Wednesday, July 25, 2018

St Michael’s Mount


One of forty three tidal islands that are accessible on foot from Britain’s mainland, St Michael’s Mount stands in Mounts Bay, Cornwall.  Originally known as "Karrek Loos yn koos" meaning 'hoar rock in woodland', St Michaels Mount was situated in a large woodland area.  The woodlands were flooded in around 1700BC. When the tide is low evidence of the old forest is visible. 

As early as the eighth or ninth century the site was a Monastery.  Edward the Confessor, one of the last Anglo Saxon Kings of England, gave the island to the Norman Abbey of Mont Saint Michel.  The island became a counterpart of the Mont Saint Michel Abbey in Normandy.  Encouraged by an indulgence granted by Pope Gregory, in the eleventh century, the island was a destination for pilgrims.  The Mount was captured in 1193 by Sir Henry de la Pomeroy on behalf on Prince John, the King of England from 1199 until his death in 1216.  The monastic buildings were built during the twelfth century.  

The original priory was destroyed by an earthquake before being rebuilt in the late fourteenth century.   St Michael’s Mount remained a priory of that abbey until the dissolution of alien houses.  This occurred due to the war with France led by Henry V, the second English monarch of the House of Lancaster.  After Henry V's death in 1422 the island was given to the Abbess and convent of Syon.  It was a Bridgettine Order, an order of the Augustinian Nuns, religious sisters and monks founded by Saint Bridget of Sweden in 1424.  

The 13th Earl of Oxford, John de Vere, a principal Lancastrian commander during the War of the Roses, seized the Mount in 1473.  He held the Mount for twenty three weeks against the troops of Edward IV loosing his stronghold in 1474.  In 1497 St Michael’s Mount was occupied by Perkin Warbeck.  This pretender to the throne claimed to be Richard of Shrewsbury, the second son of Edward IV, one of the princes supposedly killed in the tower.  
By 1549 the Governor of St Michael’s Mount was Sir Humphrey Arundell.  He was known for leading the Prayer Book Rebellion, a revolt against the introduction of the Book of Common Prayer, which presented the theology of the English Reformation.  

Queen Elizabeth I gave St Michael’s Mount to the Earl of Salisbury, Robert Cecil.  An English statesman, Cecil was known for directing the government during the transition from the Tudors to the Stuarts. Robert Cecil’s son sold the Mount to Sir Francis Bassett, a Sheriff and Vice Admiral of Cornwall.  During the English civil war, Bassett’s brother Arthur, held the Mount against the parliament until July 1646. 

In 1659 the Mount was sold to Colonel John St Aubyn, a colonel to the parliamentary army during the English Civil War.  His relatives remain seated at the Mount. Consisting of a a few small fisherman’s cottage and the monastic dwellings by the 18th century, improvements were made to the harbour in 1727.  These improvements resulted in St Michael’s Mount’s harbour flourishing.  

A large earthquake in Lisbon in 1755 resulted in a Tsunami striking the Cornwall coast.  There was great loss of lives and property.  
By 1811 the houses on the Mount numbered fifty five with four streets.  There was a Wesleyan Chapel, three public houses and three schools on the Mount.  The pier was extended in 1821 and the population reached 221 people.  With improvements being made in the harbour at nearby Penzance the population on the Mount declined.  This resulted in many of the existing houses being demolished.  During the Victorian era an underground funicular narrow gauge railway was constructed to take luggage to the island.  

In the late 19th Century the remains of an anchorite, a hermit that retires to isolation for religious reasons, were found in the domestic chapel on the Mount. 

A descendant  of John St Aubyn,  Francis Cecil St Aubyn, 3rd Baron St Levan, gave most of St Michael’s Mount to the National Trust in 1954.  The St Aubyn family have a 999 year contract to inhabit the castle and a licence to manage the public viewing of historical rooms.  The chapel at St Michael’s Mount still serves the Order of St John. Chapel Rock on the beach of the Mount is the site of a shrine dedicated to the Virgin Mary. 

On the hillside of St Michael’s Mount several houses have been built.  A spring provides water to the island. A set of eight terrace houses built in 1855, called Elizabeth Terrace also remain on the Mount.  The cemetary on St Michael’s Mount is the final resting place for residents and drowned sailors.  The Mount also has a stewards house, a barge house, two inns, changing rooms for bathers and a bowling green.  

