wall. There isn’t one solution here, the key is for the PCs to have some kind of creative way of dealing with the waterfall to allow them to pass through it, with some examples provided.
Past the waterfall, the PCs find the portal to the Eternal Garden, which is now a Domain of Delight, a region of the Feywild controlled by an archfey. The PCs arrive in a fairy ring and have some leprechans they can interact with, who provide several limericks that give them clues about the rest of the domain. If you aren’t the type to be able to decipher clues, none of the clues are necessary, but they are helpful.
The PCs can encounter a bronze dragon, some dryads, satyrs, awakened bears, awakened toads, awakened otters, sprites, a treant, centaurs, unicorns, or a chimera. Each one of these encounters provides the PCs the opportunity to learn more about what may have happened to the lovers that ran away and may potentially learn that the inhabitants consider the lovers to be the reincarnation of the creators of the garden, so they’re pretty happy with them sticking around.
There is a location in this domain, the Fountain All Heal, which can provide the effects of spells like Greater Restoration or Heal. However, if you avail yourself of this fountain, you no longer want to leave the domain. The only exceptions are characters that are fey or have fey ancestry. The only way to remove this effect is via a Wish.
Since there isn’t much in the way of combat, unless the PCs are terrible people, there is one encounter where the PCs may be afflicted, and thus tempted to use the fountain. Creatures called barkburs inhabit a grove, and they can turn people affected by their toxin into wood.
Eventually the PCs run into the Gardener, who invites the PCs to sit with them for some refreshments. They may pick up the benefit of the Hero’s Feat spell now, and the Gardener will provide general answers about where the lovers may be, telling the PCs to navigate the Hedge Maze nearby to get more answers.
There is an ongoing puzzle seeded by the leprechauns that will point the PCs at collecting certain leaves. Various locations mention what leaves are available there, so if the PCs have picked up on the clue, they can start gathering what they need. We’ll come back to this.
The Hedge Maze, thankfully, isn’t about navigating an actual maze. Well, it is, but not one that the players must deal with. It takes a group ability check to navigate the maze, but they can also plow through the walls of the maze, if they don’t mind taking damage from the massive thorns that will pierce them as they barrel through. At the center of the maze is a sundial with impressions for different leaves that should be set in it, which will teleport the PCs into the Palace of Spires, where the runaway lovers currently live.
In addition to the lovers Juliana and Orlando, there is another couple, two guards who are also romantic partners, who will protect the palace, Juliana, and Orlando, if threatened. Juliana and Orlando don’t want to leave, because they have both been affected by the fountain. If the PCs find Caerwyn and Porphura’s tomb (the creators of the garden), and they are respectful, the inscription on the tomb instructs them that they can make a wish, which they can use to free anyone from the effects of the fountain. Once Orlando and Juliana are free, the PCs just need to explain that their families are no longer at war to get them to leave.
The PCs need more leaves to teleport back out of the palace courtyard, however, all of the NPCs that live in the palace have tokens of the leaves that can be used to activate the teleportation effect, and some of the NPCs are noted as having an additional set of the leaf tokens. Now, if they tried to raid the tomb, things go downhill. The PCs are confronted by the Gardner and banished from the domain, which changes from a pleasant summer land to a chilling winter domain.
Assuming the PCs don’t upset the Gardener, they can leave with Orlando and Juliana, return them to their families, and collect their reward.
Thoughts on Chapter 4: Beyond the Crystal Cave
I like having more options for adventures that lean more heavily on roleplaying and exploration, although you may want to know how much your party wants that content before you use this back-to-back with When a Star Falls. I am onboard with more archfey being introduced. I would love to have the same kind of diversity in archfey in D&D lore that we already have for creatures like demon lords, archdevils, archoelementals, etc. I wouldn’t mind seeing the literal Green Man as an archfey, since we’ve got lots of other examples of singular planar beings drawn from Earth’s folklore.
I don’t think the leprechaun’s limerick about the leaves is too difficult to follow, but since the leprechans have six total limericks, one of which doesn’t mean anything, and four of with are more foreshadowing then an actual riddle the PCs need to solve to advance the plot, I’m a little concerned about limerick overload and the PCs not knowing what is immediately useful and what isn’t. I appreciate that the PCs aren’t penalized if they don’t think to bring two sets of leaves, so they can leave the palace. I also like that you can blunt force the hedge maze if you don’t manage to navigate it with your group check.
I like all the little interactions with the various creatures that populate the domain. I appreciate the callback to some well-known faerie lore, i.e. its potentially dangerous to eat or drink in the fey realm. This was a fun read through, and I think I would enjoy running it. Ready to look at the next doorway!
If you don’t mind contributing to my ability to pick up new games, and you want to look at some of the history behind this adventure, you can use the affiliate links below. It’s much appreciated!
#33cccc #5eSRD #666699 #BeyondTheCrystalCave #DD #DD5e #dnd #DnD5e #DungeonsDragons #DungeonsDragons5e #DungeonsAndDragons #QuestsFromTheInfiniteStaircase #rpgs #TalesFromTheInfiniteStaircase #ttrpg #ttrpgs
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Continuing with adventures I, personally, hadn’t read through from previous editions, and also continuing our trend of looking at the UK series of adventures, our next adventure is Beyond the Crystal Cave. While the plot doesn’t directly follow any one story, there are some elements in this adventure borrowed from Shakespear, most notably with the NPCs the group is hired to find, with their feuding families and forbidden love. While I knew about the AD&D 1e version of the adventure, I only recently realized that this adventure was adapted for a season of D&D Encounters during the D&D 4e era.
As with the previous adventure, I can’t speak to what has been changed from the original, other than what the adventure itself notes. The original lovers who created the Eternal Garden were originally male and female presenting characters, and for this adventure, both original lovers that created The Eternal Garden are women. The archfey that appears in this adventure, the Gardener, was originally The Green Man, a character from real world folk lore.
Original Credits for Beyond the Crystal Cave
Design and Development: David J. Browne, Tom Kirby, Graeme Morris
Editing: Tom Kirby, Carole Morris, Graeme Morris, Don Turnbull
Art: De Leuw, Timothy Truman
Cartography: Graeme Morris
Playtesting: Jim Bambra, Jeanette Blaaser, Clive F. Booth, Michael W. Brunton, Chris Hall, Bill Howard, Kate Kirby, Gary Kirkham, Steve Mote, Chris Rick, Dave Tant, Don Turnbull, Pat WhiteheadArtwork
There are 15 pieces of art in this chapter. This includes nine images drawn from encounters in the adventure, three maps, two-character portraits, and the image of the doorway leading to the adventure that appears on the Infinite Staircase. In addition to the artwork in this chapter, there is also a picture of the Gardener that appears in the stat block appendix to the book.
The opening portrait of the two lovers who originally created the garden is my favorite piece in the book so far. It features the two women in robes of green and purple, surrounded by flowers and greenery, in the company of a young centaur, a treant, and a pair of dryads.
The Framing Device
The wish that Nafas asks the PCs to facilitate is a plea from two formerly waring families to find and bring home their children, who fell in love and ran away from their home. If the PCs aren’t going to be working for Nafas, the suggested hooks include the PCs arriving at the island as part of another trip, or as survivors of a shipwreck, and being recruited by one of the family members. The other hook assumes that the PCs were old friends of the characters and have just learned about their disappearance.
The original adventure was set in Greyhawk, so it’s got a canonical location that the introduction mentions, but it gives suggestions for placing it in Dragonlance, Eberron, and Theros. I wasn’t expecting a Magic setting to be thrown in there, but I like the reference. I appreciate that the Eberron placement mentions the unique planar structure of that setting. The Dragonlance suggestion is to make the children inhabitants of two traditionally unfriendly nations, such as the Qualinesti and the Silvanesti elves, but honestly, make it a Neidar clan dwarf and a Hylar clan dwarf and expand your horizons.
Adventure Overview
Don’t get your heart set on reading through this review if you plan on being a player in this adventure, because there are spoilers on the horizon. Seek your heart’s desire elsewhere and come back to the blog later.
Once the PCs arrive on the isle of Sybarate, they are approached by Governor Folcarae, a member of one of the two formerly feuding families. She explains about the feud, the children running off, and that she has hired multiple adventurers over the past two years to find them. She’s hoping the PCs will have better luck. She gives the PCs their last known location, the Cave of Echoes.
Inside the Cave of Echoes, if the PCs speak too loudly, they get feedback in the form of thunder damage. If they determine that the word “ask” on the wall means something will happen when they ask for assistance, the cave will answer them, potentially gaining the results of up to an 8th level spell, including a response similar to a Divination spell if they ask a general question.
While most of this adventure is designed to be resolved without combat, the cave has a few creatures that can get vicious, including some mud elementals, an ooze, and some poltergeists. The far end of the cave has a portal to the Eternal Garden, where the PCs can find the lost lovers, but they need to find a way to tame the waterfall that’s raining down with enough force that it’s almost a solid wall. There isn’t one solution here, the key is for the PCs to have some kind of creative way of dealing with the waterfall to allow them to pass through it, with some examples provided.
Past the waterfall, the PCs find the portal to the Eternal Garden, which is now a Domain of Delight, a region of the Feywild controlled by an archfey. The PCs arrive in a fairy ring and have some leprechans they can interact with, who provide several limericks that give them clues about the rest of the domain. If you aren’t the type to be able to decipher clues, none of the clues are necessary, but they are helpful.
The PCs can encounter a bronze dragon, some dryads, satyrs, awakened bears, awakened toads, awakened otters, sprites, a treant, centaurs, unicorns, or a chimera. Each one of these encounters provides the PCs the opportunity to learn more about what may have happened to the lovers that ran away and may potentially learn that the inhabitants consider the lovers to be the reincarnation of the creators of the garden, so they’re pretty happy with them sticking around.
There is a location in this domain, the Fountain All Heal, which can provide the effects of spells like Greater Restoration or Heal. However, if you avail yourself of this fountain, you no longer want to leave the domain. The only exceptions are characters that are fey or have fey ancestry. The only way to remove this effect is via a Wish.
Since there isn’t much in the way of combat, unless the PCs are terrible people, there is one encounter where the PCs may be afflicted, and thus tempted to use the fountain. Creatures called barkburs inhabit a grove, and they can turn people affected by their toxin into wood.
Eventually the PCs run into the Gardener, who invites the PCs to sit with them for some refreshments. They may pick up the benefit of the Hero’s Feat spell now, and the Gardener will provide general answers about where the lovers may be, telling the PCs to navigate the Hedge Maze nearby to get more answers.
There is an ongoing puzzle seeded by the leprechauns that will point the PCs at collecting certain leaves. Various locations mention what leaves are available there, so if the PCs have picked up on the clue, they can start gathering what they need. We’ll come back to this.
The Hedge Maze, thankfully, isn’t about navigating an actual maze. Well, it is, but not one that the players must deal with. It takes a group ability check to navigate the maze, but they can also plow through the walls of the maze, if they don’t mind taking damage from the massive thorns that will pierce them as they barrel through. At the center of the maze is a sundial with impressions for different leaves that should be set in it, which will teleport the PCs into the Palace of Spires, where the runaway lovers currently live.
In addition to the lovers Juliana and Orlando, there is another couple, two guards who are also romantic partners, who will protect the palace, Juliana, and Orlando, if threatened. Juliana and Orlando don’t want to leave, because they have both been affected by the fountain. If the PCs find Caerwyn and Porphura’s tomb (the creators of the garden), and they are respectful, the inscription on the tomb instructs them that they can make a wish, which they can use to free anyone from the effects of the fountain. Once Orlando and Juliana are free, the PCs just need to explain that their families are no longer at war to get them to leave.
The PCs need more leaves to teleport back out of the palace courtyard, however, all of the NPCs that live in the palace have tokens of the leaves that can be used to activate the teleportation effect, and some of the NPCs are noted as having an additional set of the leaf tokens. Now, if they tried to raid the tomb, things go downhill. The PCs are confronted by the Gardner and banished from the domain, which changes from a pleasant summer land to a chilling winter domain.
Assuming the PCs don’t upset the Gardener, they can leave with Orlando and Juliana, return them to their families, and collect their reward.
Thoughts on Chapter 4: Beyond the Crystal Cave
I like having more options for adventures that lean more heavily on roleplaying and exploration, although you may want to know how much your party wants that content before you use this back-to-back with When a Star Falls. I am onboard with more archfey being introduced. I would love to have the same kind of diversity in archfey in D&D lore that we already have for creatures like demon lords, archdevils, archoelementals, etc. I wouldn’t mind seeing the literal Green Man as an archfey, since we’ve got lots of other examples of singular planar beings drawn from Earth’s folklore.
I don’t think the leprechaun’s limerick about the leaves is too difficult to follow, but since the leprechans have six total limericks, one of which doesn’t mean anything, and four of with are more foreshadowing then an actual riddle the PCs need to solve to advance the plot, I’m a little concerned about limerick overload and the PCs not knowing what is immediately useful and what isn’t. I appreciate that the PCs aren’t penalized if they don’t think to bring two sets of leaves, so they can leave the palace. I also like that you can blunt force the hedge maze if you don’t manage to navigate it with your group check.
I like all the little interactions with the various creatures that populate the domain. I appreciate the callback to some well-known faerie lore, i.e. its potentially dangerous to eat or drink in the fey realm. This was a fun read through, and I think I would enjoy running it. Ready to look at the next doorway!
If you don’t mind contributing to my ability to pick up new games, and you want to look at some of the history behind this adventure, you can use the affiliate links below. It’s much appreciated!
#33cccc #5eSRD #666699 #BeyondTheCrystalCave #DD #DD5e #dnd #DnD5e #DungeonsDragons #DungeonsDragons5e #DungeonsAndDragons #QuestsFromTheInfiniteStaircase #rpgs #TalesFromTheInfiniteStaircase #ttrpg #ttrpgs
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Continuing with adventures I, personally, hadn’t read through from previous editions, and also continuing our trend of looking at the UK series of adventures, our next adventure is Beyond the Crystal Cave. While the plot doesn’t directly follow any one story, there are some elements in this adventure borrowed from Shakespear, most notably with the NPCs the group is hired to find, with their feuding families and forbidden love. While I knew about the AD&D 1e version of the adventure, I only recently realized that this adventure was adapted for a season of D&D Encounters during the D&D 4e era.
As with the previous adventure, I can’t speak to what has been changed from the original, other than what the adventure itself notes. The original lovers who created the Eternal Garden were originally male and female presenting characters, and for this adventure, both original lovers that created The Eternal Garden are women. The archfey that appears in this adventure, the Gardener, was originally The Green Man, a character from real world folk lore.
Original Credits for Beyond the Crystal Cave
Design and Development: David J. Browne, Tom Kirby, Graeme Morris
Editing: Tom Kirby, Carole Morris, Graeme Morris, Don Turnbull
Art: De Leuw, Timothy Truman
Cartography: Graeme Morris
Playtesting: Jim Bambra, Jeanette Blaaser, Clive F. Booth, Michael W. Brunton, Chris Hall, Bill Howard, Kate Kirby, Gary Kirkham, Steve Mote, Chris Rick, Dave Tant, Don Turnbull, Pat WhiteheadArtwork
There are 15 pieces of art in this chapter. This includes nine images drawn from encounters in the adventure, three maps, two-character portraits, and the image of the doorway leading to the adventure that appears on the Infinite Staircase. In addition to the artwork in this chapter, there is also a picture of the Gardener that appears in the stat block appendix to the book.
The opening portrait of the two lovers who originally created the garden is my favorite piece in the book so far. It features the two women in robes of green and purple, surrounded by flowers and greenery, in the company of a young centaur, a treant, and a pair of dryads.
The Framing Device
The wish that Nafas asks the PCs to facilitate is a plea from two formerly waring families to find and bring home their children, who fell in love and ran away from their home. If the PCs aren’t going to be working for Nafas, the suggested hooks include the PCs arriving at the island as part of another trip, or as survivors of a shipwreck, and being recruited by one of the family members. The other hook assumes that the PCs were old friends of the characters and have just learned about their disappearance.
The original adventure was set in Greyhawk, so it’s got a canonical location that the introduction mentions, but it gives suggestions for placing it in Dragonlance, Eberron, and Theros. I wasn’t expecting a Magic setting to be thrown in there, but I like the reference. I appreciate that the Eberron placement mentions the unique planar structure of that setting. The Dragonlance suggestion is to make the children inhabitants of two traditionally unfriendly nations, such as the Qualinesti and the Silvanesti elves, but honestly, make it a Neidar clan dwarf and a Hylar clan dwarf and expand your horizons.
Adventure Overview
Don’t get your heart set on reading through this review if you plan on being a player in this adventure, because there are spoilers on the horizon. Seek your heart’s desire elsewhere and come back to the blog later.
Once the PCs arrive on the isle of Sybarate, they are approached by Governor Folcarae, a member of one of the two formerly feuding families. She explains about the feud, the children running off, and that she has hired multiple adventurers over the past two years to find them. She’s hoping the PCs will have better luck. She gives the PCs their last known location, the Cave of Echoes.
Inside the Cave of Echoes, if the PCs speak too loudly, they get feedback in the form of thunder damage. If they determine that the word “ask” on the wall means something will happen when they ask for assistance, the cave will answer them, potentially gaining the results of up to an 8th level spell, including a response similar to a Divination spell if they ask a general question.
While most of this adventure is designed to be resolved without combat, the cave has a few creatures that can get vicious, including some mud elementals, an ooze, and some poltergeists. The far end of the cave has a portal to the Eternal Garden, where the PCs can find the lost lovers, but they need to find a way to tame the waterfall that’s raining down with enough force that it’s almost a solid wall. There isn’t one solution here, the key is for the PCs to have some kind of creative way of dealing with the waterfall to allow them to pass through it, with some examples provided.
Past the waterfall, the PCs find the portal to the Eternal Garden, which is now a Domain of Delight, a region of the Feywild controlled by an archfey. The PCs arrive in a fairy ring and have some leprechans they can interact with, who provide several limericks that give them clues about the rest of the domain. If you aren’t the type to be able to decipher clues, none of the clues are necessary, but they are helpful.
The PCs can encounter a bronze dragon, some dryads, satyrs, awakened bears, awakened toads, awakened otters, sprites, a treant, centaurs, unicorns, or a chimera. Each one of these encounters provides the PCs the opportunity to learn more about what may have happened to the lovers that ran away and may potentially learn that the inhabitants consider the lovers to be the reincarnation of the creators of the garden, so they’re pretty happy with them sticking around.
There is a location in this domain, the Fountain All Heal, which can provide the effects of spells like Greater Restoration or Heal. However, if you avail yourself of this fountain, you no longer want to leave the domain. The only exceptions are characters that are fey or have fey ancestry. The only way to remove this effect is via a Wish.
Since there isn’t much in the way of combat, unless the PCs are terrible people, there is one encounter where the PCs may be afflicted, and thus tempted to use the fountain. Creatures called barkburs inhabit a grove, and they can turn people affected by their toxin into wood.
Eventually the PCs run into the Gardener, who invites the PCs to sit with them for some refreshments. They may pick up the benefit of the Hero’s Feat spell now, and the Gardener will provide general answers about where the lovers may be, telling the PCs to navigate the Hedge Maze nearby to get more answers.
There is an ongoing puzzle seeded by the leprechauns that will point the PCs at collecting certain leaves. Various locations mention what leaves are available there, so if the PCs have picked up on the clue, they can start gathering what they need. We’ll come back to this.
The Hedge Maze, thankfully, isn’t about navigating an actual maze. Well, it is, but not one that the players must deal with. It takes a group ability check to navigate the maze, but they can also plow through the walls of the maze, if they don’t mind taking damage from the massive thorns that will pierce them as they barrel through. At the center of the maze is a sundial with impressions for different leaves that should be set in it, which will teleport the PCs into the Palace of Spires, where the runaway lovers currently live.
In addition to the lovers Juliana and Orlando, there is another couple, two guards who are also romantic partners, who will protect the palace, Juliana, and Orlando, if threatened. Juliana and Orlando don’t want to leave, because they have both been affected by the fountain. If the PCs find Caerwyn and Porphura’s tomb (the creators of the garden), and they are respectful, the inscription on the tomb instructs them that they can make a wish, which they can use to free anyone from the effects of the fountain. Once Orlando and Juliana are free, the PCs just need to explain that their families are no longer at war to get them to leave.
The PCs need more leaves to teleport back out of the palace courtyard, however, all of the NPCs that live in the palace have tokens of the leaves that can be used to activate the teleportation effect, and some of the NPCs are noted as having an additional set of the leaf tokens. Now, if they tried to raid the tomb, things go downhill. The PCs are confronted by the Gardner and banished from the domain, which changes from a pleasant summer land to a chilling winter domain.
Assuming the PCs don’t upset the Gardener, they can leave with Orlando and Juliana, return them to their families, and collect their reward.
Thoughts on Chapter 4: Beyond the Crystal Cave
I like having more options for adventures that lean more heavily on roleplaying and exploration, although you may want to know how much your party wants that content before you use this back-to-back with When a Star Falls. I am onboard with more archfey being introduced. I would love to have the same kind of diversity in archfey in D&D lore that we already have for creatures like demon lords, archdevils, archoelementals, etc. I wouldn’t mind seeing the literal Green Man as an archfey, since we’ve got lots of other examples of singular planar beings drawn from Earth’s folklore.
I don’t think the leprechaun’s limerick about the leaves is too difficult to follow, but since the leprechans have six total limericks, one of which doesn’t mean anything, and four of with are more foreshadowing then an actual riddle the PCs need to solve to advance the plot, I’m a little concerned about limerick overload and the PCs not knowing what is immediately useful and what isn’t. I appreciate that the PCs aren’t penalized if they don’t think to bring two sets of leaves, so they can leave the palace. I also like that you can blunt force the hedge maze if you don’t manage to navigate it with your group check.
