It smelled like melted wax and there were mysterious people scuttling about.

Narrow street in England's Cotswolds lined with stone buildings, mostly 2-story.

16th century stone buildings on a city square. There are made of yellow stone with slate (I think) roofs.

Another row of yellow stone buildings. They all have side-facing gables and lots of little front-facing dormers.

Stow-on-the-Wold in the Cotswolds. The definition of quaint.

Pond bordered by trees with Buckingham Palace in the distance

Flower bed of multi-colored tulips

Flower bed with red, white, pink, purple, and yellow flowers, with trees and bushes in the background

Section of a pond shaded by a weeping willow. Several tufted ducks are enjoying the shade.

St. James Park, London

Sing

I used to sign with a chorus that performed in there every once in a while. I thought the inside was creepy as all get out.

Four-story Victorian building that is part of Balliol College at Oxford. It is clad in light colored stone and has a side-facing gable roof, numerous front-facing dormers, a square tower in the center that contains the gate to the college, and a round turret on the left side with small arched windows and a pointed roof.

Two-story brown brick double house with turrets on each corner. The right side has been well-maintained and appears to be inhabited. The left side has boarded up windows on the first floor. The turret is multi-sided with a pointed angular roof. There are stone stringcourses running across the facade above and below the windows.

#TurretTuesday Oxford, England, and West Garfield Park, Chicago

Still life depicting a vase bursting with red, white, and lavender flowers with one red and white tulip poking out above all the others. The background is dark and the frame is ornately carved wood.

Another still life with flowers, this one even more colorful. There is a yellow sunflower, a red and white tulip, and other flowers in red, yellow, pink, and white. The background is almost black and the frame is ornately carved wood.

Two paintings by Dutch artist Rachel Ruysch, both painted in the early 18th century. National Gallery, London

www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/...

Tall painting in a gilt frame depicting St. Michael, dressed in gold and red, pointing a sword toward a representation of the devil at his feet.

Closeup of the devil. Dark brown head with smoke coming out of the top, red eyes, mouth full of very pointy teeth and a red tongue. The arms and legs seem to be part snake and part scaly talons. The body is gold with red nipples or maybe chest eyes? There are also teeth at the bottom of its abdomen.

"Saint Michael triumphant over the Devil with the Donor Antoni Joan," Bartolome Bermejo, 1468, National Gallery, London. I'm sharing this because you need to see that devil.

Not at all

Apparently I'm wrong about her being pregnant.

Oil painting in a gilt frame. This is the Arnolfini Portrait, painted in 1434 by Jan van Eyck. It depicts a man and a pregnant woman standing in a room of their house. He is dressed in black/dark brown and wears a massive hat. She is wearing a bright green gown. There is a brown dog at bottom center.

I still can't believe I saw the Arnolfini Portrait with my own eyes. It's in the National Gallery in London. Painted in 1434 by Jan van Eyck.

Not sure how to take that.

Manhole cover next to a stone wall. The cover is decoration with hexagons filled in with small circles. It is stamped Hayward Brothers, Union Street Borough, London, No. 3

#ManholeCoverMonday Oxford, England

🤣

View of Chicago skyscrapers through the support beams of a bridge over the Chicago River, looking east.

I always love this view.

Two-story church in the Renaissance Revival style. It is made of yellow brick with red brick stripes on the tower at right. With the exception of the tower, the front facade is symmetrical, with three entrances topped with stone arches. Six brick piers rise up from the stone foundation and stop below a large cornice. Each pier is topped with a capital containing a cross. Above the cornice is a curvy pediment topped with a gold cross. The tower in square with rounded and arched openings and a pointy spire.

Assumption Catholic Church, 323 W. Illinois St., Chicago. Built in 1886 from a design by architect Giuseppe Beretta in what was then an Italian neighborhood. I can honestly say I have never noticed this church before.

Interior of a medieval church with vaulted wood ceiling, stone arches, and arched windows containing clear glass.

A different view of the interior of the same church. The floor is a black, red, and yellow checkerboard pattern. There are wooden chairs on each side facing the center aisle.

St. Bartholomew the Great, London, founded in 1123.

Home already

@jmings.bsky.social London

😆

Oxford, England

Stone bust of a bearded man with bulging eyes and flared nostrils.

Maybe it was opened up for the viewing public?

And pregnant. 😢

Half-timbered wall with an opening designed to show what is behind the stucco: interwoven sticks and twigs.

Behind the stucco at Shakespeare’s birthplace in Stratford.

Found this: No 4 Water Street, completed in 1932 as the new headquarters of Martins Bank…its fabulous decorative elements were a collaboration between celebrated local sculptor Herbert Tyson Smith and the prolific Liverpool stonemasons Edmund Thompson and George Capstick.

It’s awful.

The Friends of the City Churches | Church Finder

This is a good resource. www.fotcc.org.uk/church-finder/

😀 Made it up on my own!