The harbour has been renovated and is marked by small brass inlay footsteps of Queen Victoria whose Royal barge disembarked from the Mount.  King Edward VII’s footstep are commemorated on the bowling green and in 1967 the Royal Yacht Britannia visited the harbour.  The Mount has been featured in many films including Dracula, Johnny English and the Bond movie Never Say Never Again.  

Considering the long and at times tempestuous history of St Michael’s Mount it is little surprise that there has been recorded paranormal phenomena since as early as the 5th Century.  It is claimed that in the 5th Century the archangel Michael appeared to local fishermen.  A tale is also told about the island on which St Michael’s Mount sits being the home of a giant called Cormoran, who lived in a cave with the ill-gotten treasures he had taken from the locals he terrorised.  A young farmer’s son called Jack killed the giant by trapping him in a pit.  This story is tied to the legend of Jack the Giant Killer.  

The Mount is said to be haunted by a tall man.  He is thought to be the Anchorite whose body was unearthed during renovations of the chapel.  During the renovations a stone  doorway was discovered that led to a hermitage cell.  The cell contained the remains of a man 7ft 8inches tall.  Perhaps this is linked to the stories of a giant on the Mount. 

A previous tenant of the Mount, Lord St Levan claimed that a four poster bed, decorated with carvings of Spanish shipwrecks that had happened around the coast, made people uneasy.  A ghostly monk has been sighted on the Mount and a Lady in grey.  The Lady in grey is believed to be a former nanny of the St Aubyn family in the 1750s.  It is said that she got pregnant and when the father of her child rejected her she threw herself from the top of the castle.  

In the waters beyond the Mount it is said that some people hear the peel of church bells and the words “I will, I will....” coming from the depths of the sea.  The haunting is said to be the ghosts of Sarah Polgrain and her sailor lover Jack.  Polgrain reportedly poisoned her husband and moved in with her lover Jack.  The villagers were suspicious and Polgrain husband’s body was exhumed.  When it was established she had murdered him she was sentenced to hang.  From the scaffold she was reported to have asked Jack to marry her and he had replied  “I will, I will...”  Following her death Jack became tormented and confided to fellow sailors what he had said.  At midnight, female footsteps were heard on the deck of the ship and a terrified Jack was seen jumping into the water never to be seen again.  

What really impressed me about St Michaels Mount is the way that it rises majestically from the water like a place from a fairy tale.  







Tuesday, May 22, 2018

The Elizabethan House, Plymouth

Dating back to 1584, the Elizabethan House is situated in Plymouth, England.  Plymouth is on the coast of Devon, south west of Exeter and west-south-west of London.  The city is enclosed by the River Plym and the River Tamar.  The original harbour of Plymouth has the Barbican on its western and northern sides.  The Barbican, which is a fortified gate, was most likely named in honour of the gate that bid entry to Plymouth Castle. The medieval fortress guarded the Cattlewater, the stretch of water where the River Plym meets the waters of Plymouth Sound.  By the end of the sixteenth century the Plymouth Castle had fallen into disrepair and it was eventually demolished.

The area known as the Barbican in Plymouth was home to Plymouth's fish markets.  During medieval times Plymouth prospered, mostly due to the local fishermen, sea captains, merchants and privateers that used Plymouth as a home or base in their exploits.  Plymouth was the home port for many successful maritime traders.  These included Sir Francis Drake, who served as Mayor of Plymouth and famously finished his game of bowls on The Plymouth Hoe before defeating the incoming Spanish Armada.  Sir John Hawkins, who led England into the Atlantic Slave Trade, also operated from Plymouth Harbour.  Plymouth was becoming so prosperous that the then Mayor, John Sparke approved the development of a new street on the Barbican to help accommodate the growing population whose work and livelihood were based around the harbour.

Located  at 32 New Street, one of the houses built during that time was the Elizabethan House.  The original owner of the house is unknown but the first recorded resident was the borough Treasurer, Richard Brendan who lived in the property until 1631 when he sold it to a William Hele. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Elizabethan House had many different owners and occupants.  Most notable during this period of time was the London Company of Merchants, a company that were exploring and developing the fishing grounds of Newfoundland.