I like all the little interactions with the various creatures that populate the domain. I appreciate the callback to some well-known faerie lore, i.e. its potentially dangerous to eat or drink in the fey realm. This was a fun read through, and I think I would enjoy running it. Ready to look at the next doorway!
If you don’t mind contributing to my ability to pick up new games, and you want to look at some of the history behind this adventure, you can use the affiliate links below. It’s much appreciated!
#33cccc #5eSRD #666699 #BeyondTheCrystalCave #DD #DD5e #dnd #DnD5e #DungeonsDragons #DungeonsDragons5e #DungeonsAndDragons #QuestsFromTheInfiniteStaircase #rpgs #TalesFromTheInfiniteStaircase #ttrpg #ttrpgs
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Continuing with adventures I, personally, hadn’t read through from previous editions, and also continuing our trend of looking at the UK series of adventures, our next adventure is Beyond the Crystal Cave. While the plot doesn’t directly follow any one story, there are some elements in this adventure borrowed from Shakespear, most notably with the NPCs the group is hired to find, with their feuding families and forbidden love. While I knew about the AD&D 1e version of the adventure, I only recently realized that this adventure was adapted for a season of D&D Encounters during the D&D 4e era.
As with the previous adventure, I can’t speak to what has been changed from the original, other than what the adventure itself notes. The original lovers who created the Eternal Garden were originally male and female presenting characters, and for this adventure, both original lovers that created The Eternal Garden are women. The archfey that appears in this adventure, the Gardener, was originally The Green Man, a character from real world folk lore.
Original Credits for Beyond the Crystal Cave
Design and Development: David J. Browne, Tom Kirby, Graeme Morris
Editing: Tom Kirby, Carole Morris, Graeme Morris, Don Turnbull
Art: De Leuw, Timothy Truman
Cartography: Graeme Morris
Playtesting: Jim Bambra, Jeanette Blaaser, Clive F. Booth, Michael W. Brunton, Chris Hall, Bill Howard, Kate Kirby, Gary Kirkham, Steve Mote, Chris Rick, Dave Tant, Don Turnbull, Pat WhiteheadArtwork
There are 15 pieces of art in this chapter. This includes nine images drawn from encounters in the adventure, three maps, two-character portraits, and the image of the doorway leading to the adventure that appears on the Infinite Staircase. In addition to the artwork in this chapter, there is also a picture of the Gardener that appears in the stat block appendix to the book.
The opening portrait of the two lovers who originally created the garden is my favorite piece in the book so far. It features the two women in robes of green and purple, surrounded by flowers and greenery, in the company of a young centaur, a treant, and a pair of dryads.
The Framing Device
The wish that Nafas asks the PCs to facilitate is a plea from two formerly waring families to find and bring home their children, who fell in love and ran away from their home. If the PCs aren’t going to be working for Nafas, the suggested hooks include the PCs arriving at the island as part of another trip, or as survivors of a shipwreck, and being recruited by one of the family members. The other hook assumes that the PCs were old friends of the characters and have just learned about their disappearance.
The original adventure was set in Greyhawk, so it’s got a canonical location that the introduction mentions, but it gives suggestions for placing it in Dragonlance, Eberron, and Theros. I wasn’t expecting a Magic setting to be thrown in there, but I like the reference. I appreciate that the Eberron placement mentions the unique planar structure of that setting. The Dragonlance suggestion is to make the children inhabitants of two traditionally unfriendly nations, such as the Qualinesti and the Silvanesti elves, but honestly, make it a Neidar clan dwarf and a Hylar clan dwarf and expand your horizons.
Adventure Overview
Don’t get your heart set on reading through this review if you plan on being a player in this adventure, because there are spoilers on the horizon. Seek your heart’s desire elsewhere and come back to the blog later.
Once the PCs arrive on the isle of Sybarate, they are approached by Governor Folcarae, a member of one of the two formerly feuding families. She explains about the feud, the children running off, and that she has hired multiple adventurers over the past two years to find them. She’s hoping the PCs will have better luck. She gives the PCs their last known location, the Cave of Echoes.
Inside the Cave of Echoes, if the PCs speak too loudly, they get feedback in the form of thunder damage. If they determine that the word “ask” on the wall means something will happen when they ask for assistance, the cave will answer them, potentially gaining the results of up to an 8th level spell, including a response similar to a Divination spell if they ask a general question.
While most of this adventure is designed to be resolved without combat, the cave has a few creatures that can get vicious, including some mud elementals, an ooze, and some poltergeists. The far end of the cave has a portal to the Eternal Garden, where the PCs can find the lost lovers, but they need to find a way to tame the waterfall that’s raining down with enough force that it’s almost a solid wall. There isn’t one solution here, the key is for the PCs to have some kind of creative way of dealing with the waterfall to allow them to pass through it, with some examples provided.
Past the waterfall, the PCs find the portal to the Eternal Garden, which is now a Domain of Delight, a region of the Feywild controlled by an archfey. The PCs arrive in a fairy ring and have some leprechans they can interact with, who provide several limericks that give them clues about the rest of the domain. If you aren’t the type to be able to decipher clues, none of the clues are necessary, but they are helpful.
The PCs can encounter a bronze dragon, some dryads, satyrs, awakened bears, awakened toads, awakened otters, sprites, a treant, centaurs, unicorns, or a chimera. Each one of these encounters provides the PCs the opportunity to learn more about what may have happened to the lovers that ran away and may potentially learn that the inhabitants consider the lovers to be the reincarnation of the creators of the garden, so they’re pretty happy with them sticking around.
There is a location in this domain, the Fountain All Heal, which can provide the effects of spells like Greater Restoration or Heal. However, if you avail yourself of this fountain, you no longer want to leave the domain. The only exceptions are characters that are fey or have fey ancestry. The only way to remove this effect is via a Wish.
Since there isn’t much in the way of combat, unless the PCs are terrible people, there is one encounter where the PCs may be afflicted, and thus tempted to use the fountain. Creatures called barkburs inhabit a grove, and they can turn people affected by their toxin into wood.
Eventually the PCs run into the Gardener, who invites the PCs to sit with them for some refreshments. They may pick up the benefit of the Hero’s Feat spell now, and the Gardener will provide general answers about where the lovers may be, telling the PCs to navigate the Hedge Maze nearby to get more answers.
There is an ongoing puzzle seeded by the leprechauns that will point the PCs at collecting certain leaves. Various locations mention what leaves are available there, so if the PCs have picked up on the clue, they can start gathering what they need. We’ll come back to this.
The Hedge Maze, thankfully, isn’t about navigating an actual maze. Well, it is, but not one that the players must deal with. It takes a group ability check to navigate the maze, but they can also plow through the walls of the maze, if they don’t mind taking damage from the massive thorns that will pierce them as they barrel through. At the center of the maze is a sundial with impressions for different leaves that should be set in it, which will teleport the PCs into the Palace of Spires, where the runaway lovers currently live.
In addition to the lovers Juliana and Orlando, there is another couple, two guards who are also romantic partners, who will protect the palace, Juliana, and Orlando, if threatened. Juliana and Orlando don’t want to leave, because they have both been affected by the fountain. If the PCs find Caerwyn and Porphura’s tomb (the creators of the garden), and they are respectful, the inscription on the tomb instructs them that they can make a wish, which they can use to free anyone from the effects of the fountain. Once Orlando and Juliana are free, the PCs just need to explain that their families are no longer at war to get them to leave.
The PCs need more leaves to teleport back out of the palace courtyard, however, all of the NPCs that live in the palace have tokens of the leaves that can be used to activate the teleportation effect, and some of the NPCs are noted as having an additional set of the leaf tokens. Now, if they tried to raid the tomb, things go downhill. The PCs are confronted by the Gardner and banished from the domain, which changes from a pleasant summer land to a chilling winter domain.
Assuming the PCs don’t upset the Gardener, they can leave with Orlando and Juliana, return them to their families, and collect their reward.
Thoughts on Chapter 4: Beyond the Crystal Cave
I like having more options for adventures that lean more heavily on roleplaying and exploration, although you may want to know how much your party wants that content before you use this back-to-back with When a Star Falls. I am onboard with more archfey being introduced. I would love to have the same kind of diversity in archfey in D&D lore that we already have for creatures like demon lords, archdevils, archoelementals, etc. I wouldn’t mind seeing the literal Green Man as an archfey, since we’ve got lots of other examples of singular planar beings drawn from Earth’s folklore.
I don’t think the leprechaun’s limerick about the leaves is too difficult to follow, but since the leprechans have six total limericks, one of which doesn’t mean anything, and four of with are more foreshadowing then an actual riddle the PCs need to solve to advance the plot, I’m a little concerned about limerick overload and the PCs not knowing what is immediately useful and what isn’t. I appreciate that the PCs aren’t penalized if they don’t think to bring two sets of leaves, so they can leave the palace. I also like that you can blunt force the hedge maze if you don’t manage to navigate it with your group check.
I like all the little interactions with the various creatures that populate the domain. I appreciate the callback to some well-known faerie lore, i.e. its potentially dangerous to eat or drink in the fey realm. This was a fun read through, and I think I would enjoy running it. Ready to look at the next doorway!
If you don’t mind contributing to my ability to pick up new games, and you want to look at some of the history behind this adventure, you can use the affiliate links below. It’s much appreciated!
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Master of Superpits: the thread about Egon Riss, who fled the Holocaust and reconstructed Scottish mining in monumental concrete
On March 20th 1964 – exactly 58 years ago when this thread was first written – a man named Egon Riss died at his home in Colinton, in suburban Edinburgh. A name relatively unknown outside modernist design and industrial architecture circles, much of his life’s work has been unceremoniously demolished. So let’s try and raise his profile just a little bit, particularly in the city he came to make his home in.
Riss was born into a Jewish family in 1901, in Lipnik Beilitz in what was then Austrian Galicia (now Lipnik Bielsko-Biała in Poland). His parents were Isidor Riss and Ernestine Itzkowitz. He had an older brother, Erwin. The young Riss studied at the Weiner Technische Hochschule in Vienna – not at the Bauhaus as is sometimes written – but he was clearly influenced by the latter.
The Weiner Technische Hochschule, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Peter HaasHe became a rising star in modern architecture and, with his partner Fritz Judtmann, managed to win an important public health commission to build the Arbeiterkrankenkasse (workers’ health insurance clinic) building in Vienna. This lead to further success in design competitions for major public health buildings, e.g. a new public health asylum.
Riss & Judtmann’s 1928 public health asylum in ViennaAnd a new Tuberculosis Sanatorium for the city. Both buildings strikingly modern in both their appearance and their construction, heavy on the reinforced concrete and glass. But also with well considered function – a theme that will recurr.
Riss & Judtmann’s 1931 tuberculosis Sanatorium at the Lainz hospital in ViennaBut all was not well in Europe and the clouds of Nazism were gathering around Austria. The Riss brothers fled the rising anti-Jewish sentiment to Czechoslovakia in 1937, the year their father Isidor died, ahead of the Anschluss the following year. Their mother Ernestine did not leave. She was deported in 1942 to Auschwitz from where she never left. In March 1939 the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia, and once again the Risses had to flee. Egon made it to England where he was classified as an “enemy alien”. However through an association with furniture designer Jack Pritchard, Riss was fortunately exempted from internment.
Riss’ “Enemy Alien Exemption from Internment” card, 1939Jack and his wife Molly were directors of the Isokon Company and if you’re a real modernism anorak you will recognise Egon Riss’ address on his registration card (Lawn Road Flats) as Wells Coates’ iconic Isokon Building.
Lawn Road Flats, CC-BY-SA JustincLawn Road Flats, CC-BY-SA SciencefishEgon worked with Jack Pritchard for Isokon for a short but very period productive period. This collaboration bore fruit of several iconic (yes, that word merits being reused) pieces of modern design; the Penguin Book Donkey. Perfectly sized to take new and popular Penguin paperbacks (themselves now a classic of modern design). It was simple in form, made from a few plywood parts. The side “panniers” held the Penguins, the central slot, magazines and papers.
The Egon Riss’ Penguin Book DonkeyAllen Lane of Penguin put leaflets in every book advertising it and it could have become the must have piece of Modern British furniture had not war intervened and only a few hundred were produced before bent plywood became a strategic material used in the construction of war-winning aircraft.
Plywood goes to war, the remarkable De Havilland Mosquito aircraft. CC-BY-SA Tony HisgettAn original Book Donkey will set you back around £5-10 thousand pounds if you are lucky enough to find one. More affordable is its little brother, the Gull. Again formed from a few plywood pieces, it holds books and newspapers and can be table or wall mounted.
The Egon Riss’ book Gull. Picture from Isokon Gallery website.A cocktail cabinet called the “Bottleship” (which I cannot find a picture of) and the Pocket Bottleship, based on the Gull and with holders for bottles and glasses. Again this was could be table or wall mounted (📷 Isokon Gallery)
Egon Riss’ Pocket Bottleship. Picture from Isokon Gallery website.Riss left his partnership with Jack Pritchard and Isokon to join the British Army, first the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps (a reserve for the Pioneers, the army’s builders) and later commissioned into the Royal Engineers. In 1943 he married Margaret Jones, the couple would have 2 daughters before later divorcing. At the wars end he worked briefly in London for Robert Furneaux-Jordan and at the Architectural Association and was elected as a fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects.
But he did not linger long in London and in 1946, or there abouts, took a job with the Miners Welfare Committee as an architect in Scotland. The MWC was a government body funded by industry levy to provide social, recreation and working condition improvement for miners. It was a pioneer of modern industrial architecture in the UK through its provision of pithead baths. Their clean, elegant, modern structures stuck out like modernist beacons against the backdrop of the Victorian collieries they served.
Polkemmet in West LothianArniston in MidlothianCardowan in LankarkshireMichael in FifeIt’s obvious from these buildings why Riss might have taken the decision to join the MWC. The combination of relative carte blanche to design striking modern structures and also to balance their form and function would have appealed. And so Riss came to Edinburgh; but his time with the MWC would be very short lived (indeed he may never actually have worked for them), because on January 1st 1947, “vesting day”, the British coal industry was nationalised under the National Coal Board; the NCB.
The British coal industry faced any number of crises; outdated working practices, a chronic lack of investment in modern techniques and equipment, labour shortages, wartime ossification, and a huge number of old, small pits approaching the end of their working lives. The NCB had a huge consolidation, modernisation and reconstruction task facing it – at the same time as maintaining and increasing existing production to keep the nations’ lights on and home fires burning. Riss himself describes it in his own words;
900 to 1,000 independent collieries had to be integrated into a single organisation. Divisions and Areas required accommodation for their staff. The offices of old coal companies were found to be most inadequate… New and better methods of material control and machine maintenance demanded Modern and spacious workshops, stores, stockyards…
Egon Riss, quoted in “Mountains and Megastructures” by Kakalis, Beattie and Ozga-LawnAnd in Scotland, it was Egon Riss who was made Chief Production Architect to the National Coal Board’s Scottish Division, headquartered at Greenend House in Gilmerton, a pit village on the outskirts of Edinburgh. The Production Architect was responsible for all the above ground buildings of a colliery. Riss was a man with a mission to use modern architecture to revolutionise Scottish coal mining. I’d like to focus this thread mainly on Riss’ work, but I do unfortunately need to stray a little bit into the early history of the nationalised coal industry in Scotland to put it in context.
The coal industry in Scotland at the time was vast, but troubled. It had suffered from a chronic lack of investment; relied heavily on manual labour and old practices; there were too many small pits with declining output; profitability and productivity were relatively low. Its old coal seams were being worked out – they were nearer the surface and easier to access and work with the older technology. There was plenty coal there, but the reserves were unproven and lay much deeper than had hitherto been exploited in Scotland. They would need the application of the most modern mining technology and methods to exploit them.
The NCB had to juggle both increasing (or maintaining) the existing output from the old, existing pits in the short term; maintaining overall production in the medium term as old pits were worked out; and planning for the bright, modern future in the long term (10+ years). It is apt that the NCB’s motto was E Tenebris Lux (“out of the darkness, light)”, as the nation was almost entirely dependent on coal for domestic and industrial heat, light and power. Without coal, and more of it, postwar reconstruction and couldn’t happen.
Arms of the National Coal Board, from Heraldry WikiMuch of the work needing done was deep underground, hidden from view of all but the men undergroun; mechanisation, reorganisation, automation, investment in new machines and techniques, exploring and exploiting new seams. But it was on the surface where Riss and his department came in. Some of his earliest work was on buildings to improve surface arrangements at existing pits, to both increase productivity but also to better the working conditions for the men. I think there’s a recurring theme in Riss’ work for the NCB that he considered the miners at all times, and how they would move around and make use of the surface buildings of the pit. He really tried to make that journey as smooth, economical and comfortable as possible. An example of this is some of his earliest work; covered walkways at the Newbattle collieries to allow miners to get between the pithead baths and the pithead, under cover and with the luxury of heating.
The remains of Riss’ concrete walkway at Newbattle in the snow, which it would have protected miners coming on and off shift from. CC-by-SA Alan Murray RustSimple improvements like this made miners lives just a little bit more comfortable and saved them a bit of time; they could get directly from the baths (where they started and ended work) to the pitheads at Lady Victoria and Lingerwood under cover, without stops, to start work.
The NCB quickly shut down the least productive (usually the smallest and oldest pits) and made investments like this at the bigger and more profitable ones as they set about trying to consolidate and rationalise the Scottish industry. But these rearrangements were piecework to tide the industry over. It was the vast new schemes, which were coined as “Superpits“, that were to be a renaissance for the industry and allow Riss to stamp his style and ideas into the landscape in towers of concrete and steel.
The NCB had a radical plan to get Scottish mining to a profitable production of 30 million tons per year by 1965, and to do this it would need 15 million tons of brand new, efficient and profitable production output from new pits. This was Riss’ challenge. These new mines would have to do something that had never been done before in Scotland; Go deep – really deep! Most of the unexploited coals lay in the deep limestone group and this meant going down to 3,000 feet before hitting the coal measures. And so Riss set to work. From his office on Eglinton Crescent in a grand Victorian villa in central Edinburgh, he worked upstairs at his easel, sketching out his ideas in charcoal, which were then taken down to his team to be turned into the technical drawings.
The National Coal Board production architect’s offices on Eglinton CrescentThe first scheme was Rothes. Planned by the Fife Coal Company prewar (one of the more learned and modern of Scottish coalmasters), this is a scheme that promised so much employment and profitability, but was killed by treacherous underground geology and a blind failure to accept that fact. It’s hard to overstate the optimism that surrounded Rothes. It was to be the showpiece for the Scottish industry – a new town was prepared for its workers at Glenrothes. And Riss prepared appropriately monumental and modern surface buildings for it. His Rothes was beautifully stark and elegant. Two giant concrete, steel and glass towers held the modern “Koepe” winders, connected by a vast car hall ( concrete, steel and glass. Surface buildings were carefully arranged, like that fanhouse with its flared ventilation scoops.
Rothes. Picture from RibapixRiss’ charcoal sketches survive with Canmore. With a literal clean sheet, everything could be arranged on the surface for maximum efficiency. The flow of men, machinery and coal was carefully planned and considered. True to the principles of the Bauhaus, form balanced function.
A Riss’ sketch for RothesThe first Superpit was opened in a blaze of publicity and optimism in 1958. The Queen performed the ceremony and even went 1,600 feet underground in pristine white overalls
The queen handing over her check token before going underground. From Fife TodayBut all was not well at Rothes behind this official veneer. Infact, it was catastrophic. The geological conditions were appalling. Water pressures of 1,000 PSI were encountered, the shafts flooded and cracked quicker than they could be dug and lined. Long story short, Rothes was beset by poor planning and an over-optimistic, over-enthusiasm to get going on unproven geology. Heroic efforts were made above and below ground by the miners and management to make a go of it, but it was a pit for nothing but money. The NCB called it quits in early 1964 and Rothes was unceremoniously closed, its monumental surface buildings left to rot for the next 30 years as a bitter reminder of its failure. Rothes’ towers came down finally in March 1993. There was absolutely nothing wrong with Riss’ part in this grand scheme, but it was an ignominious start for the revitalisation of the Scottish mining industry.
The demolition of Rothes’ towers. From The CourierFortunately the administrative building, some of the surface workshops and the fan house survive at Rothes.
Surface workshopsPithead offices and walkwayFan houseThe surface remains at Rothes. © SelfRothes had a close architectural sibling in another Superpit – Killoch in Ayrshire. That was a bit of a happier story, it was the first Scottish colliery to hit a million tons output per year – in 1965. It survived the miners strike but closed in 1988, its towers demolished. For quite some while after closure of the shafts, the coal processing facility at Killoch remained open to treat opencast coal, and much survives of the former workshops and administrative buildings on the surface as far as I’m aware.
KillochClose-by Killoch was another colliery at Barony. This was not a Superpit but was a vast reconstruction and reorganisation scheme of an existing, older mine. No. 3 shaft and its surface buildings are one of Riss’ enduring monuments.
Barony No. 3The vast A-frame that held the winding gear at Barony remains as a monument to the now-gone industry. Barony survived until 1989, linked underground to Killoch. These pits were perhaps the most successful in the post-war Scottish industry.
The Barony A-frame. CC-by-SA ScottAnother Riss reconstruction scheme was at Kinneil in Bo’ness. The old colliery was systematically modernised and rebuilt in a style which, unusually for Riss, made heavy use of brick as a feature.
Kinneil. Tom Astbury via Falkirk Community TrustKinneil closed just before the Miners’ Strike, in 1983, its expensive reconstruction never really bore the expected fruits. It is remarkable for being linked by a 5.5km tunnel, under the Forth, to Valleyfield Colliery in Fife. Nearer to home, for the Lothian coalfield, Riss laid out out his designs for two brand new Superpits. The first was in Loanhead, to replace the existing, older pits at Burghlee and Ramsay. This scheme would become Bilston Glen. Riss would work upstairs, sketching his ideas out, before taking them down to his draughtsmen to turn into technical drawings. He did not tolerate individualism on the part of his subordinates or their attempts to ornament his designs; woe betide any junior who tried to rearrange the regular and evenly spaced windows in a long façade in some sort of pleasing pattern.
