Saturday 25 July 2020

Skipton, Grassington and Kettlewell: To Upper Wharfedale and Beyond! Part 1

A Medieval Castle and a Honeymoon Village

Sunday is our wedding anniversary (45, since you ask) and for the last ten years I have assiduously reported our celebratory excursions into the world of ‘fine dining’. But not this year. Restaurants are opening up, those that survive anyway, but hedged around with so many rules that the ‘special experience’ they offer would be ‘special’ for the wrong reasons.

‘Poor you,’ I hear you say under your breath, with varying degrees of sincerity.

But we had to go somewhere. Much as we like Swynnerton, we were desperate for a change of scene, so we struck out for the Yorkshire Dales, more specifically the village of Kettlewell in Wharfedale.

Skipton was marked on the original map, but Kettlewell or Aysgarth are far too small

And why Kettlewell? Because on the 26th of July 1975 we left our wedding reception in Solihull in the late afternoon and drove north to Kettlewell where we spent the first week of our married life.

Lynne, Yorkshire Dales July 1975
Lynne's hair is still this colour, and no, it does not come out of a bottle

We looked so young, but time has corrected that failing.

Me, Yorkshire Dales July 1975.
My hair seems to have changed colour

Skipton


North Yorkshire
Just a part of God's Own
Craven

So, on Saturday 25th of July 2020 we enjoyed the rare experience of a free-flowing M6 to Preston, (courtesy of Covid and recently completed roadworks). From there we headed to Skipton, in what the locals call God’s Own County. The small town (pop 15,000) lies just outside the Yorkshire Dales National Park, but stakes its claim for tourists’ groats by dubbing itself ‘Gateway to the Dales’.

Skipton is not in Wharfedale, and describing it as 'Beyond Wharfedale' when coming from the south is stretching the fabric of reality, but there is no word with the exact nuance of  'pre-yond'.

With a poor weather forecast and many attractions closed, we had taken the precaution of pre-booking a timed ticket for Skipton Castle. Skipton Market fills the High Street four days a week, in non-covid times that could have caused a delay with parking or finding a café for a socially-distanced cup of tea and a tea cake (with a wedge of Wensleydale), but not today.

Skipton Market

Skipton Castle

The entrance is through the Gatehouse in the curtain wall. It's at the top of the High Street next to the church. Despite it being flanked by two stout towers, if I were a medieval warlord, I would look at this flattish, unhindered approach and lick my lips. The gatehouse is crowned with the Clifford’s motto ‘Desormais’ (‘Henceforth’), described as a ‘proud challenge’ in the guide book, but sounding to me more like an admission of being rubbish and a promise to try harder. Not being warlords we gained entry by meekly showing our ticket.

The Gatehouse, Skipton Castle

Inside the gate is a grassed area with the medieval castle straight ahead…

Skipton's Medieval Castle, with the entrance and Lady Anne's steps on the left

…and to the right a 16th century extension which is the home of Sebastian Fattorini. Antonio Fattorini migrated to Yorkshire from Italy in 1826 and set up a jewellery company. The family firm prospered and expanded. They bought Skipton Castle in 1956 and although they now operate from London, Birmingham and Manchester the castle is their registered office.

Skipton Castle and its 'modern' extension

A wooden motte and bailey was built in 1090 by Robert de Romille. Little is known about him, but he is believed to have been an adventurer who came over from Normandy to fight for the new Norman kings and was rewarded with a chunk of Yorkshire. In 1102 that became quite a large chunk when Henry I gave him Upper Wharfedale and Upper Airedale as well.

A stone castle was later deemed necessary to deter marauding Scots – though the nearest corner of Scotland is 80 miles away. The Romilles ran out of heirs in 1310 so finishing the job was given to Robert Clifford who was made 1st Baron de Clifford. He just about got it done before being killed at Bannockburn (1314). So killed by a Scot while marauding in Scotland - a fatal case of irony.

The Clifford’s held the castle for the next 350 years; it is their motto over the gatehouse, their flag flying from the watchtower and mostly their work visitors see. After the Civil War, Lady Anne Clifford (1590-1676), gained permission to restore the badly damaged castle. We entered by climbing Lady Anne’s steps and passing under her stone tablet.

Lady Anne's tablet, Skipton Castle

The Great Hall is beside the kitchen. It was here medieval life was conducted, all ate in the Great Hall and all slept in the Great Hall on the same rushes. The castle is well equipped with windows, which makes it unusually light, but the glazed skylight running the length of the hall must be a modern intrusion.

Great Hall, Skipton Castle

As castle life became more sophisticated, serious dining required a banqueting hall - though I am not sure a banqueting hall required a brace of early 19th century naval cannons. Business meetings would also have taken place here, but it would have been a dark and gloomy place before the addition of the bay window in the late 15th century.

Banqueting Hall (with Culverins) Skipton Castle

And the lord and lady would also require their own withdrawing rooms and bedrooms. The windows have a fine view and show how despite its level access from the town an attacker would find the approach from the north daunting. These windows were probably added by Lady Anne, after the threat of war had passed.