By the late ninteenth century New Street had become very overcrowded.  Slums and hovels replaced all the private owners and entrepreneurs.  by the 1850's up to 24 people were living in single dwellings and diseases such as smallpox, diphtheria and scarlet fever were rampant.

The planned demolition of the Elizabethan House in New Street was prevented and it opened as a museum in 1930.  Preserved as a Captains dwelling of the time, the Elizabethan House is decorated with several pieces of furniture from the seventeenth century.  The front parlor is adorned with oak furniture, some on loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, including a table, chairs, a chest and side table.  Pieces from the museum's own collection include side tables, a writing desk and a bible box.  The original gardens were recreated with  plants such as lavender, sweet woodruff, and thyme, which were popular in the past to create beautiful and fragrant gardens.  Raised beds with seventeenth century fruits, herbs and vegetables also adorn the gardens.  The Elizabethan House is also decorated with an Inglenook fireplace, featuring pebble paving and a granite-edged hearth.  The museum also features original foods and wares in the kitchen area as well as lists of purchases recorded by a merchant of the time.

in recent years, Bristol based specialist architects, DHV,  have been given the task of readying the Elizabethan House to serve as an exhibition place and museum for Mayflower 400, a celebration of the sailing of the Mayflower to the colonies to be held in 2020.

Having such a long and interesting history, not to mention a plethora of owners and occupants, it is little wonder that there have been reports of paranormal phenomena in the Elizabethan House.  A cradle in the house is said to rock on its own, while some people have reported seeing a ghostly infant laying in the cradle.  Many passerby's have reported seeing the figure of a young girl looking out from one of the windows in the Elizabethan House, despite the house being empty at the time.

I love Plymouth and its is the sort of place that easily transports you back in time to when it was a busy port populated by all sorts of significant historical characters.
















Tuesday, April 10, 2018

The Rose and Crown Hotel

In 1839, Thomas Jecks had acquired Lot 42 from John Cooper who had received the land in 1830. The land consisted of 2.5 acres in Guildford, part of the newly formed Swan River Colony.  Cooper exchanged the land for a goat.  Jecks, who had arrived in the newly formed Swan River colony aboard the Gilmore in 1829, originally built a general store on the site.  With the Swan River Colony a little more than a decade old Jecks’ store, by the 1840s stocked and supplied the colonists with a wide variety of goods. These included food products like pork, cheese, sugar, tea, coffee, such things as gauze handkerchiefs, silks, cashmere through to bolts and building goods.

In 1841 Jecks decided to expand the store to include a licensed hotel.  The building was in a Georgian style, constructed from local hand made bricks laid in a Flemish bond.  This type of bricklaying is an arrangement of bricks where each course has alternate bricks with their short sides and long sides facing outwards, with each alternate course being offset. The building has a steeply pitched roof, that was constructed of indigenous and English hardwoods.  The roof was covered in wood shingles.  

Jecks continued to expand the hotel but on January 24th 1856 a large beam fell killing him.  Forty two year old Jecks left behind his wife, Elizabeth and thirteen children.  The hotel continued to run and by the 1860s the establishment was renting rooms for five shillings per meeting to travelling judges and groups wanting to hold public meetings.  Stables with Dutch gables were built behind the hotel in the 1880s.  In the 1890s a single story addition was built which made up the east wing of the hotel and originally comprised of a bar, restaurant and lodgings for travellers.  

In the 1970s the hotel had twenty eight motel rooms added and a museum which housed one of the best exhibitions of Western Australian antiques.  In the 1990s the hotel was known for its boutique brewery which produced Bullant Beer and ginger ale.  Renovations continued and now the hotel has been mostly restored to its former glory. 

Underneath the hotel is a large cellar which is thought to have been connected to the Swan River,  just 400m away, by a series of tunnels.  There is much conjecture about the need and use of such a tunnel.  Some believe that the tunnel was used to run contraband in the newly formed colony.  A deep well in the cellar led to suggestions that the proprietors may have been distilling illegal alcohol and using the tunnels to run it.  Whatever the reasons for the supposed tunnel and deep cellar it’s an interesting part of the building.