Riss sketch for Bilston GlenAlthough it was never as profitable as was hoped, Bilston Glen was a productive and relatively successful pit. Nothing like as monumental as Rothes or Killoch, on the surface it was quite unobtrusive, more like a modern factory than the vast, statement cathedrals to mining. Sinking commenced in 1952 and production began 11 years later in 1963. By 1970 it employed some 2,300 and produced almost 1,400,000 tons of coal per year. Although a relatively productive and profitable mine, Bilston Glen had an unhappy end. It became a flashpoint for the Miners’ Strike of 1984 in Scotland and the site of some of its bitterest scenes, first between police and strikers and later between strikers and strike breakers. Attempts were made to restart production after the strike, but it suffered badly from flooding during the period of enforced dormancy and never really got going again. It shut in 1989 and no sign of it remains today under a modern industrial estate.
Bilston Glen during the miner’s strikeNearby Bilston Glen in the Lothian Coalfield was Monktonhall; another showpiece and another monumental Riss design. Monktonhall was to be bigger and deeper than Bilston Glen. It was sunk between 1954 and 1967, with coal production peaking almost immediately at 1.8 million tons per year, most of it getting straight on a train for the few miles down to its assured customer at the SSEB’s new power station at Cockenzie.
Monktonhall No. 1 shaftMonktonhall survived the Miners Strike in better shape than Bilston Glen, but it was always a struggle to keep it profitable. Attempts to merge the two together into a single operation centred at Monktonhall came to naught.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/74165767@N05/50259761503
Monktonhall closed with Bilston Glen, but that was not the end. In 1992 it was reopened by a few hundred laid off miners who clubbed together their redundancies and made the extraordinary bold decision to restart production. However heroic their struggle, without the millions in capital needed to drive and equip new seams, it was not to be. The men toiled 3,000 feet underground for 2 years against the floodwaters, but the end came again in 1994, with final demolition in 1997.
The demolition of Monktonhall in 1997And so we return to Fife for the last of Riss’ Superpits. At Seafield outside Kirkcaldy. Appropriately for its name, it was sited in a field and was to work the coal reserves out under the sea, deep below the Forth. The sinking of Seafield was troubled and took 12 years from 1954-66. But it was not the first difficult Fife mine to be sunk under the sea and the miners persevered and in the end succeeded. However it was always a difficult mine to work, with steeply inclined roadways and faces – and in coal mines, difficult means unprofitable.
Seafield CollieryGeological difficulties, flooding and “heating” (spontaneous combustion in the coal seams) plagued Seafield and although it also survived the Miners’ Strike, it shut in 1987 when the government refused to fund the millions needed to open new production faces. Like the other Scottish Superpits, Seafield had tens of millions of tons of untapped coal reserves, it was just too expensive to get them out. It was demolished in 1989. Seafield is often better remembered for its most famous ex-employee, the late Jocky Wilson.
The demolition of Seafield. From Fife TodayThe five Superpits were Riss’ masterpieces. It is sad that none of them had especially successful or long-lived stories to tell. This was no reflection on anything but the realities of geology, economics and politics. From an architectural and surface organisational point of view they were triumphs of design. Another Riss scheme at Airth came to nothing when sinking had to be cancelled when it dawned on the NCB that they would never hit coal no matter how hard they dug for it. Things proceeded further at nearby Glenochil, with Riss laying out modern surface arrangements for a drift mine under the Ochils.
GlenochilAgain Glenochil was to have an assured future thanks to being tied to a guaranteed customer in the SSEB’s new power station at Kincardine; but it turned into another frustrating failure for the NCB’s Scottish Division. It was to have been the UK’s largest drift mine and was to have given employment to thousands of Lanarkshire men, brought in to work it as their pits shut. Sinking started with enthusiasm in 1954 but the project was abandoned in 1964, again poor planning by the NCB had the miners chasing riches that just weren’t there to be won. The land was turned over to the Scottish Prison Service who built HMP Glenochil, infamous for the 1988 “dirty riot” protests. But again, that is no reflection on Riss or his work.
Egon Riss was praised in his time from the unlikely source of The Times’ architecture correspondent; a late 1950s article complimented Riss on how he worked and how he had his team organised to work together in their common goal of creating modern, efficient collieries. His attention to the details of improving miners’ working lives was singled out. Particularly, comfortable and generous pay-halls were designed “where the miner can queue up for his pay in comfort“; no more queuing in the cold and rain to be handed your packet at the side door.
Riss’ Superpits should have provided steady employment for 10,000 men, and families and communities an order of magnitude greater, and should have been producing 10 million tons of coal a year. He sadly died at home at 1 Munro Drive of a heart attack at the age of 62 in 1964 before it could be realised that this would never happen.
1 Munro DriveRiss’ obituary praised his creations for “their strictly functional design combined with an elegance of line that could only be achieved by a creative artist who was a master of his craft“. It noted “he had an inquisitive mind that ranged over many interests, antiques, objets d’art, science and religion, backed by a wide reading in German, French and Hebrew… he was always a fascinating conversationalist who enjoyed argument as an end to logical eduction. His good company, charming manners and not least his dignified presence will be remembered and missed by his many friends“.
So let us remember and miss the late Egon Riss, 1901-1964. From Austria to the Scottish coalfields via Isokon.
Egon Riss at work. unknown credit, via Anibou.Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.
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The wild reaches of Aragón
About half the size of Portugal, we knew very little of Spain’s Aragón region. That was about to change as our road from Extremadura led us through its northern reaches bound for the co-principality of Andorra.
Coordinates
- Alhama de Aragón
- Nuévalos
- Zaragoza
- Castejón de Monegros
- Sariñena
- Alquézar
- Rodellar
- Barbastro
- Torla-Ordesa
- Viacamp
- Estopiñán del Castillo
Into Aragón
From Aranjuez we began our journey northeast towards Zaragoza, noting changes in the landscape once we had escaped the spaghetti junctions, slow traffic and industrialized zones in Madrid’s orbit. We saw red earth in the hills near Medinaceli (📷1) and green fields further along the A-2 near Arcos de Jalón (📷2), both in the Castile and León region. Crossing into Aragón we came to the spa town of Alhama de Aragón, a name derived from Arabic, although its thermal springs were known in Roman times (📷3). A bridge crossing on Embalse de la Tranquera | Tranquillity Reservoir, which certainly lives up to its name, as we approached pitch in Nuévalos (📷4).
Monasterio de Piedra near Nuévalos is a former monastery (now part ruin and part hotel) and Romantic landscaped park containing trees, waterfalls and caves along the Piedra River; this is Cascada la Caprichosa (📷1). The combination of Cascade Cola de Caballo (📷2) with Gruta Iris behind its curtain (📷3), reached via a staircase cut into the cliff, was easily the highlight. Some of the scenery was decidedly more tranquil, but no less dramatic (📷4). Visiting the ruin of Santa Maria de Piedra is included in the entry ticket; it was occupied by Cistercian monks from 1218 CE for 617 years, until confiscated by the Spanish Government in 1835 and coming into private ownership. Within the ruin there’s a museum about wine making and exhibit on the introduction of chocolate to Europe. Note that the site only reopened a year ago after severe flood damage in late 2024; it’s mass tourism-oriented, so an early start helps avoid the crowds.
Zaragoza
After leaving Nuévalos we enjoyed seeing semi-arid agricultural landscapes (📷1) before joining motorways bound for the metropolitan sprawl of Zaragoza. Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar is the city’s defining landmark, a huge baroque basilica with domes overlooking the Ebro, seen here behind 15th C. bridge of Puente de Piedra (📷2); the Romans had also bridged the Ebro here when the town was known as Caesaraugusta. The 11th C. Islamic Aljafería Palace is part of the Mudéjar Architecture of Aragón UNESCO listing (📷3); it was unfortunately closed for siesta when we arrived—having been caught out a few times by this already! La Seo Cathedral | Cathedral of the Saviour is also part of the UNESCO listing, being built atop the Roman forum and serving as a mosque—evident in its exterior Mudéjar wall (📷4)—before expansion as a Christian cathedral; the interior (€) mixes Romanesque, Gothic, Mudéjar, Renaissance and Baroque styles.
Los Monegros
The Ruta Jubierre | Jubierre track is an unpaved route that leads into the Barrancos de Jubierre, a badlands area within Aragón’s semi-arid Los Monegros region (it’s not technically a desert). We began from the southern end near the village of Castejón de Monegros, heading northward to exit onto the A-131 towards Sariñena. To visit Tozal Solitario, an isolated rock formation, we wisely left the van on the main track and walked to the formation (📷1). Tozal de Colásico is larger and can be seen without leaving the main track (📷2); you can also drive right up to it. Tozales de Los Pedregales is a collection of four eroded clay formations and ravines reached via a short but well-marked hike (📷3); this is formation no. 4. Tozal de la Cobeta is apparently the most photographed formation (📷4); we drove off the main track right up to this one, avoiding a hot 6km return hike. It took us ~3h to make the drive at ~30km/h max and to take short hikes to the formations. It had been dry so the dirt was very compacted and we had no concerns about clearance in our 2WD camper; we used the width of the road to avoid ruts and corrugations, as traffic was light. There was no avoiding the dust though!
Parque Natural Sierra y Cañones de Guara
The pretty but touristy village of Alquézar lies within Parque Natural Sierra y Cañones de Guara | Natural Park of the Sierra and Canyons of Guara; it’s crowned by Colegiata de Santa María la Mayor and Castillo Torre (📷1). The 6 € pp 3km Pasarelas de Alquézar descend from the ticket gate at the town hall into the adjacent Río Vero canyon, where we noted native Ramonda myconi | the Pyrenean violet in flower (📷2). We gained access to the clear-running river at Cueva Picamartillo (📷3) before taking the first of several gangways suspended over the riverbed (📷4).
Continuing in the pasarelas, the hand of man is evident in the canyon, with industrial remnants including a weir and canal that was part of a small hydroelectric plant completed in 1913 (📷1); it reused an old mill and today’s visitor trail began as service paths. The dramatic limestone canyon itself however is of natural karst geology and the metal gangways purpose-built for tourism (📷2). Aphyllanthes monspeliensis | the blue aphyllanthes is endemic to the western Mediterranean (📷3). A look back towards town from Mirador del Vero as a thunderstorm approaches; you can see more of the gangways on the riverside cliffs (📷4). This was a 6.3km/ 2h 20min loop walk from the campsite.
Our next hike in Parque Natural Sierra y Cañones de Guara was the S-3 Circular, anticlockwise, from the trailhead at Rodellar. We descended into Barranco del Mascún | the Mascún River gorge, noting rock climbers scaling sheer cliffs on both sides of the valley and gradually improving our view of the first of several rock windows we’d see on the trail (📷1). On reaching the riverbed we joined the Camino de Otín. There’s a nice view back to the window from near Surgencia de Mascún | the spring where Río Mascún stops being underground (📷2); shortly after the spring the intimidating Espolón de la Virgen via ferrata begins. Native Helianthemum apenninum | white rock-rose seemed to like living in the valley floor (📷3). We had views to Torre de Santiago for some time before reaching the formation (📷4).
Ascending the S-3 trail beside Torre de Santiago (📷1). We found the lengthy and uneven climb from the riverbed to Mirador del Mascún (📷2) rather tough, but greatly enjoyed ever-changing perspectives on the Torre. Native Polygala calcarea | the chalk milkwort favoured living at elevation (📷3). At the abandoned village of Otín we turned towards Dolmen de la Losa Mora, ~5,000 years old (📷4). The trail was less dramatic but pleasant, until we began the descent back to the Río Mascún via the Andrebot ravine—here the path was formed of loose limestone and slow-going (use poles to reduce tumble risk). From the spring we backtracked up to Rodellar. The loop over 15km took us 5.5h. At camp we checked in with “I need a place to sleep, a beer & a hot shower—in any order!”
Parque Natural Ordesa y Monte Perdido
Pradera de Ordesa (parking near Torla-Ordesa) to the Cola de Caballo waterfall is a popular out-and-back trail in Parque Natural Ordesa y Monte Perdido | Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park. The Senda a la Cola de Caballo trail runs beside the Río Arazas, although the first section is under forest cover with limited views (📷1). After ~100min on trail things get more open and we found ourselves admiring spring greens next to clear mountain waters and impressive walls of rock in both downstream (📷2) and upstream (📷3) directions. The trail offers a number of waterfall waypoints, but they’re not all easy to see well due to vegetation overgrowth or flooded miradors; this is part of Gradas de Soaso, a sequence of steps (📷4).
After ~2h on trail the landscape changed again, to a bleaker grassy expanse as we got nearer to the head of the valley (📷1). Water streamed off the cliffs, forming rivulets that found their way to the river, although not before leaving the ground boggy in many places (📷2). Our first new flower of the day was a native in the daisy family, Tussilago farfara | the colt’s foot (📷3). At 9km/ 3h on trail we reached the signature Cascada Cola de Caballo | horse trail waterfall, which felt somewhat anticlimactic (📷4).
Our second new flower was native Narcissus pseudonarcissus | the wild daffodil, which seemed to favour growing within the protective cocoon offered by another (perfectly named) spiny native, Echinospartum horridum (📷1). Vultures circled overhead; we think we heard marmots whistling and the herd of native Rupicapra pyrenaica | Pyrenean chamois we’d seen on the way in had drawn closer to the river as we turned back (📷2). Cascada del Estrecho was our favourite waterfall; we detoured from the main path to its mirador on the return leg (📷3). Instead of rejoining the main path we crossed the river, which afforded new views en route to the parking area (📷4). 19km/ 5.5h return.
A scenic drive out of the mountains from pitch in Broto to the town of Barbastro, where chores awaited. Here’s the view from Mirador de Jánovas, between the villages of Fiscal and Boltaña (📷1). Embalse de Mediano contained stands of flooded trees (📷2) and the threat of rain made for moody reflections (📷3). Embalse de El Grado I, the neighbouring reservoir, was looking very emerald from the van door as we stopped for lunch.
Montfalcó
Despite some reports, the 15km from the N-230 to public parking at Montfalcó (near Viacamp) weren’t at all challenging in a 2WD, with mostly good surface—but narrow in places. Mirador de Montfalcó overlooks Pantà de Canelles | Embalse de Canelles, but also offered a first glimpse of the Noguera Ribagorzana river that divides Aragón’s Montsec de L’Estall to the west (left bank) from Catalonia’s Montsec d’Ares on the eastern shore (📷1). These karst escarpments are part of the outer mountains of the Central Pyrenees, formed from Cretaceous and Jurassic materials.
We’d come to hike the Camino Natural de Montfalcó al Congost de Mont-rebei | Natural Path from Montfalcó to the Congost de Mont-rebei. Here’s a view from the first pasarela | catwalk up a 30m escarpment, with 139 steps over 90m in length (📷2). The second pasarela is longer at 120m, with 215 steps ascending a 44m high escarpment (📷3). This is where you question how comfortable you are in the knowledge it was likely engineered by the lowest bidder… Sarcocapnos enneaphylla, native to southwestern Europe and northern Africa, is however quite at home on limestone escarpments (📷4).
From the second pasarela we could anticipate the upcoming descent to the suspension bridge spanning the 35m gap between Aragón and Catalonia (📷1). From said bridge at Congost del Seguer, looking into the gorge of Mont-rebei, we could readily appreciate the depth of canyon the river had cut here (📷2); the cliffs reach over 500m high. Camino Natural de Montfalcó al Congost de Mont-rebei ascends a short way on the Catalonian side to intersect the Camí de Mont-rebei, itself a segment of the long-distance GR-1 (Sendero Histórico). As we climbed to join it we got a good look back at the second pasarela we’d used on the opposite bank (📷3). We also looked down of course (the path is uneven here) and avoided trampling this big darkling beetle (📷4); Blaps lusitanica can release a foul-smelling secretion from glands at its rear when threatened.
Our original goal had been a mirador in the Mont-rebei Gorge, from which we could look back the way we had come (📷1) and also in the onward direction (📷2). Having met a Spanish couple who told us they were continuing in order to pick up a kayak and return by water, we decided to do the same. We thus continued beyond the mirador on Camí de Mont-rebei, a spectacular cliffside trail through the gorge known for its narrow path carved into rock walls above the river (📷3). After ~10km/ 3h 40min of hiking we arrived at a beach where, luckily, there was a spare double kayak available (we’d tried phoning, but had signal issues). Our 8km/ 1h 40min paddle back through the gorge (📷4) to a pier below Albergue de Montfalcó was followed by a 2km 4×4 transfer up the steep hill, where we paid for the rental—and our knees expressed their gratitude!
Muralla de Finestres
Roques de la Vila is a geological formation also popularly known as Muralla (China) de Finestres | the (Chinese) Wall Of Finestres. We followed online and local advice to park at Puente de Penavera, a bridge northeast of Estopiñán del Castillo, given the state of the dirt road. The 6.4km drive from our pitch in town took ~30 minutes. Although we sighted the formation ~4.5km into the hike, we first came to the former settlement of Finestres (📷1). It was depopulated in 1960 due to the filling of the Canelles reservoir; only one house, Casa Coix, is seasonally inhabited. A short and easy signposted walk links the village centre to Ermita de San Marcos | the Hermitage of Saint Mark; this is the best spot for panoramic views of the ~840m long formation (📷2). Folding of strata ~100 million years ago and subsequent erosion have created two primary parallel lines of vertical limestone that resemble a wall (📷3). Some of the formation is now partially submerged in the reservoir (📷4).
Between the two lines of strata sits the 11–12th C. Romanesque Esglèsia de Sant Vicenç | Ermita San Vicente | Church of Saint Vincent, seen here from the more challenging path to reach it (📷1); poles are useful. On this part of the hike you cross over one of the walls and reach water level, where we noted this particular slab, nicely illustrating the process of continuing erosion (📷2). The hermitage is partially formed from limestone and the sanctuary is largely intact (📷3); the remnants of Castillo de Finestras, a medieval Moorish castle upon which the hermitage was built, are also evident. From this vantage point there’s an impressive view down the middle of the formation (📷4). The 15km/ 4.5h return hike was mostly exposed.
After this hike it was farewell Aragón; it certainly made an impression and is an area we’d happily return to.
#2026 #aragón #camperVan #catalonia #europe #hiking #nationalPark #nature #nomad #roadTrip #romans #spain #travel #unesco #vanLife -
The wild reaches of Aragón
About half the size of Portugal, we knew very little of Spain’s Aragón region. That was about to change as our road from Extremadura led us through its northern reaches bound for the co-principality of Andorra.
Coordinates
- Alhama de Aragón
- Nuévalos
- Zaragoza
- Castejón de Monegros
- Sariñena
- Alquézar
- Rodellar
- Barbastro
- Torla-Ordesa
- Viacamp
- Estopiñán del Castillo
Into Aragón
From Aranjuez we began our journey northeast towards Zaragoza, noting changes in the landscape once we had escaped the spaghetti junctions, slow traffic and industrialized zones in Madrid’s orbit. We saw red earth in the hills near Medinaceli (📷1) and green fields further along the A-2 near Arcos de Jalón (📷2), both in the Castile and León region. Crossing into Aragón we came to the spa town of Alhama de Aragón, a name derived from Arabic, although its thermal springs were known in Roman times (📷3). A bridge crossing on Embalse de la Tranquera | Tranquillity Reservoir, which certainly lives up to its name, as we approached pitch in Nuévalos (📷4).
Monasterio de Piedra near Nuévalos is a former monastery (now part ruin and part hotel) and Romantic landscaped park containing trees, waterfalls and caves along the Piedra River; this is Cascada la Caprichosa (📷1). The combination of Cascade Cola de Caballo (📷2) with Gruta Iris behind its curtain (📷3), reached via a staircase cut into the cliff, was easily the highlight. Some of the scenery was decidedly more tranquil, but no less dramatic (📷4). Visiting the ruin of Santa Maria de Piedra is included in the entry ticket; it was occupied by Cistercian monks from 1218 CE for 617 years, until confiscated by the Spanish Government in 1835 and coming into private ownership. Within the ruin there’s a museum about wine making and exhibit on the introduction of chocolate to Europe. Note that the site only reopened a year ago after severe flood damage in late 2024; it’s mass tourism-oriented, so an early start helps avoid the crowds.
Zaragoza
After leaving Nuévalos we enjoyed seeing semi-arid agricultural landscapes (📷1) before joining motorways bound for the metropolitan sprawl of Zaragoza. Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar is the city’s defining landmark, a huge baroque basilica with domes overlooking the Ebro, seen here behind 15th C. bridge of Puente de Piedra (📷2); the Romans had also bridged the Ebro here when the town was known as Caesaraugusta. The 11th C. Islamic Aljafería Palace is part of the Mudéjar Architecture of Aragón UNESCO listing (📷3); it was unfortunately closed for siesta when we arrived—having been caught out a few times by this already! La Seo Cathedral | Cathedral of the Saviour is also part of the UNESCO listing, being built atop the Roman forum and serving as a mosque—evident in its exterior Mudéjar wall (📷4)—before expansion as a Christian cathedral; the interior (€) mixes Romanesque, Gothic, Mudéjar, Renaissance and Baroque styles.
Los Monegros
The Ruta Jubierre | Jubierre track is an unpaved route that leads into the Barrancos de Jubierre, a badlands area within Aragón’s semi-arid Los Monegros region (it’s not technically a desert). We began from the southern end near the village of Castejón de Monegros, heading northward to exit onto the A-131 towards Sariñena. To visit Tozal Solitario, an isolated rock formation, we wisely left the van on the main track and walked to the formation (📷1). Tozal de Colásico is larger and can be seen without leaving the main track (📷2); you can also drive right up to it. Tozales de Los Pedregales is a collection of four eroded clay formations and ravines reached via a short but well-marked hike (📷3); this is formation no. 4. Tozal de la Cobeta is apparently the most photographed formation (📷4); we drove off the main track right up to this one, avoiding a hot 6km return hike. It took us ~3h to make the drive at ~30km/h max and to take short hikes to the formations. It had been dry so the dirt was very compacted and we had no concerns about clearance in our 2WD camper; we used the width of the road to avoid ruts and corrugations, as traffic was light. There was no avoiding the dust though!