Looking north from the Lord's withdrawing room over Eller Beck, Skipton Castle

The muniment tower is less altered. Here all the documents and deeds concerning the administration of the castle were kept safe behind thick walls and hefty padlocks. Unfortunately, nobody thought to keep them safe from damp and mice, and most were lost.

Muniments Room, Skipton Castle

From here we climbed the watchtower which gives a view of the other side of the Gatehouse and then descended to Conduit Court. Across the court is a ‘new’ kitchen and beer and wine storage.

'New' Kitchen, Skipton Castle

The castle saw little active service until the Civil War, when as the last royalist stronghold in the north, it was besieged for three years. Badly damaged, it was surrendered in 1645.

Lady Anne Clifford was the only surviving child of the 13th Baron who died in 1605. After forty years of legal action, and the death of her uncle, who claimed the title, she was recognised as the 14th Baroness in her own right and took possession of the castle in 1649. Having not been involved in the siege she eventually gained permission to restore the stonework, provided the upper towers were thin and the roof too weak to bear cannon. She completed her restoration in 1659 and planted a yew in Conduit Court to mark the event.

Lady Anne's Yew, Conduit Court, Skipton Castle
Skipton

The, probably apocryphal, story of fleece being hung over the castle walls to lessen the impact of Parliamentarian cannonballs has been described as the origin of the fleece on Skipton’s coat of arms. The fleece actually refers to the derivation of the town’s name and the green background to its pastoral setting. The white roses represent Yorkshire, the chequer pattern and the wyvern come from the Clifford’s arms while the bars on the banner held by the wyvern comes from the de Romille arms.

Anne Clifford would be the last Baron(ess) Clifford to bear the Clifford name. She had four children from two marriages, but both her sons died in infancy. Living to the then remarkable age of 86, she outlived both her daughters, so it was her grandson Nicholas Tufton who become 15th Baron Clifford. The current (28th Baron) is called Miles Russell and is a distant relative of Andrew Russell the 15th Duke of Bedford. Anne Clifford's mother was Margaret Russell, daughter of the 3rd Earl of Bedford. So unmerited privilege rolls down the centuries along with a good dollop of in-breeding (I know nothing about the current generation of Russells, so this is a general point not aimed at anyone in particular).

The 12th century chapel of St John the Evangelist in the inner ward is in a poor state of repair. The most interesting features are the mason’s marks. Medieval masons were paid per dressed block, and this how they claimed their fee.

Mason's Mark (a crossed z), Chapel of St John the Evangelist, Skipton Castle

Leaving the castle, we took a circular walk starting on the footpath over the Eller Beck earlier seen from a castle window.

Walking above the Eller Brook, Skipton

From here the castle certainly looks formidable.

The curtain wall of Skipton castle from Eller Beck

Before moving on, I have to include a picture taken at the end of the walk. I am as delighted as anyone by a well-made pork pie, and it was good to see the people of Skipton queuing for their theirs, properly masked and (almost) obeying the new 1m social-distancing rule.

Queueing for a good Yorkshire pork pie, Covid style, Skipton

Grassington

If Skipton is the Gateway to the Dales, then Grassington, 10 miles to the north is the Gateway to Upper Wharfedale. Its industrial and agricultural heritage are illustrated on a stone in the square.

Welcome to Grassington

Lead mining became locally important in the 17th century and in the 18th century water-powered corn mills on the Wharf were converted into textile mills which flourished until the growth of Yorkshire’s industrial cities made isolated Dales mills uneconomic. The story is told in the Grassington Folk Museum, but the volunteers who run it have decided to give the remainder of 2020 a miss and return in 2021, hopefully under better circumstances.

Grassington Folk Museum

Grassington’s 'Devonshire' was the third 'Devonshire' or 'Devonshire Arms' we had seen locally. Robert de Romille, builder of the first Skipton Castle, also held the village of Bolton some 6 miles to the East. In 1159 Lady Alice Romille gave the Augustinian order land in Bolton to build a Priory (we visited in 2012, click here for that post), so the village became known (a little illogically) as Bolton Abbey. The Cliffords duly succeeded the de Romilles and in 1748 William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire married a Clifford heiress, added the Bolton Abbey Estate to the vast Cavendish portfolio and precipitated the local glut of Devonshires.

The Devonshire, Grassington

The Earls, later Dukes of Devonshire are all descended from the formidable Bess of Hardwick, 1527 – 1608. We visited Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire, click here for that one in 2018. The family remains immensely wealthy and the 12th Duke, Peregrine Andrew Morny Cavendish, still lives in Chatsworth House (Bess’s bigger and grander Derbyshire pile) and still owns the Bolton Abbey estate – and more besides.

Before leaving Grassington I must mention this splendid stone pineapple. It stands outside Grassington House, once a Georgian gentleman’s residence now describing itself as ‘fine-dining restaurant with elegant rooms.’ The pineapple appears to have been one of a pair and looks a little lonely on its own.

Stone Pineapple, Grassington

We drove up the dale, past Kilnsey where the huge limestone crag had the usual complement of dangling climbers, to Kettlewell…

Kettlewell, a Tale of Two Hotels

...where we checked in to the Racehorses Hotel.

