Secret doorway in UK Parliament leads to historical treasure trove

Post by btilly » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 8:01 PM UTC

Mvandenbergh wrote: post #86

btilly wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a building where people are literally employed to walk the halls so that if there is a fire, it will be noticed in time to save the building. This is also a building where Parliament can be shut down for a day because a pipe burst and flooded the chambers where they deliberate. (Happened about a year ago during Brexit deliberations.) This is also a building where they know that they need to spend billions on…

>This is also a building where they know that they need to spend billions on renovations but can't. Second line of the article: "Historians working on the renovation of the House of Commons found the lost 360-year-old passageway, hidden in a secret chamber." Planning permission has been filed for the first phase of works, not actually on the Palace of Westminster but on the other side of Portcullis House, to renovate…

Post by nitrogen » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 8:17 PM UTC

roywiggins wrote: post #80

thaumasiotes wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall reading a hand-wringing article about a canyon with a lot of ancient Native American graffiti carved on the walls, and how it was in a state of crisis because modern American teenagers kept carving their own graffiti on the walls. I don't really see how we can defend the idea that the ancient graffiti is historically valuable and it's a good thing it was left there, but the modern graffiti is a menace that n…

You might as well ask why ancient cesspools are historically valuable and best left alone for archaeologists to work on, while we still clean garbage off the streets. It's because they're old and rare . A pile of modern garbage? Not interesting. A pile of Roman garbage? That's an archaeological site.

Post by squiggleblaz » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 8:33 PM UTC

foldr wrote: post #28

toyg wrote: post #8

I wonder if the “graffiti artist” Tom Porter and the recorded stonemason Thomas Parker, are actually the same person. A cockney accent interacting with an RP ear would make Porter and Parker quite similar. Name misspellings of labourers were likely very common before mass-education was introduced in late XIX century.

>A cockney accent interacting with an RP ear would make Porter and Parker quite similar Not really? The first vowel and third consonant are different in both dialects. (Note that while the 't' in Porter is subject to t-glottalization, the 'k' in Parker isn't.)

Post by abhgh » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 9:00 PM UTC

chias wrote: post #96

noisy_boy wrote: post #57

When I was a young boy, I had fantasies of such secret doorways/passages/treasures being everywhere due to consumption of copious stories/comics involving such plots. When I did visit old ruins/temples etc, my searching eyes would be looking for that overlooked odd stone that was waiting for centuries just to be pushed so that it can reveal its ancient secrets. Reading this discovery of the secret doorway sort of gav…

I assume you have read Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere" -- if not, you should go get yourself a copy this very minute.

Post by kaikai » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 11:24 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #60

My honest first question when I read this is: Isn't knowing about every single passage and doorway absolutely critical to security in a facility where high risk persons work? It seems absolutely crazy to me to think that, as a US comparison, they would let the President go anywhere that might have passages the Secret Service is unaware of.