Parque Natural Sierra y Cañones de Guara
The pretty but touristy village of Alquézar lies within Parque Natural Sierra y Cañones de Guara | Natural Park of the Sierra and Canyons of Guara; it’s crowned by Colegiata de Santa María la Mayor and Castillo Torre (📷1). The 6 € pp 3km Pasarelas de Alquézar descend from the ticket gate at the town hall into the adjacent Río Vero canyon, where we noted native Ramonda myconi | the Pyrenean violet in flower (📷2). We gained access to the clear-running river at Cueva Picamartillo (📷3) before taking the first of several gangways suspended over the riverbed (📷4).
Continuing in the pasarelas, the hand of man is evident in the canyon, with industrial remnants including a weir and canal that was part of a small hydroelectric plant completed in 1913 (📷1); it reused an old mill and today’s visitor trail began as service paths. The dramatic limestone canyon itself however is of natural karst geology and the metal gangways purpose-built for tourism (📷2). Aphyllanthes monspeliensis | the blue aphyllanthes is endemic to the western Mediterranean (📷3). A look back towards town from Mirador del Vero as a thunderstorm approaches; you can see more of the gangways on the riverside cliffs (📷4). This was a 6.3km/ 2h 20min loop walk from the campsite.
Our next hike in Parque Natural Sierra y Cañones de Guara was the S-3 Circular, anticlockwise, from the trailhead at Rodellar. We descended into Barranco del Mascún | the Mascún River gorge, noting rock climbers scaling sheer cliffs on both sides of the valley and gradually improving our view of the first of several rock windows we’d see on the trail (📷1). On reaching the riverbed we joined the Camino de Otín. There’s a nice view back to the window from near Surgencia de Mascún | the spring where Río Mascún stops being underground (📷2); shortly after the spring the intimidating Espolón de la Virgen via ferrata begins. Native Helianthemum apenninum | white rock-rose seemed to like living in the valley floor (📷3). We had views to Torre de Santiago for some time before reaching the formation (📷4).
Ascending the S-3 trail beside Torre de Santiago (📷1). We found the lengthy and uneven climb from the riverbed to Mirador del Mascún (📷2) rather tough, but greatly enjoyed ever-changing perspectives on the Torre. Native Polygala calcarea | the chalk milkwort favoured living at elevation (📷3). At the abandoned village of Otín we turned towards Dolmen de la Losa Mora, ~5,000 years old (📷4). The trail was less dramatic but pleasant, until we began the descent back to the Río Mascún via the Andrebot ravine—here the path was formed of loose limestone and slow-going (use poles to reduce tumble risk). From the spring we backtracked up to Rodellar. The loop over 15km took us 5.5h. At camp we checked in with “I need a place to sleep, a beer & a hot shower—in any order!”
Parque Natural Ordesa y Monte Perdido
Pradera de Ordesa (parking near Torla-Ordesa) to the Cola de Caballo waterfall is a popular out-and-back trail in Parque Natural Ordesa y Monte Perdido | Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park. The Senda a la Cola de Caballo trail runs beside the Río Arazas, although the first section is under forest cover with limited views (📷1). After ~100min on trail things get more open and we found ourselves admiring spring greens next to clear mountain waters and impressive walls of rock in both downstream (📷2) and upstream (📷3) directions. The trail offers a number of waterfall waypoints, but they’re not all easy to see well due to vegetation overgrowth or flooded miradors; this is part of Gradas de Soaso, a sequence of steps (📷4).
After ~2h on trail the landscape changed again, to a bleaker grassy expanse as we got nearer to the head of the valley (📷1). Water streamed off the cliffs, forming rivulets that found their way to the river, although not before leaving the ground boggy in many places (📷2). Our first new flower of the day was a native in the daisy family, Tussilago farfara | the colt’s foot (📷3). At 9km/ 3h on trail we reached the signature Cascada Cola de Caballo | horse trail waterfall, which felt somewhat anticlimactic (📷4).
Our second new flower was native Narcissus pseudonarcissus | the wild daffodil, which seemed to favour growing within the protective cocoon offered by another (perfectly named) spiny native, Echinospartum horridum (📷1). Vultures circled overhead; we think we heard marmots whistling and the herd of native Rupicapra pyrenaica | Pyrenean chamois we’d seen on the way in had drawn closer to the river as we turned back (📷2). Cascada del Estrecho was our favourite waterfall; we detoured from the main path to its mirador on the return leg (📷3). Instead of rejoining the main path we crossed the river, which afforded new views en route to the parking area (📷4). 19km/ 5.5h return.
A scenic drive out of the mountains from pitch in Broto to the town of Barbastro, where chores awaited. Here’s the view from Mirador de Jánovas, between the villages of Fiscal and Boltaña (📷1). Embalse de Mediano contained stands of flooded trees (📷2) and the threat of rain made for moody reflections (📷3). Embalse de El Grado I, the neighbouring reservoir, was looking very emerald from the van door as we stopped for lunch.
Montfalcó
Despite some reports, the 15km from the N-230 to public parking at Montfalcó (near Viacamp) weren’t at all challenging in a 2WD, with mostly good surface—but narrow in places. Mirador de Montfalcó overlooks Pantà de Canelles | Embalse de Canelles, but also offered a first glimpse of the Noguera Ribagorzana river that divides Aragón’s Montsec de L’Estall to the west (left bank) from Catalonia’s Montsec d’Ares on the eastern shore (📷1). These karst escarpments are part of the outer mountains of the Central Pyrenees, formed from Cretaceous and Jurassic materials.
We’d come to hike the Camino Natural de Montfalcó al Congost de Mont-rebei | Natural Path from Montfalcó to the Congost de Mont-rebei. Here’s a view from the first pasarela | catwalk up a 30m escarpment, with 139 steps over 90m in length (📷2). The second pasarela is longer at 120m, with 215 steps ascending a 44m high escarpment (📷3). This is where you question how comfortable you are in the knowledge it was likely engineered by the lowest bidder… Sarcocapnos enneaphylla, native to southwestern Europe and northern Africa, is however quite at home on limestone escarpments (📷4).
From the second pasarela we could anticipate the upcoming descent to the suspension bridge spanning the 35m gap between Aragón and Catalonia (📷1). From said bridge at Congost del Seguer, looking into the gorge of Mont-rebei, we could readily appreciate the depth of canyon the river had cut here (📷2); the cliffs reach over 500m high. Camino Natural de Montfalcó al Congost de Mont-rebei ascends a short way on the Catalonian side to intersect the Camí de Mont-rebei, itself a segment of the long-distance GR-1 (Sendero Histórico). As we climbed to join it we got a good look back at the second pasarela we’d used on the opposite bank (📷3). We also looked down of course (the path is uneven here) and avoided trampling this big darkling beetle (📷4); Blaps lusitanica can release a foul-smelling secretion from glands at its rear when threatened.
Our original goal had been a mirador in the Mont-rebei Gorge, from which we could look back the way we had come (📷1) and also in the onward direction (📷2). Having met a Spanish couple who told us they were continuing in order to pick up a kayak and return by water, we decided to do the same. We thus continued beyond the mirador on Camí de Mont-rebei, a spectacular cliffside trail through the gorge known for its narrow path carved into rock walls above the river (📷3). After ~10km/ 3h 40min of hiking we arrived at a beach where, luckily, there was a spare double kayak available (we’d tried phoning, but had signal issues). Our 8km/ 1h 40min paddle back through the gorge (📷4) to a pier below Albergue de Montfalcó was followed by a 2km 4×4 transfer up the steep hill, where we paid for the rental—and our knees expressed their gratitude!
Muralla de Finestres
Roques de la Vila is a geological formation also popularly known as Muralla (China) de Finestres | the (Chinese) Wall Of Finestres. We followed online and local advice to park at Puente de Penavera, a bridge northeast of Estopiñán del Castillo, given the state of the dirt road. The 6.4km drive from our pitch in town took ~30 minutes. Although we sighted the formation ~4.5km into the hike, we first came to the former settlement of Finestres (📷1). It was depopulated in 1960 due to the filling of the Canelles reservoir; only one house, Casa Coix, is seasonally inhabited. A short and easy signposted walk links the village centre to Ermita de San Marcos | the Hermitage of Saint Mark; this is the best spot for panoramic views of the ~840m long formation (📷2). Folding of strata ~100 million years ago and subsequent erosion have created two primary parallel lines of vertical limestone that resemble a wall (📷3). Some of the formation is now partially submerged in the reservoir (📷4).
Between the two lines of strata sits the 11–12th C. Romanesque Esglèsia de Sant Vicenç | Ermita San Vicente | Church of Saint Vincent, seen here from the more challenging path to reach it (📷1); poles are useful. On this part of the hike you cross over one of the walls and reach water level, where we noted this particular slab, nicely illustrating the process of continuing erosion (📷2). The hermitage is partially formed from limestone and the sanctuary is largely intact (📷3); the remnants of Castillo de Finestras, a medieval Moorish castle upon which the hermitage was built, are also evident. From this vantage point there’s an impressive view down the middle of the formation (📷4). The 15km/ 4.5h return hike was mostly exposed.
After this hike it was farewell Aragón; it certainly made an impression and is an area we’d happily return to.
#2026 #aragón #camperVan #catalonia #europe #hiking #nationalPark #nature #nomad #roadTrip #romans #spain #travel #unesco #vanLife -
The wild reaches of Aragón
About half the size of Portugal, we knew very little of Spain’s Aragón region. That was about to change as our road from Extremadura led us through its northern reaches bound for the co-principality of Andorra.
Coordinates
- Alhama de Aragón
- Nuévalos
- Zaragoza
- Castejón de Monegros
- Sariñena
- Alquézar
- Rodellar
- Barbastro
- Torla-Ordesa
- Viacamp
- Estopiñán del Castillo
Into Aragón
From Aranjuez we began our journey northeast towards Zaragoza, noting changes in the landscape once we had escaped the spaghetti junctions, slow traffic and industrialized zones in Madrid’s orbit. We saw red earth in the hills near Medinaceli (📷1) and green fields further along the A-2 near Arcos de Jalón (📷2), both in the Castile and León region. Crossing into Aragón we came to the spa town of Alhama de Aragón, a name derived from Arabic, although its thermal springs were known in Roman times (📷3). A bridge crossing on Embalse de la Tranquera | Tranquillity Reservoir, which certainly lives up to its name, as we approached pitch in Nuévalos (📷4).
Monasterio de Piedra near Nuévalos is a former monastery (now part ruin and part hotel) and Romantic landscaped park containing trees, waterfalls and caves along the Piedra River; this is Cascada la Caprichosa (📷1). The combination of Cascade Cola de Caballo (📷2) with Gruta Iris behind its curtain (📷3), reached via a staircase cut into the cliff, was easily the highlight. Some of the scenery was decidedly more tranquil, but no less dramatic (📷4). Visiting the ruin of Santa Maria de Piedra is included in the entry ticket; it was occupied by Cistercian monks from 1218 CE for 617 years, until confiscated by the Spanish Government in 1835 and coming into private ownership. Within the ruin there’s a museum about wine making and exhibit on the introduction of chocolate to Europe. Note that the site only reopened a year ago after severe flood damage in late 2024; it’s mass tourism-oriented, so an early start helps avoid the crowds.
Zaragoza
After leaving Nuévalos we enjoyed seeing semi-arid agricultural landscapes (📷1) before joining motorways bound for the metropolitan sprawl of Zaragoza. Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar is the city’s defining landmark, a huge baroque basilica with domes overlooking the Ebro, seen here behind 15th C. bridge of Puente de Piedra (📷2); the Romans had also bridged the Ebro here when the town was known as Caesaraugusta. The 11th C. Islamic Aljafería Palace is part of the Mudéjar Architecture of Aragón UNESCO listing (📷3); it was unfortunately closed for siesta when we arrived—having been caught out a few times by this already! La Seo Cathedral | Cathedral of the Saviour is also part of the UNESCO listing, being built atop the Roman forum and serving as a mosque—evident in its exterior Mudéjar wall (📷4)—before expansion as a Christian cathedral; the interior (€) mixes Romanesque, Gothic, Mudéjar, Renaissance and Baroque styles.
Los Monegros
The Ruta Jubierre | Jubierre track is an unpaved route that leads into the Barrancos de Jubierre, a badlands area within Aragón’s semi-arid Los Monegros region (it’s not technically a desert). We began from the southern end near the village of Castejón de Monegros, heading northward to exit onto the A-131 towards Sariñena. To visit Tozal Solitario, an isolated rock formation, we wisely left the van on the main track and walked to the formation (📷1). Tozal de Colásico is larger and can be seen without leaving the main track (📷2); you can also drive right up to it. Tozales de Los Pedregales is a collection of four eroded clay formations and ravines reached via a short but well-marked hike (📷3); this is formation no. 4. Tozal de la Cobeta is apparently the most photographed formation (📷4); we drove off the main track right up to this one, avoiding a hot 6km return hike. It took us ~3h to make the drive at ~30km/h max and to take short hikes to the formations. It had been dry so the dirt was very compacted and we had no concerns about clearance in our 2WD camper; we used the width of the road to avoid ruts and corrugations, as traffic was light. There was no avoiding the dust though!
Parque Natural Sierra y Cañones de Guara
The pretty but touristy village of Alquézar lies within Parque Natural Sierra y Cañones de Guara | Natural Park of the Sierra and Canyons of Guara; it’s crowned by Colegiata de Santa María la Mayor and Castillo Torre (📷1). The 6 € pp 3km Pasarelas de Alquézar descend from the ticket gate at the town hall into the adjacent Río Vero canyon, where we noted native Ramonda myconi | the Pyrenean violet in flower (📷2). We gained access to the clear-running river at Cueva Picamartillo (📷3) before taking the first of several gangways suspended over the riverbed (📷4).
Continuing in the pasarelas, the hand of man is evident in the canyon, with industrial remnants including a weir and canal that was part of a small hydroelectric plant completed in 1913 (📷1); it reused an old mill and today’s visitor trail began as service paths. The dramatic limestone canyon itself however is of natural karst geology and the metal gangways purpose-built for tourism (📷2). Aphyllanthes monspeliensis | the blue aphyllanthes is endemic to the western Mediterranean (📷3). A look back towards town from Mirador del Vero as a thunderstorm approaches; you can see more of the gangways on the riverside cliffs (📷4). This was a 6.3km/ 2h 20min loop walk from the campsite.
Our next hike in Parque Natural Sierra y Cañones de Guara was the S-3 Circular, anticlockwise, from the trailhead at Rodellar. We descended into Barranco del Mascún | the Mascún River gorge, noting rock climbers scaling sheer cliffs on both sides of the valley and gradually improving our view of the first of several rock windows we’d see on the trail (📷1). On reaching the riverbed we joined the Camino de Otín. There’s a nice view back to the window from near Surgencia de Mascún | the spring where Río Mascún stops being underground (📷2); shortly after the spring the intimidating Espolón de la Virgen via ferrata begins. Native Helianthemum apenninum | white rock-rose seemed to like living in the valley floor (📷3). We had views to Torre de Santiago for some time before reaching the formation (📷4).
Ascending the S-3 trail beside Torre de Santiago (📷1). We found the lengthy and uneven climb from the riverbed to Mirador del Mascún (📷2) rather tough, but greatly enjoyed ever-changing perspectives on the Torre. Native Polygala calcarea | the chalk milkwort favoured living at elevation (📷3). At the abandoned village of Otín we turned towards Dolmen de la Losa Mora, ~5,000 years old (📷4). The trail was less dramatic but pleasant, until we began the descent back to the Río Mascún via the Andrebot ravine—here the path was formed of loose limestone and slow-going (use poles to reduce tumble risk). From the spring we backtracked up to Rodellar. The loop over 15km took us 5.5h. At camp we checked in with “I need a place to sleep, a beer & a hot shower—in any order!”
Parque Natural Ordesa y Monte Perdido
Pradera de Ordesa (parking near Torla-Ordesa) to the Cola de Caballo waterfall is a popular out-and-back trail in Parque Natural Ordesa y Monte Perdido | Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park. The Senda a la Cola de Caballo trail runs beside the Río Arazas, although the first section is under forest cover with limited views (📷1). After ~100min on trail things get more open and we found ourselves admiring spring greens next to clear mountain waters and impressive walls of rock in both downstream (📷2) and upstream (📷3) directions. The trail offers a number of waterfall waypoints, but they’re not all easy to see well due to vegetation overgrowth or flooded miradors; this is part of Gradas de Soaso, a sequence of steps (📷4).
After ~2h on trail the landscape changed again, to a bleaker grassy expanse as we got nearer to the head of the valley (📷1). Water streamed off the cliffs, forming rivulets that found their way to the river, although not before leaving the ground boggy in many places (📷2). Our first new flower of the day was a native in the daisy family, Tussilago farfara | the colt’s foot (📷3). At 9km/ 3h on trail we reached the signature Cascada Cola de Caballo | horse trail waterfall, which felt somewhat anticlimactic (📷4).
Our second new flower was native Narcissus pseudonarcissus | the wild daffodil, which seemed to favour growing within the protective cocoon offered by another (perfectly named) spiny native, Echinospartum horridum (📷1). Vultures circled overhead; we think we heard marmots whistling and the herd of native Rupicapra pyrenaica | Pyrenean chamois we’d seen on the way in had drawn closer to the river as we turned back (📷2). Cascada del Estrecho was our favourite waterfall; we detoured from the main path to its mirador on the return leg (📷3). Instead of rejoining the main path we crossed the river, which afforded new views en route to the parking area (📷4). 19km/ 5.5h return.
A scenic drive out of the mountains from pitch in Broto to the town of Barbastro, where chores awaited. Here’s the view from Mirador de Jánovas, between the villages of Fiscal and Boltaña (📷1). Embalse de Mediano contained stands of flooded trees (📷2) and the threat of rain made for moody reflections (📷3). Embalse de El Grado I, the neighbouring reservoir, was looking very emerald from the van door as we stopped for lunch.
Montfalcó
Despite some reports, the 15km from the N-230 to public parking at Montfalcó (near Viacamp) weren’t at all challenging in a 2WD, with mostly good surface—but narrow in places. Mirador de Montfalcó overlooks Pantà de Canelles | Embalse de Canelles, but also offered a first glimpse of the Noguera Ribagorzana river that divides Aragón’s Montsec de L’Estall to the west (left bank) from Catalonia’s Montsec d’Ares on the eastern shore (📷1). These karst escarpments are part of the outer mountains of the Central Pyrenees, formed from Cretaceous and Jurassic materials.
We’d come to hike the Camino Natural de Montfalcó al Congost de Mont-rebei | Natural Path from Montfalcó to the Congost de Mont-rebei. Here’s a view from the first pasarela | catwalk up a 30m escarpment, with 139 steps over 90m in length (📷2). The second pasarela is longer at 120m, with 215 steps ascending a 44m high escarpment (📷3). This is where you question how comfortable you are in the knowledge it was likely engineered by the lowest bidder… Sarcocapnos enneaphylla, native to southwestern Europe and northern Africa, is however quite at home on limestone escarpments (📷4).
From the second pasarela we could anticipate the upcoming descent to the suspension bridge spanning the 35m gap between Aragón and Catalonia (📷1). From said bridge at Congost del Seguer, looking into the gorge of Mont-rebei, we could readily appreciate the depth of canyon the river had cut here (📷2); the cliffs reach over 500m high. Camino Natural de Montfalcó al Congost de Mont-rebei ascends a short way on the Catalonian side to intersect the Camí de Mont-rebei, itself a segment of the long-distance GR-1 (Sendero Histórico). As we climbed to join it we got a good look back at the second pasarela we’d used on the opposite bank (📷3). We also looked down of course (the path is uneven here) and avoided trampling this big darkling beetle (📷4); Blaps lusitanica can release a foul-smelling secretion from glands at its rear when threatened.
Our original goal had been a mirador in the Mont-rebei Gorge, from which we could look back the way we had come (📷1) and also in the onward direction (📷2). Having met a Spanish couple who told us they were continuing in order to pick up a kayak and return by water, we decided to do the same. We thus continued beyond the mirador on Camí de Mont-rebei, a spectacular cliffside trail through the gorge known for its narrow path carved into rock walls above the river (📷3). After ~10km/ 3h 40min of hiking we arrived at a beach where, luckily, there was a spare double kayak available (we’d tried phoning, but had signal issues). Our 8km/ 1h 40min paddle back through the gorge (📷4) to a pier below Albergue de Montfalcó was followed by a 2km 4×4 transfer up the steep hill, where we paid for the rental—and our knees expressed their gratitude!
Muralla de Finestres
Roques de la Vila is a geological formation also popularly known as Muralla (China) de Finestres | the (Chinese) Wall Of Finestres. We followed online and local advice to park at Puente de Penavera, a bridge northeast of Estopiñán del Castillo, given the state of the dirt road. The 6.4km drive from our pitch in town took ~30 minutes. Although we sighted the formation ~4.5km into the hike, we first came to the former settlement of Finestres (📷1). It was depopulated in 1960 due to the filling of the Canelles reservoir; only one house, Casa Coix, is seasonally inhabited. A short and easy signposted walk links the village centre to Ermita de San Marcos | the Hermitage of Saint Mark; this is the best spot for panoramic views of the ~840m long formation (📷2). Folding of strata ~100 million years ago and subsequent erosion have created two primary parallel lines of vertical limestone that resemble a wall (📷3). Some of the formation is now partially submerged in the reservoir (📷4).