Being one of the oldest hotels in Australia and the oldest in Western Australia it should be no surprise that there have been reports of paranormal phenomena at the hotel.  There is supposedly a ghost by the name of Charlie who was a bullock driver that murdered his wife in the hotel when he caught he cheating.  Staff and patrons of the hotel have reported seeing figures in the cellar that have appeared to be wearing old fashioned clothes and then strangely disappear.  

The Rose and Crown is a fascinating place to spend some time and just contemplate the early settlement of Western Australia.  










































Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Château Ramezay


In 1705 Claude de Ramezay, the then Governer of Montreal acquired a large estate to build a home. An important figure in New France, de Ramezay commissioned architect and mason, Pierre Couturier to design and build his new home.  

The Chateau was built of field stone with three storeys, including a vaulted cellar and attic. Built on a large piece of land the Chateau was surrounded by a garden divided into three equal parts. The garden had an orchard, an ornamental garden and a kitchen garden.  The entire garden was surrounded by aromatic and medicinal herbs. A fountain was the centrepiece of the garden.  

Following the death of Claude de Ramezay in 1724 his widow leased the property to the government.  The house remained in the de Ramezay family until 1745 when it was purchased by Compagnie des Indes Occidentales, a French trading company.  Major expansions of the building were undertaken by the Compaigne des Indes Occidentales.

In 1775 the Chateau Ramezay was used by the Continental Army as its headquarters when it seized Montreal.  The Continental Army had been created to coordinate the military efforts of the thirteen colonies who were in a revolt against Great Britain.  While trying to raise troops to fight with the Americans in the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin stayed at the Chateau in 1776. 

Following the British conquest of New France the Chateau Ramezay was again used as the Governor’s residence, this time for the British Governer.  In 1878 the building was used to house the Universite de Montreals first Faculty of Medicine.

By 1893 the Quebec Government no longer required the building and it was abandoned.  The Chateau Ramezay was rescued from demolition by The Antiquarian and Numismatic Society of Montreal.  By 1894 the Society had converted the Chateau into an historical museum and portrait gallery.  The Museum and gallery officially opened on May 1st 1895.  In 1895 Sir Andrew Taylor, architect and councillor, was commissioned to design alterations to the Chateau.  In 1902 to 1904 decorative turrets were added to the building.  

The Chateau Ramezay underwent further renovations inside and outside the building between 1997 and 2002, including restorations of the Governor’s Garden.  Today the Chateau houses over 30000 objects donated by private citizens of Montreal.  The collection includes manuscripts, printed materials, numismatic items, ethnological items, artworks, furniture and prints.  

Apart from also housing the first public library in Montreal, the Chateau was the first building to be classified as an historic monument in Montreal in 1929.  In 1949 the Chateau Ramezay was recognised as a National Historic Site of Canada and in 2003 it earned the National Award of Excellence from the Landscape Architects of Canada.  

The Château Ramezay has been the site of much paranormal phenomenon.  Visitors and staff at the Chateau have reported hearing whispers and unexplained footsteps.  Staff have found exhibits changed, books knocked from shelves and have smelt sulphur.  Some believe that the Château Ramezay is haunted by Anna O’Dowd, a live-in caretaker who died in the Château in 1985.

The Chateau Ramezay is a charming building and represents a portal to Montreal’s past. 








Saturday, February 17, 2018

Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Montreal


The Queen Elizabeth Hotel opened on April 15th 1958. Located at 900 Rene Levesque Blvd West in Downtown Montreal, it is connected to the central station and the underground. Built by the Canadian National Railway, leading architects and designers were chosen to give the hotel interior a “New France” theme.  The hotel has 1039 rooms with 21 floors.  The Queen Elizabeth Hotel is the largest hotel in the Quebec Province and the second largest in Canada after the Royal York in Toronto. 

Quebec handcrafts were chosen to decorate the hotel and many well known artists were employed to create the themed interior.  Albert Edward Cloutier, a Canadian painter and graphic designer, known for having a style of intensified realism with plastic forms in his work, was asked to create some original pieces for the hotel.  Cloutier contributed carved wood panels and painted a mural for the dining room of the Salle Bonaventure in the hotel.  French Canadian artist Jean Phillips Dallaire was commissioned to do wall hangings for the hotel.  Dallaire’s painting style was original and he was best know for festival scenes depicting macabre characters.  Ceramist and painter Claude Vermette created the ceramic tiles for the hotel and the bronze elevator doors were designed by Quebecois industrial engineer Julien Hèbert.
Marius Plamondon, Canadian stained glass artist and sculptor also contributed to the unique artwork in the hotel. 

