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Thursday, December 20, 2007

craigdarroch castle - 4

craigdarroch - 1
craigdarroch - 2
craigdarroch - 3

Up another flight of stairs brings us to this throne-like chair just outside the dance hall.


Dance Hall




To the side of the hall is an area with another tree and more toys. The candles on the tree are lit for a short time only on Christmas morning.



The Graphophone was made by Columbia and played a five-inch wax cylinder with fourteen songs. (Machines manufactured by Victor were called gramophones; Edison trademarked the term phonographs, and Columbia named their machines Graphophones.)


Band alcove

To the side of the dance hall is an alcove for the band. The musical instruments date back to the 1890s. The oversized mandolin-like instrument is a Mando-bass. The large double-necked guitar-like instrument is a harp-guitar. The small accordion is called a concertina.


Tower

A few steps more take us to the highest point in the castle -- the tower. The Dunsmuirs enjoyed panoramic views.


The roof was tiled with red Vermont slate and had terra cotta ridge and hip pieces.

The floor tiles came from the Minton Tile Company in England.

Tomorrow - a few more rooms accessible by Craigdarroch's back stairway, and we're done with the tour.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hullo,

Nice post. Actually in your Band Alcove section the small accordion is called an accordion.

There are many kinds of accordion or accordeon. It was not until the late 1800s that the piano accordion, which most people associate with the shortened name, was developed in Europe.

Before and since, button accordions, one, two and three row, also known as melodeons or diatonic/bisonoric accordions, were and are common. Then in society and today in folk circles.

Some further info available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melodeon

A concertina by definition has keys on both parallel faces and is related to the koncertina, konzetina, bandoneon and Chemnitzer to name a few.

Cheers, John

Violet N. said...

Thanks for the info, John. You sure know your instruments!

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