Between the two lines of strata sits the 11–12th C. Romanesque Esglèsia de Sant Vicenç | Ermita San Vicente | Church of Saint Vincent, seen here from the more challenging path to reach it (📷1); poles are useful. On this part of the hike you cross over one of the walls and reach water level, where we noted this particular slab, nicely illustrating the process of continuing erosion (📷2). The hermitage is partially formed from limestone and the sanctuary is largely intact (📷3); the remnants of Castillo de Finestras, a medieval Moorish castle upon which the hermitage was built, are also evident. From this vantage point there’s an impressive view down the middle of the formation (📷4). The 15km/ 4.5h return hike was mostly exposed.
After this hike it was farewell Aragón; it certainly made an impression and is an area we’d happily return to.
#2026 #aragón #camperVan #catalonia #europe #hiking #nationalPark #nature #nomad #roadTrip #romans #spain #travel #unesco #vanLife -
The wild reaches of Aragón
About half the size of Portugal, we knew very little of Spain’s Aragón region. That was about to change as our road from Extremadura led us through its northern reaches bound for the co-principality of Andorra.
Coordinates
- Alhama de Aragón
- Nuévalos
- Zaragoza
- Castejón de Monegros
- Sariñena
- Alquézar
- Rodellar
- Barbastro
- Torla-Ordesa
- Viacamp
- Estopiñán del Castillo
Into Aragón
From Aranjuez we began our journey northeast towards Zaragoza, noting changes in the landscape once we had escaped the spaghetti junctions, slow traffic and industrialized zones in Madrid’s orbit. We saw red earth in the hills near Medinaceli (📷1) and green fields further along the A-2 near Arcos de Jalón (📷2), both in the Castile and León region. Crossing into Aragón we came to the spa town of Alhama de Aragón, a name derived from Arabic, although its thermal springs were known in Roman times (📷3). A bridge crossing on Embalse de la Tranquera | Tranquillity Reservoir, which certainly lives up to its name, as we approached pitch in Nuévalos (📷4).
Monasterio de Piedra near Nuévalos is a former monastery (now part ruin and part hotel) and Romantic landscaped park containing trees, waterfalls and caves along the Piedra River; this is Cascada la Caprichosa (📷1). The combination of Cascade Cola de Caballo (📷2) with Gruta Iris behind its curtain (📷3), reached via a staircase cut into the cliff, was easily the highlight. Some of the scenery was decidedly more tranquil, but no less dramatic (📷4). Visiting the ruin of Santa Maria de Piedra is included in the entry ticket; it was occupied by Cistercian monks from 1218 CE for 617 years, until confiscated by the Spanish Government in 1835 and coming into private ownership. Within the ruin there’s a museum about wine making and exhibit on the introduction of chocolate to Europe. Note that the site only reopened a year ago after severe flood damage in late 2024; it’s mass tourism-oriented, so an early start helps avoid the crowds.
Zaragoza
After leaving Nuévalos we enjoyed seeing semi-arid agricultural landscapes (📷1) before joining motorways bound for the metropolitan sprawl of Zaragoza. Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar is the city’s defining landmark, a huge baroque basilica with domes overlooking the Ebro, seen here behind 15th C. bridge of Puente de Piedra (📷2); the Romans had also bridged the Ebro here when the town was known as Caesaraugusta. The 11th C. Islamic Aljafería Palace is part of the Mudéjar Architecture of Aragón UNESCO listing (📷3); it was unfortunately closed for siesta when we arrived—having been caught out a few times by this already! La Seo Cathedral | Cathedral of the Saviour is also part of the UNESCO listing, being built atop the Roman forum and serving as a mosque—evident in its exterior Mudéjar wall (📷4)—before expansion as a Christian cathedral; the interior (€) mixes Romanesque, Gothic, Mudéjar, Renaissance and Baroque styles.
Los Monegros
The Ruta Jubierre | Jubierre track is an unpaved route that leads into the Barrancos de Jubierre, a badlands area within Aragón’s semi-arid Los Monegros region (it’s not technically a desert). We began from the southern end near the village of Castejón de Monegros, heading northward to exit onto the A-131 towards Sariñena. To visit Tozal Solitario, an isolated rock formation, we wisely left the van on the main track and walked to the formation (📷1). Tozal de Colásico is larger and can be seen without leaving the main track (📷2); you can also drive right up to it. Tozales de Los Pedregales is a collection of four eroded clay formations and ravines reached via a short but well-marked hike (📷3); this is formation no. 4. Tozal de la Cobeta is apparently the most photographed formation (📷4); we drove off the main track right up to this one, avoiding a hot 6km return hike. It took us ~3h to make the drive at ~30km/h max and to take short hikes to the formations. It had been dry so the dirt was very compacted and we had no concerns about clearance in our 2WD camper; we used the width of the road to avoid ruts and corrugations, as traffic was light. There was no avoiding the dust though!
Parque Natural Sierra y Cañones de Guara
The pretty but touristy village of Alquézar lies within Parque Natural Sierra y Cañones de Guara | Natural Park of the Sierra and Canyons of Guara; it’s crowned by Colegiata de Santa María la Mayor and Castillo Torre (📷1). The 6 € pp 3km Pasarelas de Alquézar descend from the ticket gate at the town hall into the adjacent Río Vero canyon, where we noted native Ramonda myconi | the Pyrenean violet in flower (📷2). We gained access to the clear-running river at Cueva Picamartillo (📷3) before taking the first of several gangways suspended over the riverbed (📷4).
Continuing in the pasarelas, the hand of man is evident in the canyon, with industrial remnants including a weir and canal that was part of a small hydroelectric plant completed in 1913 (📷1); it reused an old mill and today’s visitor trail began as service paths. The dramatic limestone canyon itself however is of natural karst geology and the metal gangways purpose-built for tourism (📷2). Aphyllanthes monspeliensis | the blue aphyllanthes is endemic to the western Mediterranean (📷3). A look back towards town from Mirador del Vero as a thunderstorm approaches; you can see more of the gangways on the riverside cliffs (📷4). This was a 6.3km/ 2h 20min loop walk from the campsite.
Our next hike in Parque Natural Sierra y Cañones de Guara was the S-3 Circular, anticlockwise, from the trailhead at Rodellar. We descended into Barranco del Mascún | the Mascún River gorge, noting rock climbers scaling sheer cliffs on both sides of the valley and gradually improving our view of the first of several rock windows we’d see on the trail (📷1). On reaching the riverbed we joined the Camino de Otín. There’s a nice view back to the window from near Surgencia de Mascún | the spring where Río Mascún stops being underground (📷2); shortly after the spring the intimidating Espolón de la Virgen via ferrata begins. Native Helianthemum apenninum | white rock-rose seemed to like living in the valley floor (📷3). We had views to Torre de Santiago for some time before reaching the formation (📷4).
Ascending the S-3 trail beside Torre de Santiago (📷1). We found the lengthy and uneven climb from the riverbed to Mirador del Mascún (📷2) rather tough, but greatly enjoyed ever-changing perspectives on the Torre. Native Polygala calcarea | the chalk milkwort favoured living at elevation (📷3). At the abandoned village of Otín we turned towards Dolmen de la Losa Mora, ~5,000 years old (📷4). The trail was less dramatic but pleasant, until we began the descent back to the Río Mascún via the Andrebot ravine—here the path was formed of loose limestone and slow-going (use poles to reduce tumble risk). From the spring we backtracked up to Rodellar. The loop over 15km took us 5.5h. At camp we checked in with “I need a place to sleep, a beer & a hot shower—in any order!”
Parque Natural Ordesa y Monte Perdido
Pradera de Ordesa (parking near Torla-Ordesa) to the Cola de Caballo waterfall is a popular out-and-back trail in Parque Natural Ordesa y Monte Perdido | Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park. The Senda a la Cola de Caballo trail runs beside the Río Arazas, although the first section is under forest cover with limited views (📷1). After ~100min on trail things get more open and we found ourselves admiring spring greens next to clear mountain waters and impressive walls of rock in both downstream (📷2) and upstream (📷3) directions. The trail offers a number of waterfall waypoints, but they’re not all easy to see well due to vegetation overgrowth or flooded miradors; this is part of Gradas de Soaso, a sequence of steps (📷4).
After ~2h on trail the landscape changed again, to a bleaker grassy expanse as we got nearer to the head of the valley (📷1). Water streamed off the cliffs, forming rivulets that found their way to the river, although not before leaving the ground boggy in many places (📷2). Our first new flower of the day was a native in the daisy family, Tussilago farfara | the colt’s foot (📷3). At 9km/ 3h on trail we reached the signature Cascada Cola de Caballo | horse trail waterfall, which felt somewhat anticlimactic (📷4).
Our second new flower was native Narcissus pseudonarcissus | the wild daffodil, which seemed to favour growing within the protective cocoon offered by another (perfectly named) spiny native, Echinospartum horridum (📷1). Vultures circled overhead; we think we heard marmots whistling and the herd of native Rupicapra pyrenaica | Pyrenean chamois we’d seen on the way in had drawn closer to the river as we turned back (📷2). Cascada del Estrecho was our favourite waterfall; we detoured from the main path to its mirador on the return leg (📷3). Instead of rejoining the main path we crossed the river, which afforded new views en route to the parking area (📷4). 19km/ 5.5h return.
A scenic drive out of the mountains from pitch in Broto to the town of Barbastro, where chores awaited. Here’s the view from Mirador de Jánovas, between the villages of Fiscal and Boltaña (📷1). Embalse de Mediano contained stands of flooded trees (📷2) and the threat of rain made for moody reflections (📷3). Embalse de El Grado I, the neighbouring reservoir, was looking very emerald from the van door as we stopped for lunch.
Montfalcó
Despite some reports, the 15km from the N-230 to public parking at Montfalcó (near Viacamp) weren’t at all challenging in a 2WD, with mostly good surface—but narrow in places. Mirador de Montfalcó overlooks Pantà de Canelles | Embalse de Canelles, but also offered a first glimpse of the Noguera Ribagorzana river that divides Aragón’s Montsec de L’Estall to the west (left bank) from Catalonia’s Montsec d’Ares on the eastern shore (📷1). These karst escarpments are part of the outer mountains of the Central Pyrenees, formed from Cretaceous and Jurassic materials.
We’d come to hike the Camino Natural de Montfalcó al Congost de Mont-rebei | Natural Path from Montfalcó to the Congost de Mont-rebei. Here’s a view from the first pasarela | catwalk up a 30m escarpment, with 139 steps over 90m in length (📷2). The second pasarela is longer at 120m, with 215 steps ascending a 44m high escarpment (📷3). This is where you question how comfortable you are in the knowledge it was likely engineered by the lowest bidder… Sarcocapnos enneaphylla, native to southwestern Europe and northern Africa, is however quite at home on limestone escarpments (📷4).
From the second pasarela we could anticipate the upcoming descent to the suspension bridge spanning the 35m gap between Aragón and Catalonia (📷1). From said bridge at Congost del Seguer, looking into the gorge of Mont-rebei, we could readily appreciate the depth of canyon the river had cut here (📷2); the cliffs reach over 500m high. Camino Natural de Montfalcó al Congost de Mont-rebei ascends a short way on the Catalonian side to intersect the Camí de Mont-rebei, itself a segment of the long-distance GR-1 (Sendero Histórico). As we climbed to join it we got a good look back at the second pasarela we’d used on the opposite bank (📷3). We also looked down of course (the path is uneven here) and avoided trampling this big darkling beetle (📷4); Blaps lusitanica can release a foul-smelling secretion from glands at its rear when threatened.
Our original goal had been a mirador in the Mont-rebei Gorge, from which we could look back the way we had come (📷1) and also in the onward direction (📷2). Having met a Spanish couple who told us they were continuing in order to pick up a kayak and return by water, we decided to do the same. We thus continued beyond the mirador on Camí de Mont-rebei, a spectacular cliffside trail through the gorge known for its narrow path carved into rock walls above the river (📷3). After ~10km/ 3h 40min of hiking we arrived at a beach where, luckily, there was a spare double kayak available (we’d tried phoning, but had signal issues). Our 8km/ 1h 40min paddle back through the gorge (📷4) to a pier below Albergue de Montfalcó was followed by a 2km 4×4 transfer up the steep hill, where we paid for the rental—and our knees expressed their gratitude!
Muralla de Finestres
Roques de la Vila is a geological formation also popularly known as Muralla (China) de Finestres | the (Chinese) Wall Of Finestres. We followed online and local advice to park at Puente de Penavera, a bridge northeast of Estopiñán del Castillo, given the state of the dirt road. The 6.4km drive from our pitch in town took ~30 minutes. Although we sighted the formation ~4.5km into the hike, we first came to the former settlement of Finestres (📷1). It was depopulated in 1960 due to the filling of the Canelles reservoir; only one house, Casa Coix, is seasonally inhabited. A short and easy signposted walk links the village centre to Ermita de San Marcos | the Hermitage of Saint Mark; this is the best spot for panoramic views of the ~840m long formation (📷2). Folding of strata ~100 million years ago and subsequent erosion have created two primary parallel lines of vertical limestone that resemble a wall (📷3). Some of the formation is now partially submerged in the reservoir (📷4).
Between the two lines of strata sits the 11–12th C. Romanesque Esglèsia de Sant Vicenç | Ermita San Vicente | Church of Saint Vincent, seen here from the more challenging path to reach it (📷1); poles are useful. On this part of the hike you cross over one of the walls and reach water level, where we noted this particular slab, nicely illustrating the process of continuing erosion (📷2). The hermitage is partially formed from limestone and the sanctuary is largely intact (📷3); the remnants of Castillo de Finestras, a medieval Moorish castle upon which the hermitage was built, are also evident. From this vantage point there’s an impressive view down the middle of the formation (📷4). The 15km/ 4.5h return hike was mostly exposed.
After this hike it was farewell Aragón; it certainly made an impression and is an area we’d happily return to.
#2026 #aragón #camperVan #catalonia #europe #hiking #nationalPark #nature #nomad #roadTrip #romans #spain #travel #unesco #vanLife -
The wild reaches of Aragón
About half the size of Portugal, we knew very little of Spain’s Aragón region. That was about to change as our road from Extremadura led us through its northern reaches bound for the co-principality of Andorra.
Coordinates
- Alhama de Aragón
- Nuévalos
- Zaragoza
- Castejón de Monegros
- Sariñena
- Alquézar
- Rodellar
- Barbastro
- Torla-Ordesa
- Viacamp
- Estopiñán del Castillo
Into Aragón
From Aranjuez we began our journey northeast towards Zaragoza, noting changes in the landscape once we had escaped the spaghetti junctions, slow traffic and industrialized zones in Madrid’s orbit. We saw red earth in the hills near Medinaceli (📷1) and green fields further along the A-2 near Arcos de Jalón (📷2), both in the Castile and León region. Crossing into Aragón we came to the spa town of Alhama de Aragón, a name derived from Arabic, although its thermal springs were known in Roman times (📷3). A bridge crossing on Embalse de la Tranquera | Tranquillity Reservoir, which certainly lives up to its name, as we approached pitch in Nuévalos (📷4).
Monasterio de Piedra near Nuévalos is a former monastery (now part ruin and part hotel) and Romantic landscaped park containing trees, waterfalls and caves along the Piedra River; this is Cascada la Caprichosa (📷1). The combination of Cascade Cola de Caballo (📷2) with Gruta Iris behind its curtain (📷3), reached via a staircase cut into the cliff, was easily the highlight. Some of the scenery was decidedly more tranquil, but no less dramatic (📷4). Visiting the ruin of Santa Maria de Piedra is included in the entry ticket; it was occupied by Cistercian monks from 1218 CE for 617 years, until confiscated by the Spanish Government in 1835 and coming into private ownership. Within the ruin there’s a museum about wine making and exhibit on the introduction of chocolate to Europe. Note that the site only reopened a year ago after severe flood damage in late 2024; it’s mass tourism-oriented, so an early start helps avoid the crowds.
Zaragoza
After leaving Nuévalos we enjoyed seeing semi-arid agricultural landscapes (📷1) before joining motorways bound for the metropolitan sprawl of Zaragoza. Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar is the city’s defining landmark, a huge baroque basilica with domes overlooking the Ebro, seen here behind 15th C. bridge of Puente de Piedra (📷2); the Romans had also bridged the Ebro here when the town was known as Caesaraugusta. The 11th C. Islamic Aljafería Palace is part of the Mudéjar Architecture of Aragón UNESCO listing (📷3); it was unfortunately closed for siesta when we arrived—having been caught out a few times by this already! La Seo Cathedral | Cathedral of the Saviour is also part of the UNESCO listing, being built atop the Roman forum and serving as a mosque—evident in its exterior Mudéjar wall (📷4)—before expansion as a Christian cathedral; the interior (€) mixes Romanesque, Gothic, Mudéjar, Renaissance and Baroque styles.
Los Monegros
The Ruta Jubierre | Jubierre track is an unpaved route that leads into the Barrancos de Jubierre, a badlands area within Aragón’s semi-arid Los Monegros region (it’s not technically a desert). We began from the southern end near the village of Castejón de Monegros, heading northward to exit onto the A-131 towards Sariñena. To visit Tozal Solitario, an isolated rock formation, we wisely left the van on the main track and walked to the formation (📷1). Tozal de Colásico is larger and can be seen without leaving the main track (📷2); you can also drive right up to it. Tozales de Los Pedregales is a collection of four eroded clay formations and ravines reached via a short but well-marked hike (📷3); this is formation no. 4. Tozal de la Cobeta is apparently the most photographed formation (📷4); we drove off the main track right up to this one, avoiding a hot 6km return hike. It took us ~3h to make the drive at ~30km/h max and to take short hikes to the formations. It had been dry so the dirt was very compacted and we had no concerns about clearance in our 2WD camper; we used the width of the road to avoid ruts and corrugations, as traffic was light. There was no avoiding the dust though!
Parque Natural Sierra y Cañones de Guara
The pretty but touristy village of Alquézar lies within Parque Natural Sierra y Cañones de Guara | Natural Park of the Sierra and Canyons of Guara; it’s crowned by Colegiata de Santa María la Mayor and Castillo Torre (📷1). The 6 € pp 3km Pasarelas de Alquézar descend from the ticket gate at the town hall into the adjacent Río Vero canyon, where we noted native Ramonda myconi | the Pyrenean violet in flower (📷2). We gained access to the clear-running river at Cueva Picamartillo (📷3) before taking the first of several gangways suspended over the riverbed (📷4).
Continuing in the pasarelas, the hand of man is evident in the canyon, with industrial remnants including a weir and canal that was part of a small hydroelectric plant completed in 1913 (📷1); it reused an old mill and today’s visitor trail began as service paths. The dramatic limestone canyon itself however is of natural karst geology and the metal gangways purpose-built for tourism (📷2). Aphyllanthes monspeliensis | the blue aphyllanthes is endemic to the western Mediterranean (📷3). A look back towards town from Mirador del Vero as a thunderstorm approaches; you can see more of the gangways on the riverside cliffs (📷4). This was a 6.3km/ 2h 20min loop walk from the campsite.
Our next hike in Parque Natural Sierra y Cañones de Guara was the S-3 Circular, anticlockwise, from the trailhead at Rodellar. We descended into Barranco del Mascún | the Mascún River gorge, noting rock climbers scaling sheer cliffs on both sides of the valley and gradually improving our view of the first of several rock windows we’d see on the trail (📷1). On reaching the riverbed we joined the Camino de Otín. There’s a nice view back to the window from near Surgencia de Mascún | the spring where Río Mascún stops being underground (📷2); shortly after the spring the intimidating Espolón de la Virgen via ferrata begins. Native Helianthemum apenninum | white rock-rose seemed to like living in the valley floor (📷3). We had views to Torre de Santiago for some time before reaching the formation (📷4).
Ascending the S-3 trail beside Torre de Santiago (📷1). We found the lengthy and uneven climb from the riverbed to Mirador del Mascún (📷2) rather tough, but greatly enjoyed ever-changing perspectives on the Torre. Native Polygala calcarea | the chalk milkwort favoured living at elevation (📷3). At the abandoned village of Otín we turned towards Dolmen de la Losa Mora, ~5,000 years old (📷4). The trail was less dramatic but pleasant, until we began the descent back to the Río Mascún via the Andrebot ravine—here the path was formed of loose limestone and slow-going (use poles to reduce tumble risk). From the spring we backtracked up to Rodellar. The loop over 15km took us 5.5h. At camp we checked in with “I need a place to sleep, a beer & a hot shower—in any order!”
Parque Natural Ordesa y Monte Perdido
Pradera de Ordesa (parking near Torla-Ordesa) to the Cola de Caballo waterfall is a popular out-and-back trail in Parque Natural Ordesa y Monte Perdido | Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park. The Senda a la Cola de Caballo trail runs beside the Río Arazas, although the first section is under forest cover with limited views (📷1). After ~100min on trail things get more open and we found ourselves admiring spring greens next to clear mountain waters and impressive walls of rock in both downstream (📷2) and upstream (📷3) directions. The trail offers a number of waterfall waypoints, but they’re not all easy to see well due to vegetation overgrowth or flooded miradors; this is part of Gradas de Soaso, a sequence of steps (📷4).
After ~2h on trail the landscape changed again, to a bleaker grassy expanse as we got nearer to the head of the valley (📷1). Water streamed off the cliffs, forming rivulets that found their way to the river, although not before leaving the ground boggy in many places (📷2). Our first new flower of the day was a native in the daisy family, Tussilago farfara | the colt’s foot (📷3). At 9km/ 3h on trail we reached the signature Cascada Cola de Caballo | horse trail waterfall, which felt somewhat anticlimactic (📷4).
Our second new flower was native Narcissus pseudonarcissus | the wild daffodil, which seemed to favour growing within the protective cocoon offered by another (perfectly named) spiny native, Echinospartum horridum (📷1). Vultures circled overhead; we think we heard marmots whistling and the herd of native Rupicapra pyrenaica | Pyrenean chamois we’d seen on the way in had drawn closer to the river as we turned back (📷2). Cascada del Estrecho was our favourite waterfall; we detoured from the main path to its mirador on the return leg (📷3). Instead of rejoining the main path we crossed the river, which afforded new views en route to the parking area (📷4). 19km/ 5.5h return.