When it came to naming the newly built hotel there was much controversy.  Quebec Nationalists wanted the hotel to be named Paul de Chomedey Maisonneuve. However the president of the Canadian National Railway insisted that the hotel be Queen Elizabeth,  who had unexpectedly come to the throne in 1952.  The Hotel was named Le Reine Elizabeth. 

The Canadian National Railway owned the hotel for many years while Hilton Hotels managed it.  The Canadian National Railway eventually sold their hotels to Canadian Pacific Hotels, which is now known as the Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. 


In 2016 the Queen Elizabeth Hotel was closed for renovations.  The hotel was reopened on July 10th 2017 boasting 950 rooms and suites, the restaurant Roselyn’s, an Urban Market, a night spot called Nacarats, Artisans, Krema and a spa.
The hotel has been the site of many historical events and hosted many famous people. The NHL draft was held in the hotel from 1963-1979. In 1970 the Quebec government moved its centre of operations into the Queen Elizabeth Hotel during the October Crisis.  Members of the Front de Liberation du Quebec kidnapped the provincial Cabinet Minister Pierre Laporte and the British Diplomat James Cross.  In response to this Primeminister Trudeau invoked the only peacetime use of the War Measures Act.  Laporte was murdered and ensuing negotiations saw the release of Cross and the exile of the kidnappers to Cuba.  

Many famous guests have stayed at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel including Queen Elizabeth, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Queen Mother and Prince Charles.  Fidel Castro, Princess Grace of Monaco, Charles de Gaulle, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Indira Ghandi, Jimmy Carter, Perry Como, Henry Kissinger and Mikhail Baryshnikov. 

The famous Bed-In held by John Lennon and Yoko Ono on May 26th to June 2nd 1969 was in Room 1742 of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel.  The Bed-In was in protest to Lennon and Ono being refused entry into the US.  The song “Give Peace A Chance” was recorded in the room on June 1st 1969.

The Queen Elizabeth Hotel is said to be haunted by a woman in white who sometimes visits guests in their rooms. Many have reported they feel they are being watched, hearing unexplained voices and footsteps.  People have felt like they have been touched and have heard mysterious loud bangs and knocks.

This hotel has quite a history and it’s gorgeous and original local artwork is quite amazing. 






















Tuesday, January 9, 2018

Fremantle Arts Centre


In the very early years of the colony settlement mentally ill patients in Western Australia were originally cared for in temporary accomodation. One of the first locations to house those with mental illness in Western Australia was a shipwreck called the Marquis of Anglesey. The ship was carrying settlers mainly from Cornwall and was the sixth ship to arrive in the colony.  On September 7th 1829, the ship which had arrived on August 23rd with 130 settlers on board and had anchored in what is now Gages Road, close to the mouth of the Swan River, was driven onshore by gale winds.  Stranded, the Marquis of Angelsey filled with water.  All hands and cargo that had not yet been unloaded, survived the grounding of the ship.  Damaged and beyond repair the hull of the wreck was sold to local merchant, George Leak for £170. Leak then leased the stranded wreck to the government who used it as a ready made building.  Firstly it served as the Governer’s Residence, then the Harbour Master’s office and then a post office.  The wreck was eventually used as the colonial goal and then mentally ill patients were housed in it.  The first mentally ill patient in the colony was Nicholas Langley, a surgeon, who had become violent.  He was said to have recovered and was accepted into the community as a surgeon again, practicing till he died at 35 years old.

The convict built prison, the Roundhouse was also used to house the mentally ill in the early days of the settlement.  With the influx of convicts there was a dramatic rise in the amount of mentally ill people in the colony.  The new colony mental asylum was built using convict labour between the years of 1861 and 1868.  The building was named the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum.  The building takes up over 2.4 hectares and after the Fremantle Goal was the biggest public building built using convict labour.  Designed in Australian Colonial Gothic Architecture it was a style inspired by developing architectural styles in England.  The building was built by Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Edmund Henderson, the then Comptroller-General of Convicts in Western Australia.   The initial building was designed to house 50 patients and construction was supervised by James Manning, Clerk of Works to the convict labour.  The convicts were assisted in the construction by the Twentieth Conpany of Engineers.  Taking over four years to complete the first patients admitted to the asylum arrived in 1865. 