A scenic drive out of the mountains from pitch in Broto to the town of Barbastro, where chores awaited. Here’s the view from Mirador de Jánovas, between the villages of Fiscal and Boltaña (📷1). Embalse de Mediano contained stands of flooded trees (📷2) and the threat of rain made for moody reflections (📷3). Embalse de El Grado I, the neighbouring reservoir, was looking very emerald from the van door as we stopped for lunch.
Montfalcó
Despite some reports, the 15km from the N-230 to public parking at Montfalcó (near Viacamp) weren’t at all challenging in a 2WD, with mostly good surface—but narrow in places. Mirador de Montfalcó overlooks Pantà de Canelles | Embalse de Canelles, but also offered a first glimpse of the Noguera Ribagorzana river that divides Aragón’s Montsec de L’Estall to the west (left bank) from Catalonia’s Montsec d’Ares on the eastern shore (📷1). These karst escarpments are part of the outer mountains of the Central Pyrenees, formed from Cretaceous and Jurassic materials.
We’d come to hike the Camino Natural de Montfalcó al Congost de Mont-rebei | Natural Path from Montfalcó to the Congost de Mont-rebei. Here’s a view from the first pasarela | catwalk up a 30m escarpment, with 139 steps over 90m in length (📷2). The second pasarela is longer at 120m, with 215 steps ascending a 44m high escarpment (📷3). This is where you question how comfortable you are in the knowledge it was likely engineered by the lowest bidder… Sarcocapnos enneaphylla, native to southwestern Europe and northern Africa, is however quite at home on limestone escarpments (📷4).
From the second pasarela we could anticipate the upcoming descent to the suspension bridge spanning the 35m gap between Aragón and Catalonia (📷1). From said bridge at Congost del Seguer, looking into the gorge of Mont-rebei, we could readily appreciate the depth of canyon the river had cut here (📷2); the cliffs reach over 500m high. Camino Natural de Montfalcó al Congost de Mont-rebei ascends a short way on the Catalonian side to intersect the Camí de Mont-rebei, itself a segment of the long-distance GR-1 (Sendero Histórico). As we climbed to join it we got a good look back at the second pasarela we’d used on the opposite bank (📷3). We also looked down of course (the path is uneven here) and avoided trampling this big darkling beetle (📷4); Blaps lusitanica can release a foul-smelling secretion from glands at its rear when threatened.
Our original goal had been a mirador in the Mont-rebei Gorge, from which we could look back the way we had come (📷1) and also in the onward direction (📷2). Having met a Spanish couple who told us they were continuing in order to pick up a kayak and return by water, we decided to do the same. We thus continued beyond the mirador on Camí de Mont-rebei, a spectacular cliffside trail through the gorge known for its narrow path carved into rock walls above the river (📷3). After ~10km/ 3h 40min of hiking we arrived at a beach where, luckily, there was a spare double kayak available (we’d tried phoning, but had signal issues). Our 8km/ 1h 40min paddle back through the gorge (📷4) to a pier below Albergue de Montfalcó was followed by a 2km 4×4 transfer up the steep hill, where we paid for the rental—and our knees expressed their gratitude!
Muralla de Finestres
Roques de la Vila is a geological formation also popularly known as Muralla (China) de Finestres | the (Chinese) Wall Of Finestres. We followed online and local advice to park at Puente de Penavera, a bridge northeast of Estopiñán del Castillo, given the state of the dirt road. The 6.4km drive from our pitch in town took ~30 minutes. Although we sighted the formation ~4.5km into the hike, we first came to the former settlement of Finestres (📷1). It was depopulated in 1960 due to the filling of the Canelles reservoir; only one house, Casa Coix, is seasonally inhabited. A short and easy signposted walk links the village centre to Ermita de San Marcos | the Hermitage of Saint Mark; this is the best spot for panoramic views of the ~840m long formation (📷2). Folding of strata ~100 million years ago and subsequent erosion have created two primary parallel lines of vertical limestone that resemble a wall (📷3). Some of the formation is now partially submerged in the reservoir (📷4).
Between the two lines of strata sits the 11–12th C. Romanesque Esglèsia de Sant Vicenç | Ermita San Vicente | Church of Saint Vincent, seen here from the more challenging path to reach it (📷1); poles are useful. On this part of the hike you cross over one of the walls and reach water level, where we noted this particular slab, nicely illustrating the process of continuing erosion (📷2). The hermitage is partially formed from limestone and the sanctuary is largely intact (📷3); the remnants of Castillo de Finestras, a medieval Moorish castle upon which the hermitage was built, are also evident. From this vantage point there’s an impressive view down the middle of the formation (📷4). The 15km/ 4.5h return hike was mostly exposed.
After this hike it was farewell Aragón; it certainly made an impression and is an area we’d happily return to.
#2026 #aragón #camperVan #catalonia #europe #hiking #nationalPark #nature #nomad #roadTrip #romans #spain #travel #unesco #vanLife -
In this episode of the Marie du Jour series, we honor the Blessed Virgin Mary with insights from St. Teresa of the Andes. Reflecting on her diary entry from February 22, 1919, we explore her profound meditation on living in God’s presence through purity in thought, desires, and deeds.
Music credit: Sean BeesonI’m in meditation. Our Lord told me I should meditate on the purity of the Virgin. She, without saying anything to me, began to speak. I didn’t recognize her voice and asked if it was Jesus. She answered me that Our Lord was within my soul, but that she was speaking to me. She told me I should write down what she was telling me about purity.
- To be pure in thought: that is to say, I should reject any thought that’s not from God so I’d constantly be living in His presence. For this I must strive to have affection for no creature.
- To be pure in my desires, in such a way that I desire only to belong to God more each day; to desire His glory and to be a saint and perform all my deeds with perfection. To this end, never to desire either honor or praise, but to be despised and undergo humiliations, since in this way I am pleasing to God. To desire no comforts or anything that flatters my senses. To desire neither to eat nor sleep but only to serve God better.
- To be pure in my deeds. To abstain from all that can defile me and from all that is not permitted by God who seeks my sanctification. To do all things for God as best I can, not because creatures are looking at me. To avoid every word that’s not spoken for God and for His glory. In my conversations, always bring in something about God. I’m to look at nothing without necessity, but contemplate God in His works. To imagine that God is always looking at me. In my tastes to abstain from what is pleasing to self. If I eat anything I should take no delight in it, and I should offer it to God, because for me it is necessary to serve Him better. I should mortify my sense of touch by not touching myself without necessity, or any other person. In a word, my whole spirit should be immersed in God in such a way that I forget my body completely. Mary lived this way since she was born; but it was much easier for her since she was always full of grace. I should do all on my part to imitate her, since by so doing God will unite Himself intimately to me. I should pray to obtain this grace. In this way I’ll reflect God who is in my soul.
Saint Teresa of the Andes
Her Intimate Spiritual Diary, 22 February 1919
Griffin, M D & Teresa of the Andes, S 2021, God, The Joy of My Life: A Biography of Saint Teresa of the Andes With the Saint’s Spiritual Diary, ICS Publications, Washington DC.
Featured image: The Virgin of the Annunciation is a sculpture carved from limestone in Paris ca. 1300-1310. Traces of paint can still be seen on the sculpture. The sculpture’s modest dimensions (16 11/16 × 11 5/8 × 7 3/8 in., 34 lb.) permit the delicate features of the sculpture to be clearly seen. This artwork is on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Medieval Sculpture Hall in New York City. Image credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art (Public domain)
https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/05/26/mdj2024-ep27/
#BlessedVirginMary #contemplation #mysticalExperience #prayer #presenceOfGod #purity #selfDenial #StTeresaOfTheAndes
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Excited to be hosting a meeting today with all of the #UniversityOfYork CompSci student society leaders. We'll be discussing the major challenges we face and look at ways to reinvigorate the society scene for the benefit of all students. 🤝
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Just been doing some prep work for a talk I'm going to be doing at our Student Union's Student Conference titled:
What is open source & why should I care? | Repairing our relationship with tech (and Europe)
I'll be covering a broad range of topics around the importance of promoting FOSS, especially in the public sector but also at a personal level: examining the damaging impacts that huge corporate monopolies have on our planet, our governments and, perhaps most importantly, us.
I'm hoping it'll help spread awareness about the benefits of open source to a wider audience so if you're at the #UniversityOfYork #UoY then come along! 🙂
More info about the event: https://yorksu.org/events/id/4231-york-su-community-conference
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Remembering Margaret Hall: the thread about the tragic murder and a half-forgotten cairn
My attempt at an A-Z of Edinburgh places named after women highlighted to me just how absent their commemoration in street names is. It is also fairly well known just how few public statues there are in the city of named women – at the latest count: two! (Helen Crummy at Craigmillar and Queen Victoria in Leith). But there is another monument which is not so well kenned about and which has present-day relevance when we consider how this city commemorates women. The place of which I write of is Muschet’s Cairn. Attempts have been made to try and tell its back story and raise its profile, but statues and streetnames for sportsmen seem to have captured local attention much more readily.
“Maggie’s Cairn” © Ben ReynoldsThis cairn is remarkable in that not only does it commemorate a woman, but it commemorates a woman who was the victim of male violence: Margaret Hall, also known as Ailie, a diminutive of Alison. Margaret was murdered by her husband Nicol Muschet of Boghall (sometimes Muschat or Mushet) near this spot on the night of October 17th 1720 and it is his name which is applied to the pile of stones.
Muschat’s Cairn. “Spyglass” of 1945 OS Town Plan overlaid on modern aerial photography.n.b. What follows is a hard story to tell from the victim’s point of view. It was well covered in the sensationalist press at the time, but this was based on the letters and confessions of the perpetrators as they sought to absolve themselves and explain away their crimes. There was nobody to give a voice to the victim, there’s no victim impact statement from Margaret Hall’s family. Because of this, and because it was not the practice at the time for Scottish women to take the surnames names of their husbands; I will refer to the victim as Margaret Hall throughout this post and not of her as Mrs. Muschet. I have also sought to find out and share as much as I can about the short life of the victim, about whom very little is known beyond her husband’s attempts at character assassination.
Margaret Hall was born in Edinburgh on May 16th 1703 to Isobell Straitton and her husband Adam Hall, a burgess and spirit merchant. Her birth registration in the old parish register is the only official record of her I can find.
Parish birth register entry for Margaret Hall.Nicol Muschet was born around 1695 at Boghall in Kincardine Parish, near Menteith in Stirlingshire, to Jean or Janet Henderson and her husband Robert Muschet, a schoolmaster. His mother raised him “in the true Presbyterian Principles of Religion” which the young Nicol complied with, but confessed to finding overbearing. When his father died he took the Laird’s title “- of Boghall” aged 15.
The entrance to Boghall farm as it is todaySufficient money was left to him to complete his grammar school education and to study medicine in Edinburgh, far from his pious and strict mother’s watchful eye. Unleashed, he is described as being prodigal and consorting with company “without ever consulting God or eyeing his Glory.” Aged 21, he completed his studies in the city and was apprenticed to Thomas Napier, a surgeon in Alloa. Alloa however was not Edinburgh; with not much medical practice doing, few opportunities for advancement and only “walking, talking, idle discourse, reading…” to while away the hours, the profligate Nicol instead turned to drinking and abandoned his master and craft. He soon returned home to Boghall to live the life of a country squire with his mother, but found rural life equally boring and within a few weeks the draw of Edinburgh proved too much. Upon reading the notice of a public dissection in the city he returned to it in August 1719, now aged 24. On his first night back in the city, he was promenading on the Castle Hill as was the fashion at the time and came upon the house of Adam Hall and his 16 year old daughter Margaret. Recognising one of Hall’s maids from when he had been a student, he struck up a conversation. The pair rekindled their acquaintance over “a chopin of ale” until Margaret had the misfortune to join them, at which point the servant retired, leaving her mistress with Nicol.
The Castle Hill. A 1900 painting by artist unknown. © Edinburgh City LibrariesThe two became ingratiated that evening and she helped to arrange him lodgings in a good house. She said she would call on him once he was settled in and was true to her word. Nicol – whom Walter Scott termed “a debauched and profligate wretch” – would later claim that Margaret had made relentless designs on him and “to [his] sad and lamentable loss, she made me too many visits“. Other witnesses – including his own mother – countered this version of events. Never the less, only 3 weeks later Nicolformally asked Adam Hall for her hand in marriage. She was 8 years Nicol’s junior but Hall agreed, despite noting his daughter was “not yet fully educate for marriage“. As far as Hall would have been concerned, Nicol had prospects to offer his daughter; a small country estate, a modicum of independent wealth and steady work in the “shop” of the surgeon Mr Gibb. And so it was that on Saturday 5th September 1719, Nicol Muschet and Margaret Hall were married in the house of John Galloway, tailor in Peebles Wynd, by the Episcopal Reverend Robert Bowers. Note that this was not in the manner of the Presbyterian Kirk in which Nicol was raised and he would later repent that he had celebrated his marriage “in such a manner as corroborated and approved of the sinful Superstitions of the Church of England, contrary to my Baptismal and National Vows and, I must acknowledge, to the Light of my Conscience also.”
The Black Turnpike at the head of Peebles Wynd in 1819 by James Skene, little changed since 100 years previously when Muschet and Hall married here. © Edinburgh City LibrariesAfter initially staying in the Hall residence, the newly-weds soon moved to their own lodgings in St. Mary’s Wynd. However Nicolsoon “tired of her” and also of the goldsmith who was chasing payment for the jewellery he had bought for her and set upon a course to “improve himself abroad“; he intended to desert his wife and his creditors. That could have been that – and the end of our story – if the greedy and dishonest Nicolhadn’t decided to first “defraud his wife of her legal aliment from his estate“. Rather than just abandoning her, he would first divorce her so she had no recourse to his inherited wealth via alimony. And so he began to conspire with an acquaintance – James Campbell of Burnbank, the store keeper at Edinburgh Castle – over how he could achieve his ends. Burnbank was an equal scoundrel to Nicolwas; “a noted gambler and libertine, [he] was well known to all the reprobates in Edinburgh by the familiar sobriquet of ‘Bankie’.” There was an old family debt between the pair, the settlement of which was used as leverage in their scheming. Nicol arranged to pay Bankie 900 Merks in old Scottish currency (£50 sterling) thus cancelling the debt if he could procure (fabricate) sufficient evidence against Margaret to allow him to divorce her. Not content to make a gentlemen’s agreement, the two signed a formal deed to this effect.
Be it kend till all men by thir present letters, me, James Campbell, Ordnance Storekeeper at Edinburgh Castle : Forasmuch as Nicol Muschet of Boghall is debtor to me in three years rent of his lands, viz. cropt ninety-five, and precedings, and that I have transacted the same for nine hundred merks, Scots money, for which there is bill granted me. Therefore, I hereby declare I am not to demand payment of the said sum untill a legal offer be made him of my discharge of all I can claim of him, and give him up, oi’ offer so to do, all his papers on oath : As also, of two legal depositions, or affidavits of two witnesses, of the whorish practices of Margaret Hall, daughter to Adam Hall, merchant in Edinburgh, and three months thereafter. In witness whereof, I have written, with my own hand, on stamped paper, thir presents, at Edinburgh, the twenty-eighth day of November, one thousand seven hundred and nineteen years.
The signed bond between Nicol and Bankie.The conspirators first tried to trick Margaret into breaking her marriage bond by faking a letter from Nicol that he had ridden to London, never to return. To improve the deception they had it posted to her from Newbattle in Midlothian, on the road to London – where in actual fact Nicol was lying low in the Debtors Sanctuary at Holyrood. The plan failed however as Margaret resolved to visit her mother-in-law at Boghall to discuss the matter. Bankie was unable to dissuade her from this course, despite his best attempts. To prevent this meeting taking place, he hiring an unscrupulous writer (Scots, a lawyer) to draft a phony warrant for Margaret’s arrest, on charges of theft, and to pursue her to Linlithgow, where she was lodging on the road to Boghall, to serve it. When the writer served the warrant, who should conveniently appear at the perfect moment to act as the good Samaritan but Bankie. He arranged to accompany her back to Edinburgh with the writer where he would bail her and be her guarantor.
Bankie effectively had Margaret under house arrest, but she was not a willing captive. Suspicious of the whole charade, she managed to escape and stole away to Boghall by horse a few days later, being careful not to stop again at Linlithgow. Once again however, Bankie used letters of coercion and false promises to draw her back to Edinburgh but it was clear that this first plan to gain a divorce was never going to work. So the conspirators upped the stakes and determined that they would instead embark on a course against the unfortunate Margaret that we would now call “date rape“; forcibly breaking her marriage vows.
The Canongate looking towards the Abbey Sanctuary, by James Skene 1820. © Edinburgh City LibrariesIt was arranged that Margaret should be lodged in the Abbey Sanctuary when she returned from Boghall and “on a Monday night in December” she was compelled to drink a punch of Brandy and sugar that was laced with laudanum, rendering her unconscious. An acquaintance of Bankie – John MacGregory – was procured to take advantage of the incapacitated Margaret. However this scheme was foiled at the last minute when they found out from their dishonourable writer friend that it would not be sufficient grounds for divorce “unless we could Evidence a Tract of Conversation betwixt MacGregory and her either before or after the fact“. The plan was re-hatched. Instead, they acquainted Margaret with James Muschet, probably Nicol’s younger brother, and his wife Grizel Bell. James and Grizel were in “reduced circumstances” and in return for money they agreed to a scheme where they would get Margaret drunk when MacGregory was in the house and engineer a seduction upon her. However despite repeated attempts, Margaret kept her virtue and Nicol, tiring of the constant demand for expenses from James and Grizel, gave up on this plan too.
Nicol – later claiming he was led to it by Bankie – now set upon the ultimate course of action and resolved to have his wife murdered; but as the scheme required that he would get away with it, so it was decided that James and Grizel would be paid to poison Margaret. They settled on “corrosive sublimate” – Mercury Dichloride – a highly poisonous substance used at that time as an insecticide and in treatment for syphilis and therefore a substance Nicol had access to through his work. The first attempt was administered to Margaret in a dram mixed with sugar and made her so violently ill that “life was not expected for her“, but she survived. They tried again. Again she was ill, but again it did not kill her. They next tried the same poison but mixed with nutmeg in a punch, but still Margaret clung to life. Grizel now tried, mixing the poison with warm ale and administering it to her under the pretence of caring for her in her sickness. Again she was made ill, yet again she refused to die. They even poisoned the cordials administered to her in her sick bed, this time Nicol himself administering them to his poor wife, but despite causing her immense torment and sickness, they were unable to kill her.
Once again, the plotters gave up. They allowed Margaret to recover sufficiently that they could try to kill her again by some other means. The next scheme was that James and Grizel should take Margaret to Leith for a day of drinking and on their way home she would be drowned in a pond, quite probably one of the Quarryholes on the road back to Edinburgh. James however refused to go along with this and so various other plans were discussed; she would be pushed from her horse when fording a river near Kirkliston; she would be hit across the head and her body dumped in one of the Quarryholes outside the Town. Nothing came of any of these and eventually Nicol and Bankie fell out with each other.
In the New Year of 1720, the 3 remaining plotters finally settled on causing a fatal head injury to Margaret. It was agreed that James and Grizel would be paid 20 Guineas to undertake the act in Dickson’s Close, where by now Nicol and Margaret were lodging. Grizel’s part was to invite the victim to her house and entertain her with “meat and drink” until the late hours, before sending her home on a final journey. At this point, James would attack her within sight of the “safety” of her own door, a hammer being procured for the deed which James made a wooden handle for. This weapon was chosen as its head could be thrown into the Nor’ Loch and its handle burned to destroy the evidence post mortem.
Dickson’s Close, an 1879 sketch, but hardly changed from 150 years previous. James Drummond. © Edinburgh City LibrariesHowever, Old Town Edinburgh was a busy place and despite multiple attempts, they were never able to follow through to conclusion as Dickson’s Close was always too busy with witnesses to attack Margaret. The year wore on without the incompetent assassins being able to complete their task. Eventually, Nicol resolved to bring matters to a fatal conclusion by himself. On the morning of October 17th 1720, Nicol Muschet stole a knife from his landlady. After a day of wining and dining with James and Grizel, he sent for Margaret to join them. She duly arrived and he implored her to ask no questions and instead join him on a night time walk to Duddingston Kirk. They walked- reportedly in silence – down the Canongate, past the Palace of Holyrood House and its ghostly Abbey, and into the King’s Park.
Holyrood Abbey at night in the moonlight by Alexander Campbell. Late 18th Century, CC-By-NC National Galleries ScotlandOn that fateful evening, at a spot near the cairn, Nicol Muschet murdered his innocent wife, thus ending the torment he had caused her for the entirety of their short marriage. By his own confession, after having attacked her and left her for dead, he returned with the knife to make sure of it. The next morning, Margaret was found with her throat cut and “many other wounds received in her dying struggle“. There were signs that she had fought to defend her life; from her wounds, from the hair of a man in her hands and from Nicol’s own confession. At the scene, a man’s silk sleeve was found ripped off, embroidered on it the letter “N“.
Nicol Muschet walks Margate to her fate. 20th century illustration by “Mackay”, from “Edinburgh Crimes” by Ross Macdonald.Nicol fled the scene, first to consult with Grizel and then on to Leith where he reportedly spent the next day in the company of a sailor, one can assume making arrangements for flight. He returned to the city to meet again with Grizel, but found the noose was slowly tightening around him – despite Grizel’s assurances to the contrary. His landlady had been taken to the city guard house for questioning, so he returned to Leith, but over the next 3 days made repeated incognito visits to the city to consult with acquaintances about his best course of action to try and dodge justice.
The Old Guard House of Edinburgh, what amounted to a police station in the 18th century city. By James Skene, 1827. © Edinburgh City LibrariesGrizel soon tired of Nicol’s repeated visits however, it was clear to her that she was not now going to get her 20 guineas and she was surely beginning to fear for her own neck, and so she decided to tip off the authorities as to the whereabouts of Nicol. She ensured his capture by setting up a social occasion where he was apprehended and immediately thrown in the Tolbooth – the civic building that functioned as a court and jailhouse. Under questioning he at first denied everything, but when presented with the known facts of his crimes, the gruesome details of his assault on his wife and the injuries he inflicted upon her, he confessed “and signed a deceleration to that effect“.
“Hall of the Old Tolbooth”, c. 1795 by William Clark. © Edinburgh City LibrariesConfined within the Tolbooth, he wrote to his mother begging for her forgiveness and support. Lady Boghall was having none of it however. In her excoriating reply, she condemned any attempt that would be made in his defence and left him to his fate and upon God’s Mercy, urging him to seek divine forgiveness. The details of her reply were reprinted in a sensationalist broadside:
Broadside incliding contents of the letter from Lady Boghall to her son. See the full text at The Word on the StreetAbandoned by his mother to God, Nicol Muschet went to trial on 28th November.
The judges present were Lords Royston, Polton, Pencaitland, Dun and Newhall; the Solicitor-General (Walter Stewart) and John Sinclair, advocate-depute, with Duncan Forbes and Andrew Lauder, appeared for the Crown. The libel having been read, the panel craved the Court to appoint counsel for his defence, and John Horn, John Elphinstone, and Charles Erskine were accordingly empowered to plead for him.
“Nicol Muschet: His Crime and Cairn, from “The Riddle of the Ruthvens”Having signed his own confession and entering no defence, he was found guilty on December 5th and sentenced to death on the 8th. The press had a sensational time and various letters, broadsides and confessions were printed. I will not reproduce them here as they lend a voice to the murderer and tormentor of Margaret Hall, a chance stolen from her by him. Nicol Muschet was hung from the scaffold in the Grassmarket on the afternoon of 6th January 1721, between the hours of 2 and 4 O’ Clock in the afternoon.
The gibbet in the Grassmarket, James Skene, 1827. © Edinburgh City LibrariesHis body was then taken down, the hand with which he murdered his wife was cut off and his corpse hung from the gibbet at the Gallowlee (near to present day Shrubhill on Leith Walk). That was not quite the final end for Nicol Muschet however; a Grassmarket butcher called Nicol Brown gained notoriety for reputedly eating a pound of flesh cut from the rotting corpse in a drunken bet. In an extraordinary coincidence, in 1753 Nicol Brown was tried and convicted for the murder of his wife and was hung from the same scaffold until dead and his body hung from the same gibbet afterwards. His trade incorporation, shamed by his actions, cut his body down and tossed it into the Quarryholes in disgust.
Grizel and James escaped justice by turning King’s Evidence against Bankie, who was tried for the Scots crime of “art and part” (aiding and abetting). He was found guilty and sentenced to transportation to the West Indies as a plantation labourer for life, although not before spending at least 5 years in captivity in Edinburgh Castle. He would later write an “Elegy on the Mournful Banishment of James Campbell of Burnbank to the West Indies” by way of an explanation and to deflect blame from himself; I will not repeat it here as again it gives a defending voice to the criminal which he helped steal from his victim.
Margaret’s body was carried to the Abbey Sanctuary after it was discovered, but after that we do not know where she was buried (it may be that as an Episcopalian she was buried outside the city at Restalrig Kirk). There was a public outpouring of grief about her fate, an anonymous elegy was published and circulated around the city.
An Elegy on the deplorable Death of Margaret Hall, barbarously murdered by her Husband.The people of Edinburgh “to mark their horror of the event, in the old Scottish fashion raised a cairn on the spot where the murder was perpetrated”. The cairn remains to this day near its original spot, but was initially removed in 1789 when the Duke’s Walk footpath was widened. This was on the instructions of Lord Adam Gordon – the Governor of Edinburgh Castle, Commander-in-Chief of the Army for Scotland and the principal resident of the Palace of Holyroodhouse – and was probably to better connect his residence to the barracks at Piershill. The cairn was restored again in 1823 using stones from an old wall which was being removed ahead of the visit of George IV in 1822, again to further widen the Duke’s Walk.
“Muschat’s Cairn, entrance to Holyrood Park”. Thomas Begbie, 1887,© Edinburgh City LibrariesThe reason behind its restoration was possibly the romantic influence of Walter Scott – all pervading in Scotland at the time – who wrote of the cairn as a moonlit meeting place in his Heart of Midlothian novel; the Deans family in this book living in a cottage on the other side of the park at St. Leonards.
Muschet’s Cairn, 2011. CC-by-SA 2.0 Ajsinclair, via GeographSo if you are passing this spot in the future it’s worth taking a moment to pause and to consider the otherwise anonymous pile of stones marked only with the name of the victim’s murderous husband. And consider if the cairn needs something by way of a board or plaque to better explain what it is, why it was there and who it commemorates. It is named Muschet’s Cairn, but it commemorates Margaret Hall and not her murderer, should it not be Margaret’s Cairn? This country can be very good at dignified public memorials when it chooses to be, but this is not one of them. Margaret Hall may have died in 1720 and even though so much has changed since then, in many ways not a lot has.
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Psyche passa alla linea del propellente di backup
Gli ingegneri della NASA che gestiscono i sistemi della sonda Psyche sono riusciti a sviluppare una soluzione per affrontare un imprevisto calo di pressione nei condotti del propellente riscontrato alla fine di aprile, quando appunto è passata da 2,5 bar a 1,8 bar. È stato infatti comandato alla sonda di passare ad una linea di alimentazione di backup, la quale attualmente sta operando in modo nominale.
Il sistema propulsivo della sonda statunitense è di tipo solare elettrico; essa infatti è dotata di quattro propulsori elettrici a effetto Hall allo xeno, i quali tramite l’applicazione di una tensione e di un campo magnetico producono degli elettroni che vanno a ionizzare gli atomi neutri del propellente. Gli ioni così prodotti, vengono accelerati dal campo elettrico ed espulsi dall’ugello generando la spinta e la tipica scia dal colore blu brillante.
A sinistra, il plasma allo xeno emette un bagliore azzurro/blu da un propulsore elettrico a effetto Hall identico a quelli a bordo della sonda Psyche. A destra, un propulsore simile non in funzione. Credits: NASA/JPL-CaltechPsyche utilizza un propulsore alla volta, ottenendo una spinta fino a 240 mN (milliNewton) e nei suoi serbatoi al lancio erano stoccati 1.085 kg di xeno. L’energia elettrica usata da tutti i sistemi del veicolo spaziale è generata da due pannelli fotovoltaici a cinque sezioni ciascuno, i quali producono 21 kW in prossimità del nostro pianeta e fra i 2,3 e 3,4 kW durante la fase orbitale attorno all’asteroide.
I controllori della missione hanno messo in pausa i quattro propulsori in aprile per indagare su un inatteso calo di pressione, determinandone poi la causa in un’anomalia ad una valvola che gestisce il passaggio del propellente. Attraverso un esteso lavoro diagnostico e di test, gli ingegneri hanno concluso che una parte di questa valvola difettosa stava ostruendo il passaggio dello xeno verso i propulsori.
Essendo stato completato il passaggio alla linea di alimentazione secondaria, la squadra di controllo della missione intende riaccendere il sistema propulsivo di Psyche per la metà del prossimo mese di giugno.
Presso il Jet Propulsion Laboratory della NASA, gli ingegneri sono al lavoro per preparare l’integrazione dei quattro propulsori Hall (sotto le coperture proettive rosse) sulla sonda Psyche. I propulsori spingeranno la sonda verso il suo obiettivo posto nella fascia degli asteroidi. Credits: NASA/JPL-CaltechLa sonda è stata progettata con una linea di alimentazione del propellente ridondante, che è identica a quella primaria e a scanso di ulteriori imprevisti, gli ingegneri intendono mantenere la valvola della linea di riserva in posizione aperta, per garantire il flusso continuo di propellente.
A causa della loro elevata efficienza, i propulsori ad effetto Hall di Psyche potrebbero funzionare per anni prima di terminare lo xeno; gli ingegneri hanno stimato che usando la tradizionale propulsione chimica, la missione avrebbe consumato un quantitativo di carburante 15 volte superiore. Inoltre in teoria, questo sistema propulsivo può far raggiungere a Psyche una velocità fino a 200.000 km/h.
La missione Psyche è partita il 13 ottobre 2023 dal Kennedy Space Center a bordo di un Falcon Heavy di SpaceX alla volta dell’asteroide omonimo 16 Psyche situato nella fascia degli asteroidi. La natura di questo particolare asteroide è dibattuta attualmente dagli scienziati; secondo alcuni, esso è il nucleo di un protopianeta antico, mancante degli strati più esterni a causa di impatti con altri oggetti spaziali, mentre secondo altri esso potrebbe essere una parte del nocciolo di un planetesimo, ovvero la parte primordiale più interna di un pianeta roccioso.
Una rappresentazione artistica dell’asteroide Psyche, che misura 279 x 232 x 189 km. Credits:NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASUNonostante i problemi con il sistema propulsivo, la sonda ha già percorso un miliardo di chilometri e resta in rotta per raggiungere Psyche come pianificato, nell’agosto del 2029. Nel maggio del 2026, Psyche sorvolerà Marte e usando la sua gravità come una fionda, acquisirà più velocità per il suo viaggio verso l’asteroide metallico obiettivo della sua missione, attorno al quale orbiterà per 26 mesi a quattro differenti altitudini. La missione primaria terminerà nel novembre 2031.
Fonti: NASA-1, NASA-2, NASA JPL
Ove non diversamente indicato, questo articolo è © 2006-2025 Associazione ISAA - Leggi la licenza. La nostra licenza non si applica agli eventuali contenuti di terze parti presenti in questo articolo, che rimangono soggetti alle condizioni del rispettivo detentore dei diritti.
Commenti
Discutiamone su ForumAstronautico.it
#16Psyche #JPL #NASA #PropulsioneAdEffettoHall #Psyche #Xenon
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Psyche passa alla linea del propellente di backup
Gli ingegneri della NASA che gestiscono i sistemi della sonda Psyche sono riusciti a sviluppare una soluzione per affrontare un imprevisto calo di pressione nei condotti del propellente riscontrato alla fine di aprile, quando appunto è passata da 2,5 bar a 1,8 bar. È stato infatti comandato alla sonda di passare ad una linea di alimentazione di backup, la quale attualmente sta operando in modo nominale.
Il sistema propulsivo della sonda statunitense è di tipo solare elettrico; essa infatti è dotata di quattro propulsori elettrici a effetto Hall allo xeno, i quali tramite l’applicazione di una tensione e di un campo magnetico producono degli elettroni che vanno a ionizzare gli atomi neutri del propellente. Gli ioni così prodotti, vengono accelerati dal campo elettrico ed espulsi dall’ugello generando la spinta e la tipica scia dal colore blu brillante.
A sinistra, il plasma allo xeno emette un bagliore azzurro/blu da un propulsore elettrico a effetto Hall identico a quelli a bordo della sonda Psyche. A destra, un propulsore simile non in funzione. Credits: NASA/JPL-CaltechPsyche utilizza un propulsore alla volta, ottenendo una spinta fino a 240 mN (milliNewton) e nei suoi serbatoi al lancio erano stoccati 1.085 kg di xeno. L’energia elettrica usata da tutti i sistemi del veicolo spaziale è generata da due pannelli fotovoltaici a cinque sezioni ciascuno, i quali producono 21 kW in prossimità del nostro pianeta e fra i 2,3 e 3,4 kW durante la fase orbitale attorno all’asteroide.
I controllori della missione hanno messo in pausa i quattro propulsori in aprile per indagare su un inatteso calo di pressione, determinandone poi la causa in un’anomalia ad una valvola che gestisce il passaggio del propellente. Attraverso un esteso lavoro diagnostico e di test, gli ingegneri hanno concluso che una parte di questa valvola difettosa stava ostruendo il passaggio dello xeno verso i propulsori.
Essendo stato completato il passaggio alla linea di alimentazione secondaria, la squadra di controllo della missione intende riaccendere il sistema propulsivo di Psyche per la metà del prossimo mese di giugno.
Presso il Jet Propulsion Laboratory della NASA, gli ingegneri sono al lavoro per preparare l’integrazione dei quattro propulsori Hall (sotto le coperture proettive rosse) sulla sonda Psyche. I propulsori spingeranno la sonda verso il suo obiettivo posto nella fascia degli asteroidi. Credits: NASA/JPL-CaltechLa sonda è stata progettata con una linea di alimentazione del propellente ridondante, che è identica a quella primaria e a scanso di ulteriori imprevisti, gli ingegneri intendono mantenere la valvola della linea di riserva in posizione aperta, per garantire il flusso continuo di propellente.
A causa della loro elevata efficienza, i propulsori ad effetto Hall di Psyche potrebbero funzionare per anni prima di terminare lo xeno; gli ingegneri hanno stimato che usando la tradizionale propulsione chimica, la missione avrebbe consumato un quantitativo di carburante 15 volte superiore. Inoltre in teoria, questo sistema propulsivo può far raggiungere a Psyche una velocità fino a 200.000 km/h.
La missione Psyche è partita il 13 ottobre 2023 dal Kennedy Space Center a bordo di un Falcon Heavy di SpaceX alla volta dell’asteroide omonimo 16 Psyche situato nella fascia degli asteroidi. La natura di questo particolare asteroide è dibattuta attualmente dagli scienziati; secondo alcuni, esso è il nucleo di un protopianeta antico, mancante degli strati più esterni a causa di impatti con altri oggetti spaziali, mentre secondo altri esso potrebbe essere una parte del nocciolo di un planetesimo, ovvero la parte primordiale più interna di un pianeta roccioso.
Una rappresentazione artistica dell’asteroide Psyche, che misura 279 x 232 x 189 km. Credits:NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASUNonostante i problemi con il sistema propulsivo, la sonda ha già percorso un miliardo di chilometri e resta in rotta per raggiungere Psyche come pianificato, nell’agosto del 2029. Nel maggio del 2026, Psyche sorvolerà Marte e usando la sua gravità come una fionda, acquisirà più velocità per il suo viaggio verso l’asteroide metallico obiettivo della sua missione, attorno al quale orbiterà per 26 mesi a quattro differenti altitudini. La missione primaria terminerà nel novembre 2031.
Fonti: NASA-1, NASA-2, NASA JPL
Ove non diversamente indicato, questo articolo è © 2006-2025 Associazione ISAA - Leggi la licenza. La nostra licenza non si applica agli eventuali contenuti di terze parti presenti in questo articolo, che rimangono soggetti alle condizioni del rispettivo detentore dei diritti.
Commenti
Discutiamone su ForumAstronautico.it
#16Psyche #JPL #NASA #PropulsioneAdEffettoHall #Psyche #Xenon
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Psyche passa alla linea del propellente di backup
Gli ingegneri della NASA che gestiscono i sistemi della sonda Psyche sono riusciti a sviluppare una soluzione per affrontare un imprevisto calo di pressione nei condotti del propellente riscontrato alla fine di aprile, quando appunto è passata da 2,5 bar a 1,8 bar. È stato infatti comandato alla sonda di passare ad una linea di alimentazione di backup, la quale attualmente sta operando in modo nominale.
Il sistema propulsivo della sonda statunitense è di tipo solare elettrico; essa infatti è dotata di quattro propulsori elettrici a effetto Hall allo xeno, i quali tramite l’applicazione di una tensione e di un campo magnetico producono degli elettroni che vanno a ionizzare gli atomi neutri del propellente. Gli ioni così prodotti, vengono accelerati dal campo elettrico ed espulsi dall’ugello generando la spinta e la tipica scia dal colore blu brillante.
A sinistra, il plasma allo xeno emette un bagliore azzurro/blu da un propulsore elettrico a effetto Hall identico a quelli a bordo della sonda Psyche. A destra, un propulsore simile non in funzione. Credits: NASA/JPL-CaltechPsyche utilizza un propulsore alla volta, ottenendo una spinta fino a 240 mN (milliNewton) e nei suoi serbatoi al lancio erano stoccati 1.085 kg di xeno. L’energia elettrica usata da tutti i sistemi del veicolo spaziale è generata da due pannelli fotovoltaici a cinque sezioni ciascuno, i quali producono 21 kW in prossimità del nostro pianeta e fra i 2,3 e 3,4 kW durante la fase orbitale attorno all’asteroide.
I controllori della missione hanno messo in pausa i quattro propulsori in aprile per indagare su un inatteso calo di pressione, determinandone poi la causa in un’anomalia ad una valvola che gestisce il passaggio del propellente. Attraverso un esteso lavoro diagnostico e di test, gli ingegneri hanno concluso che una parte di questa valvola difettosa stava ostruendo il passaggio dello xeno verso i propulsori.
Essendo stato completato il passaggio alla linea di alimentazione secondaria, la squadra di controllo della missione intende riaccendere il sistema propulsivo di Psyche per la metà del prossimo mese di giugno.
Presso il Jet Propulsion Laboratory della NASA, gli ingegneri sono al lavoro per preparare l’integrazione dei quattro propulsori Hall (sotto le coperture proettive rosse) sulla sonda Psyche. I propulsori spingeranno la sonda verso il suo obiettivo posto nella fascia degli asteroidi. Credits: NASA/JPL-CaltechLa sonda è stata progettata con una linea di alimentazione del propellente ridondante, che è identica a quella primaria e a scanso di ulteriori imprevisti, gli ingegneri intendono mantenere la valvola della linea di riserva in posizione aperta, per garantire il flusso continuo di propellente.
A causa della loro elevata efficienza, i propulsori ad effetto Hall di Psyche potrebbero funzionare per anni prima di terminare lo xeno; gli ingegneri hanno stimato che usando la tradizionale propulsione chimica, la missione avrebbe consumato un quantitativo di carburante 15 volte superiore. Inoltre in teoria, questo sistema propulsivo può far raggiungere a Psyche una velocità fino a 200.000 km/h.
La missione Psyche è partita il 13 ottobre 2023 dal Kennedy Space Center a bordo di un Falcon Heavy di SpaceX alla volta dell’asteroide omonimo 16 Psyche situato nella fascia degli asteroidi. La natura di questo particolare asteroide è dibattuta attualmente dagli scienziati; secondo alcuni, esso è il nucleo di un protopianeta antico, mancante degli strati più esterni a causa di impatti con altri oggetti spaziali, mentre secondo altri esso potrebbe essere una parte del nocciolo di un planetesimo, ovvero la parte primordiale più interna di un pianeta roccioso.
Una rappresentazione artistica dell’asteroide Psyche, che misura 279 x 232 x 189 km. Credits:NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASUNonostante i problemi con il sistema propulsivo, la sonda ha già percorso un miliardo di chilometri e resta in rotta per raggiungere Psyche come pianificato, nell’agosto del 2029. Nel maggio del 2026, Psyche sorvolerà Marte e usando la sua gravità come una fionda, acquisirà più velocità per il suo viaggio verso l’asteroide metallico obiettivo della sua missione, attorno al quale orbiterà per 26 mesi a quattro differenti altitudini. La missione primaria terminerà nel novembre 2031.
Fonti: NASA-1, NASA-2, NASA JPL
Ove non diversamente indicato, questo articolo è © 2006-2025 Associazione ISAA - Leggi la licenza. La nostra licenza non si applica agli eventuali contenuti di terze parti presenti in questo articolo, che rimangono soggetti alle condizioni del rispettivo detentore dei diritti.
Commenti
Discutiamone su ForumAstronautico.it
#16Psyche #JPL #NASA #PropulsioneAdEffettoHall #Psyche #Xenon
-
Psyche passa alla linea del propellente di backup
Gli ingegneri della NASA che gestiscono i sistemi della sonda Psyche sono riusciti a sviluppare una soluzione per affrontare un imprevisto calo di pressione nei condotti del propellente riscontrato alla fine di aprile, quando appunto è passata da 2,5 bar a 1,8 bar. È stato infatti comandato alla sonda di passare ad una linea di alimentazione di backup, la quale attualmente sta operando in modo nominale.
Il sistema propulsivo della sonda statunitense è di tipo solare elettrico; essa infatti è dotata di quattro propulsori elettrici a effetto Hall allo xeno, i quali tramite l’applicazione di una tensione e di un campo magnetico producono degli elettroni che vanno a ionizzare gli atomi neutri del propellente. Gli ioni così prodotti, vengono accelerati dal campo elettrico ed espulsi dall’ugello generando la spinta e la tipica scia dal colore blu brillante.
A sinistra, il plasma allo xeno emette un bagliore azzurro/blu da un propulsore elettrico a effetto Hall identico a quelli a bordo della sonda Psyche. A destra, un propulsore simile non in funzione. Credits: NASA/JPL-CaltechPsyche utilizza un propulsore alla volta, ottenendo una spinta fino a 240 mN (milliNewton) e nei suoi serbatoi al lancio erano stoccati 1.085 kg di xeno. L’energia elettrica usata da tutti i sistemi del veicolo spaziale è generata da due pannelli fotovoltaici a cinque sezioni ciascuno, i quali producono 21 kW in prossimità del nostro pianeta e fra i 2,3 e 3,4 kW durante la fase orbitale attorno all’asteroide.
I controllori della missione hanno messo in pausa i quattro propulsori in aprile per indagare su un inatteso calo di pressione, determinandone poi la causa in un’anomalia ad una valvola che gestisce il passaggio del propellente. Attraverso un esteso lavoro diagnostico e di test, gli ingegneri hanno concluso che una parte di questa valvola difettosa stava ostruendo il passaggio dello xeno verso i propulsori.
Essendo stato completato il passaggio alla linea di alimentazione secondaria, la squadra di controllo della missione intende riaccendere il sistema propulsivo di Psyche per la metà del prossimo mese di giugno.