In 1886, responsibility for public works came under the responsibility of the newly formed Public Works Department, headed by George Temple-Poole.  Between 1886 and 1894, Poole organised the construction of the north-east wing of the building and the southern wing.  

After the goldrush of the 1890s the asylum was overpopulated.  The facility was reorganised and a farm called Whitby Falls was purchased in 1897 to help house the ever growing population of patients.  The asylum continued to operate into the early 1900s becoming known as the Asylum for the Criminally Insane.  All patients were forced to live under prison rules.  The patients were referred to as inmates, had their heads shaven and were forced to wear prison uniforms.  As time passed the asylum became a place to house people with all manner of social problems from alcoholism to prostitution.  During the Goldrush people were sent to the asylum when suffering ailments such as sunstroke.  Even the elderly were sent to the asylum just because they were old.  In 1900 a woman named Mrs Clifford was in the asylum.  At this time there were 219 patients with 17-20 people in each room.  Mrs Clifford was killed by another patient.  Following the suspicious death of Mrs Clifford and a second patient an inquiry was held and a medical superintendent and trained mental health nurse were appointed to the facility.  

The facility was declared a Poor House in 1909, becoming known as the Women’s Home. During its time as a Poor House, the building housed poor women and elderly women.  There were problems with young women escaping and men quarrying holes in the limestone of the building to get to the young women. The building also served during this time as an early Maternity Training Hospital, the actual maternity hospital facility relocating to the newly built King Edward Hospital in 1916.   The Women’s Home was closed in 1941 when it was discovered that the facility was keeping young women with venereal disease in cells.  

In March 1942 a dozen American Naval servicemen, fleeing the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, arrived in Fremantle.  They were housed in the building during the course of World War II.  Twenty two buildings were added to the asylum grounds and 139 enlisted men and 102 civilians were employed in activities in the building.  

After the war the building was used to house the Fremantle Technical School.  In 1953 students from Princess May Girls School and Fremantle Boys School attended classes in the building awaiting the opening of John Curtin Highschool in 1955.  In 1957 The State Education Department decided the building should be demolished.  There was a public outcry and the then Mayor of Fremantle, Sir Frederick Samson, halted the demolition.  After many years of lobbying the building was restored in the early 1970s.  In 1972 the building housed the Fremantle Maritime Museum and the Fremantle Arts Centre. In 1976 Fremantle Arts Press was started.  In 2001 a conservation plan for the building was adopted.  The gable finials on the west facade were restored to their former glory in 2007.  On July 20th 2009, the short lived Immigration Museum was closed in the building.  

One of the most famous inmates of the Asylum was Moondyne Joe or Joseph Bolitho.  Joe, who had been sent to Australia as a convict at 22 for stealing bred and bacon, spent his life in the colony in and out of jail.  In 1900 his strange behaviour led to him being arrested again and sent to the Asylum where he passed away.  

At least ten spirits are said to haunt the asylum.  There are many records of paranormal phenomena and the building has been described as the most haunted in the Southern Hemisphere.  There is apparently a women who jumped from a window that haunts the building.  She was paced in the asylum following the disappearance of her child and it is believed she jumped from one of the windows of the building.  An inmate that hung himself in one of the stairwells has been sighted.  People report crying and laughing in the empty building.  There are cold spots, faces seen in windows when the building is empty and some people feel a kiss on their cheek.

I was always a little afraid of the building as a child and as we drove past it often I would close my eyes as I was sure I had seen faces in the windows as we passed the building in the dark.  When I was a a teen my cousin and I were at the museum and we went into the “cell”, one of the rooms inmates were locked in.  It’s one of the scariest things I have experienced.  It got really cold and just felt wrong.  Then we felt someone or thing behind us in the dark.  My cousin and I screamed till we were let out.  The place has a feeling of sadness that seems to imbues it’s very bricks.  You can only imagine the suffering that occurred there.  I hope that now it’s an Art Centre and a place where there are outdoor concerts and exhibitions it has some happy vibes.