Presso il Jet Propulsion Laboratory della NASA, gli ingegneri sono al lavoro per preparare l’integrazione dei quattro propulsori Hall (sotto le coperture proettive rosse) sulla sonda Psyche. I propulsori spingeranno la sonda verso il suo obiettivo posto nella fascia degli asteroidi. Credits: NASA/JPL-CaltechLa sonda è stata progettata con una linea di alimentazione del propellente ridondante, che è identica a quella primaria e a scanso di ulteriori imprevisti, gli ingegneri intendono mantenere la valvola della linea di riserva in posizione aperta, per garantire il flusso continuo di propellente.
A causa della loro elevata efficienza, i propulsori ad effetto Hall di Psyche potrebbero funzionare per anni prima di terminare lo xeno; gli ingegneri hanno stimato che usando la tradizionale propulsione chimica, la missione avrebbe consumato un quantitativo di carburante 15 volte superiore. Inoltre in teoria, questo sistema propulsivo può far raggiungere a Psyche una velocità fino a 200.000 km/h.
La missione Psyche è partita il 13 ottobre 2023 dal Kennedy Space Center a bordo di un Falcon Heavy di SpaceX alla volta dell’asteroide omonimo 16 Psyche situato nella fascia degli asteroidi. La natura di questo particolare asteroide è dibattuta attualmente dagli scienziati; secondo alcuni, esso è il nucleo di un protopianeta antico, mancante degli strati più esterni a causa di impatti con altri oggetti spaziali, mentre secondo altri esso potrebbe essere una parte del nocciolo di un planetesimo, ovvero la parte primordiale più interna di un pianeta roccioso.
Una rappresentazione artistica dell’asteroide Psyche, che misura 279 x 232 x 189 km. Credits:NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASUNonostante i problemi con il sistema propulsivo, la sonda ha già percorso un miliardo di chilometri e resta in rotta per raggiungere Psyche come pianificato, nell’agosto del 2029. Nel maggio del 2026, Psyche sorvolerà Marte e usando la sua gravità come una fionda, acquisirà più velocità per il suo viaggio verso l’asteroide metallico obiettivo della sua missione, attorno al quale orbiterà per 26 mesi a quattro differenti altitudini. La missione primaria terminerà nel novembre 2031.
Fonti: NASA-1, NASA-2, NASA JPL
Ove non diversamente indicato, questo articolo è © 2006-2025 Associazione ISAA - Leggi la licenza. La nostra licenza non si applica agli eventuali contenuti di terze parti presenti in questo articolo, che rimangono soggetti alle condizioni del rispettivo detentore dei diritti.
Commenti
Discutiamone su ForumAstronautico.it
#16Psyche #JPL #NASA #PropulsioneAdEffettoHall #Psyche #Xenon
-
Psyche passa alla linea del propellente di backup
Gli ingegneri della NASA che gestiscono i sistemi della sonda Psyche sono riusciti a sviluppare una soluzione per affrontare un imprevisto calo di pressione nei condotti del propellente riscontrato alla fine di aprile, quando appunto è passata da 2,5 bar a 1,8 bar. È stato infatti comandato alla sonda di passare ad una linea di alimentazione di backup, la quale attualmente sta operando in modo nominale.
Il sistema propulsivo della sonda statunitense è di tipo solare elettrico; essa infatti è dotata di quattro propulsori elettrici a effetto Hall allo xeno, i quali tramite l’applicazione di una tensione e di un campo magnetico producono degli elettroni che vanno a ionizzare gli atomi neutri del propellente. Gli ioni così prodotti, vengono accelerati dal campo elettrico ed espulsi dall’ugello generando la spinta e la tipica scia dal colore blu brillante.
A sinistra, il plasma allo xeno emette un bagliore azzurro/blu da un propulsore elettrico a effetto Hall identico a quelli a bordo della sonda Psyche. A destra, un propulsore simile non in funzione. Credits: NASA/JPL-CaltechPsyche utilizza un propulsore alla volta, ottenendo una spinta fino a 240 mN (milliNewton) e nei suoi serbatoi al lancio erano stoccati 1.085 kg di xeno. L’energia elettrica usata da tutti i sistemi del veicolo spaziale è generata da due pannelli fotovoltaici a cinque sezioni ciascuno, i quali producono 21 kW in prossimità del nostro pianeta e fra i 2,3 e 3,4 kW durante la fase orbitale attorno all’asteroide.
I controllori della missione hanno messo in pausa i quattro propulsori in aprile per indagare su un inatteso calo di pressione, determinandone poi la causa in un’anomalia ad una valvola che gestisce il passaggio del propellente. Attraverso un esteso lavoro diagnostico e di test, gli ingegneri hanno concluso che una parte di questa valvola difettosa stava ostruendo il passaggio dello xeno verso i propulsori.
Essendo stato completato il passaggio alla linea di alimentazione secondaria, la squadra di controllo della missione intende riaccendere il sistema propulsivo di Psyche per la metà del prossimo mese di giugno.
Presso il Jet Propulsion Laboratory della NASA, gli ingegneri sono al lavoro per preparare l’integrazione dei quattro propulsori Hall (sotto le coperture proettive rosse) sulla sonda Psyche. I propulsori spingeranno la sonda verso il suo obiettivo posto nella fascia degli asteroidi. Credits: NASA/JPL-CaltechLa sonda è stata progettata con una linea di alimentazione del propellente ridondante, che è identica a quella primaria e a scanso di ulteriori imprevisti, gli ingegneri intendono mantenere la valvola della linea di riserva in posizione aperta, per garantire il flusso continuo di propellente.
A causa della loro elevata efficienza, i propulsori ad effetto Hall di Psyche potrebbero funzionare per anni prima di terminare lo xeno; gli ingegneri hanno stimato che usando la tradizionale propulsione chimica, la missione avrebbe consumato un quantitativo di carburante 15 volte superiore. Inoltre in teoria, questo sistema propulsivo può far raggiungere a Psyche una velocità fino a 200.000 km/h.
La missione Psyche è partita il 13 ottobre 2023 dal Kennedy Space Center a bordo di un Falcon Heavy di SpaceX alla volta dell’asteroide omonimo 16 Psyche situato nella fascia degli asteroidi. La natura di questo particolare asteroide è dibattuta attualmente dagli scienziati; secondo alcuni, esso è il nucleo di un protopianeta antico, mancante degli strati più esterni a causa di impatti con altri oggetti spaziali, mentre secondo altri esso potrebbe essere una parte del nocciolo di un planetesimo, ovvero la parte primordiale più interna di un pianeta roccioso.
Una rappresentazione artistica dell’asteroide Psyche, che misura 279 x 232 x 189 km. Credits:NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASUNonostante i problemi con il sistema propulsivo, la sonda ha già percorso un miliardo di chilometri e resta in rotta per raggiungere Psyche come pianificato, nell’agosto del 2029. Nel maggio del 2026, Psyche sorvolerà Marte e usando la sua gravità come una fionda, acquisirà più velocità per il suo viaggio verso l’asteroide metallico obiettivo della sua missione, attorno al quale orbiterà per 26 mesi a quattro differenti altitudini. La missione primaria terminerà nel novembre 2031.
Fonti: NASA-1, NASA-2, NASA JPL
Ove non diversamente indicato, questo articolo è © 2006-2025 Associazione ISAA - Leggi la licenza. La nostra licenza non si applica agli eventuali contenuti di terze parti presenti in questo articolo, che rimangono soggetti alle condizioni del rispettivo detentore dei diritti.
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#16Psyche #JPL #NASA #PropulsioneAdEffettoHall #Psyche #Xenon
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Du 200 route au 100 un peu gravel
Il y a des signes qu’il faut parfois prendre le temps d’accepter…
Vendredi matin, j’ai pris le temps de gonfler mes pneus qui étaient un peu mous. Samedi doit être une grande journée de roulage, ce sera ça de fait. De 1 bar à 3 bars, j’ai bien senti la différence et même si le confort diminue, c’est tout de même bien plus efficace. Efficacité qui se perdit petit à petit sur le trajet du boulot, il fallait se rendre à l’évidence, 3 bars sur un pneu rincé apportent aussi plus de crevaison 😑
Vendredi soir, donc, avant de rentrer chez moi, opération réparation. Il est tard, presque tout le monde est parti, je mets un grand carton dans le hall d’entrée (moquetté) et je démonte pour mettre une rustine. Tout se passe sans encombre jusqu’au regonflage qu’il faut faire à une bonne pression tout de même pour refaire claquer le pneu #tubeless ready sur la jante.
Et BAAAAAAAM !!!
Oui « BAAAAAAAM !!! » pas « Clac, clac ! » comme je m’y attendais : la chambre à air venait d’éclater (et de m’éclater les tympans). Légère panique pour les collègues toujours présentes dans les locaux que j’ai dû rassurer sur l’origine de l’explosion. Ce sera donc changement de CAA (et acouphènes passagers).
Premier signe qu’il ne fallait pas y aller.
Arrivé à l’appart, je décide de replacer les prolongateurs. Samedi doit être une grande journée de roulage, ce sera plus confortable et ils m’ont manqués en janvier. Préparation du reste du vélo et de mes affaires pour la sortie, dernier coup d’œil à la trace, nous partons à deux direction Provins où je ne suis jamais allé.
6h30, le réveil pique un peu, je finis le plat de pâtes de la veille histoire d’avoir un peu de sucre lent dans le ventre, 7h15 c’est parti.
7h20 impossible de changer de vitesse. Je m’arrête en bas de chez moi et constate que je suis un idiot : j’ai écrasé mes gaines de freins et de dérailleur en remettant l’un des prolongateurs !
Deuxième signe qu’il ne fallait pas y aller.
Demi tour et retour à l’appart pour une réparation qui ne se fera pas sur le pouce. Il faut enlever la guidoline, changer les gaines et les câbles, régler frein et dérailleur. Bref, sans trop de motivation, il m’aura fallut 1h30 pour tout faire (gaine de frein seulement raccourcie, j’avais un peu de rab) et ranger avant de repartir.
9h30, c’est un peu tard pour se lancer dans une grande journée de roulage de 200 km, non ? Bah, on verra, direction Provins en allant rattraper les bords de Marne. Je n’ai que très peu parcouru ce secteur alors je profite. On rejoint la confluence avec la Seine (Chinagora), court circuit pour le pas faire le tour de Saint-Maure-des-Fossés et je découvre les jolies maisons de Le Perreux-sur-Marne. À Bry-sur-Marne, on quitte le bord de la rivière direction Champs-sur-Marne.
Je constate que ma lampe ne fonctionne pas. Elle est alimentée par une dynamo moyeux et devrait être allumée en permanence. Je tripote les fils en roulant et il y a bien un faux contact. Hummm. Il est tard, on décide de s’arrêter pour déjeuner, j’examine la lampe de plus prêt et l’un des fils me reste dans les mains, sectionné. J’ai bien une lampe de secours, mais on n’a roulé que 35 km, il reste facilement 12h de vélo, donc on va forcément rouler plus de 6h de nuit et je ne suis pas sûr que ma lampe tienne aussi longtemps.
Troisième signe qu’il ne fallait pas y aller.
On se pose au jap’ du coin et on regarde nos solutions. On peut toujours aller jusqu’à Provins et rentrer en train… Sauf que :
Pas de retour en train après 20h car navette en bus… Ah ah ah, ce gag.
Quatrième signe : nous n’irons pas à Provins, ce sera une moins grande journée de roulage.
Changement de plan, un peu de #Komoot et de #StreetView sur un coin de table et on se dessine une trace qui va jusque chez Mickey par la route, en faire le tour tout en rond et retour complet par les bords de Marne. Ça va être un peu gravel, ça changera 😊
Tout ceci se fait avec une météo agréable, petites pluies éparses et beau soleil parfois chaud. La promenade est vraiment sympa et comme elle a été particulièrement raccourcie, cela laisse du temps pour flâner et prendre quelques photos et caresser des moutons…
La trace nous fait rejoindre la V4 du côte de Marne & Gondoire du #rerv et c’est juste le paradis du vélo ! Une alternance de voie cyclables splendides et larges, de chaussidoux ou de vélorues. Une réalisation exemplaire qui fait dire que « quand on veut on peut ! » Nous l’emprunterons sur plusieurs kilomètres jusqu’à Val d’Europe (qui est pourtant le paradis consumériste de la voiture). Il y a même des panneaux d’explication des différentes installations pour les usagers non habitués.
Bon c’est pas pour autant que l’on ne s’y est pas fait doubler, mais à la décharge de l’automobiliste, la vélorue était très large et permettait un dépassement sécurisé.
Après Mickey, retour par les bords de Marne, pas toujours hyper roulants (voir pas du tout agréable), une belle chute dans la boue, des statues étranges et un arbre magnifique. Pas grand chose à dire, la balade est douce et c’est un bon samedi après-midi à vélo que nous faisons.
Retour sur Paris, on profite de toutes les bateaux et les personnes qui font de l’aviron, des splendides maisons (en particulier je découvre la promenade Yvette Horner à Nogent-sur-Marne) et nous voici enfin sous le fameux « pont moche » franchement pas si moche d’un certain point de vue.
Retour à l’appart en étant passé par la station de lavage pour décrasser montures et chaussures.
Au final une sortie de 117 km #pasouf mais bien sympathique (Strava).
Bon, c’est pas tout, mais pour le #dodecaudax, je fais comment ?
(Article d’origine : du 200 route au 100 un peu gravel)
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Grey’s Anatomy, Simpsons, Will Smith, The Beauty e Wonder Man nos lançamentos do Disney+ para Janeiro de 2026
O ano de 2026 começa movimentado no Disney+, que prepara um mês de janeiro repleto de estreias e retornos aguardados.
A plataforma aposta em uma combinação estratégica de novas temporadas de séries já consolidadas, como “Grey’s Anatomy” e “Os Simpsons“, ao mesmo tempo em que apresenta conteúdos inéditos de selos fortes como Marvel Studios e FX, reforçando seu catálogo para o início do ano.
Confira abaixo todas as novidades do Disney+ para janeiro de 2026:
09 DE JANEIRO
Grey’s Anatomy – 21ª Temporada (novos episódios em 23/01)
Criação: Shonda Rhimes (Atual showrunner: Meg Marinis)
Estúdio: Shondaland, Lionsgate Television, 20th Television, ABC, Disney
Elenco: Ellen Pompeo, James Pickens Jr., Kevin McKidd, Caterina Scorsone, Camilla Luddington, Kim Raver, Jake Borelli, Chris Carmack, Anthony Hill, Alexis Floyd, Harry Shum Jr., Adelaide Kane, Midori Francis e Niko TerhoO envolvente drama acompanha uma equipe médica do Grey Sloan Memorial que diariamente enfrenta decisões de vida ou morte e encontra apoio uns nos outros – indo, às vezes, além da amizade. Nesta temporada, Jason George retorna como Ben Warren para integrar a equipe de residentes da Dra. Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0WvpgIdNfA
Mil Golpes – 2ª Temporada (Temporada Completa)
Criação: Steven Knight
Estúdio: The Story Collective, Matriarch Productions, Water & Power Productions, Disney
Elenco: Erin Doherty, Malachi Kirby, Stephen GrahamInspirada em histórias reais ambientadas na brutal área de East End, Londres, de 1880, a segunda temporada retoma os acontecimentos um ano depois. Hezekiah agora é apenas uma sombra do homem que já foi, enquanto Sugar Goodson vive afastado de sua família e se entrega à bebida em um caminho de autodestruição. No momento em que Wapping está prestes a ruir de vez, Mary Carr retorna à cidade ao lado de sua fiel aliada, Alice Diamond, determinada a reunir sua gangue e reivindicar sua coroa. Como sempre, Mary tem um plano; um que envolverá todos aqueles que ela mais ama. E, desta vez, é mais arriscado do que nunca.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2Sj_tic3co
13 DE JANEIRO
Me Conte Mentiras – 3ª Temporada (Episódios semanais às terças)
Criação: Meaghan Oppenheimer
Estúdio: Moppy Productions, Belletrist Productions, Mega Mix, Rebelle Media, 20th Television, Disney
Elenco: Grace Van Patten, Jackson White, Costa D’Angelo, Iris ApatowA terceira temporada de Me Conte Mentiras acompanha Lucy Albright (Grace Van Patten) e Stephen DeMarco (Jackson White), que reatam sua intensa relação bem a tempo do semestre da primavera na Universidade Baird. Embora os dois prometam que, desta vez, tudo será diferente, erros do passado complicam suas boas intenções e Lucy se vê envolvida em uma controvérsia da qual preferia ficar distante. Enquanto isso, as consequências do ano anterior forçam seus amigos a confrontar seus próprios comportamentos destrutivos. À medida que os segredos escandalosos se espalham pelo campus, as consequências ameaçam Lucy e todos ao seu redor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUPuwCLQ5yk
14 DE JANEIRO
Os Simpsons – 37ª Temporada (Temporada Completa)
Criação: Matt Groening (Atual showrunner: Matt Selman)
Estúdio: Gracie Films, 20th Television Animation, Disney
Elenco: Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Harry ShearerNa 37ª temporada de “Os Simpsons“, que celebra a estreia de seu histórico episódio 800, Lisa descobre as roupas vintage dos anos 90 de Marge e é aceita no exclusivo clube de moda da escola; Homer fica viciado em programas de TV para pais; Bart e o Professor Frink viajam para uma ilha de magnatas bilionários que modificam corpos; e um desacreditado Superintendente Chalmers cria uma linha de produtos para cuidados com a pele masculina. A nova temporada também traz episódio inédito e assustador do especial Treehouse of Horror, no qual a Springfield dos anos 70 é assombrada por um monstro de gordura que se alimenta de gordura humana; Krusty faz um pacto com o diabo durante seu especial de Halloween ao vivo; e, em um futuro pós-apocalíptico feito de plástico e bonecos articulados, Bart e Lisa lutam pelo futuro da humanidade.
De Polo a Polo com Will Smith (Temporada Completa)
Estúdio: Westbrook Studios, Nutopia, Protozoa, National Geographic, Disney
Nesta produção do National Geographic, Will Smith atravessa os sete continentes. A jornada vai dos campos de gelo da Antártida à densa floresta amazônica, explorando as maravilhas naturais do Himalaia, desertos africanos e os icebergs do Ártico.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWNxI_kHnIo
21 DE JANEIRO
The Beauty – Lindos de Morrer (Três Primeiros Episódios)
Criação: Ryan Murphy, Matt Hodgson
Estúdio: 20th Television, Ryan Murphy Productions, Disney
Elenco: Evan Peters, Anthony Ramos, Jeremy Pope, Ashton Kutcher, Rebecca Hall, Isabella Rossellini, Bella HadidEm “The Beauty – Lindos de Morrer“, do FX, o mundo da alta-costura toma um rumo sinistro quando supermodelos internacionais começam a morrer de forma misteriosa e perturbadora. Os agentes do FBI Cooper Madsen (Evan Peters) e Jordan Bennett (Rebecca Hall) são enviados a Paris para investigar o que está por trás desses acontecimentos. Conforme avançam no caso, eles descobrem a existência de um vírus sexualmente transmissível que transforma pessoas em versões de uma perfeição física hegemônica, mas com consequências terríveis. A investigação logo os coloca na mira de “The Corporation” (Ashton Kutcher), um multimilionário da tecnologia que criou secretamente uma droga chamada “The Beauty”, e que fará qualquer coisa para proteger seu império avaliado em trilhões de dólares, inclusive soltar seu assassino de aluguel, “The Assassin” (Anthony Ramos). À medida que a epidemia se espalha, Jeremy (Jeremy Pope), alguém à margem da sociedade e em busca de um propósito, acaba sendo arrastado para o centro do caos. Enquanto isso, os agentes correm contra o tempo por Paris, Veneza, Roma e Nova York para deter uma ameaça capaz de mudar o futuro da humanidade. “The Beauty – Lindos de Morrer” é um thriller global que levanta uma questão fundamental: até onde alguém estaria disposto a ir para alcançar a perfeição da beleza hegemônica.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnN7M8yXhFM
27 DE JANEIRO
Magnum (Wonder Man)
Criação: Destin Daniel Cretton, Andrew Guest
Estúdio: Marvel Studios (Television), Family Owned, Onyx Collective, Disney
Elenco: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Ben KingsleySimon Williams, um aspirante a ator de Hollywood, luta para alavancar sua carreira. Em um encontro casual com Trevor Slattery, um ator cujos melhores papéis parecem ter ficado no passado, Simon descobre que o lendário diretor Von Kovak está fazendo uma nova versão do filme de super-herói Magnum. Esses dois atores, em extremos opostos de suas carreiras, buscam com determinação papéis que podem mudar suas vidas, enquanto o público tem acesso aos bastidores da indústria do entretenimento.
#20thTelevisionAnimation20thTelevisionAnimation #ABC #Disney #DisneyBrandedTelevision #FX #FXNetwork #GreySAnatomy #Hulu #Magnum #Marvel #MarvelStudios #MarvelTelevision #MeConteMentiras #MilGolpesAThousandBlows #OsSimpsons #SériesETV #TellMeLies #TheBeautyLindosDeMorrer #WonderMan
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#hall : a building or room of considerable size and stateliness, used for public purposes
- French: Couloir
- Italian: sala
- Portuguese: hall, sala
- Spanish: vestíbulo
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Guess the next word of the hour @ https://24hippos.com
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#hall : a building or room of considerable size and stateliness, used for public purposes
- French: Couloir
- Italian: sala
- Portuguese: hall, sala
- Spanish: vestíbulo
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Guess the next word of the hour @ https://24hippos.com
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Usher Hall & a little glimpse of #Edinburgh Castle, from Festival Square
#Edimbourg #architecture #photography #photographie #UsherHall #EdinburghCastle
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back to kyberpunk bartending aktion >:3
imma play some more VA-11 Hall-A -
Scott Hall a defendant in the GA #conspiracy cut a sweet plea deal from #FanniWillis. His crimes, to which he’ll now be spilling the truth, strongly implicate Sydney Powell and Jeff Clark, two of the dirtiest players and most deserving of prison in this whole conspiracy scheme.