The Racehorses Hotel, Kettlewell

A surprising choice, maybe, as we spent our honeymoon at the Blue Bell just across the road.

Bluebell Inn, Kettlewell

At check-in they asked if we wanted dinner. Given all the covid restrictions it felt wise to say yes.

Back in 1975 neither had tables outside and licensing laws would not have allowed them to open in the afternoon. In 2020, Saturday afternoon with pubs freshly re-opened,  drinking was popular (my photos were not taken on Saturday afternoon). All drinking was al fresco, despite it not being the warmest of July days.

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. After a promising start in my youth, the brewing industry must consider me a great disappointment. I ordered my first pint since last December (sorry second, click here for Bodiam and Rye) and we went to sit on the ‘riverside terrace’. The only free table was more ‘car park’ than ‘terrace’, but I must admit a pint of Timothy Taylor’s Landlord is a thing of beauty and a joy for 20 minutes (as Keats almost said).

We ambled round Kettlewell, which has changed remarkably little in the last 45 years. Many old buildings have been smartened up, and there have been a several barn conversions, but despite (I suspect) many houses being second/holiday homes, the village’s soul appears blessedly intact. But more of that tomorrow.

The 'new' Kettlewell, soul intact

We might be eating at The Racehorses, but we visited the Bluebell for a pre-dinner drink. Their Covid rules (and every pub has to make its own) decrees that inside is for diners only but it was still warm enough for a drink outside. In 1975 a pint of Theakston’s and a gin and orange cost 50p. Times have changed, Theakston’s became part of Scottish and Newcastle in 1987 (though it has been back under family control since 2004) and Lynne no longer puts orange-juice in her gin. Two large gins and a shared bottle of tonic (I am ever thrifty) with not too much ice were served exactly as requested. And a good gin it was too, if slightly more than 50p.

A G&T outside the Bluebell, Kettlewell

Back in the day the Racehorses was more upmarket than the Bluebell and out of our price range. We returned in 1995 (20th anniversary) and found the Bluebell not what it had been. We stayed there but ate, and ate well, at the Racehorses. In 2017 we brought guests and booked the Racehorses which gave us a decent pub dinner, and had a drink in the Blue Bell, which again failed to impress.

This year we booked late, we might have chosen the Blue Bell, but it was full and the Racehorses was not. Could we have learned something from that?

Diners at the Racehorses were impeccably socially-distanced. The menu was not particularly interesting but at least offered a steak and ale suet pudding – I am a succour for anything encased in suet. Lynne ordered scampi, she does that when feeling nostalgic for the 1970s.

We had a long wait for our food, though I doubt much time was spent cooking it. I do not expect everything in a pub kitchen to be cooked from scratch, they do not charge Michelin star prices, but I could see little, possibly nothing, on either plates that had not come out of a packet and been either microwaved or popped in a deep fat fryer. Was, I wondered, my disappointed at being served frozen peas unreasonable when at home we are enjoying sweet, fresh peas from the garden? And my overly dry suet pudding was unredeemed by a bowl of generic gravy. Covid excuses can be made and it was not expensive, but even so we were unimpressed.

Tomorrow will be our wedding anniversary (next post), and we had intended to dine at the Blue Bell, whatever the Racehorses had served us.

Monday 20 July 2020

Praying Facing East: The Variety of Mosques Part 3

This post and its companions (Praying Facing West and Praying Facing South) have been developed from the November 2011 post ‘Three Favourite Mosques’. The world has many fine mosques we have yet to visit, but we have now seen more than enough to make ‘Three Favourites’ a very limited ambition – indeed the 'favourites' now fill three post.

Islam is the world’s second largest religion with 1.9 billion adherents. It is the majority religion in 49 countries, centred on the middle east but with a wide geographical spread. In 2005 we visited The Great Mosque in Xi’an in China. Some distance away an English-speaking person with an overloud voice (his nationality was immediately obvious) was giving his Chinese guide the benefit of his knowledge of Islam. ‘They have to pray facing East,’ he announced.

This map comes from Wikipedia. It is the work of Tracey M Hunter, the figures are from Pew Research Centre
It is reproduced un changed under Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike

Muslims, of course, pray facing Mecca, the city, now in Saudi Arabia, that was home to the Prophet Muhammed. To make sense of my collection of mosques I have split it into three, depending of the (rough) direction of Mecca. The mosques I have selected are old or beautiful or quirky or have an interesting history, or any combination of those four.

I should also point out I am not a believer, in Islam or any other religion, but I do like religious buildings.

For ease of access and because I have occasionally broken my own rules, countries are allocated as follows

Facing East

Jordan, Oman, Egypt, Libya, Portugal

Arab Countries (with one obvious exception!)

Facing South

Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Bulgaria, Albania, North Macedonia, Bosnia & Herzegovina

Countries wholly or partly in Europe

Facing West

Iran, India, China, Malaysia

An ethnic mixed bag

9 of the 18 are Muslim Majority countries, the others have or had an indigenous Muslim population.

Oman

I shall start this section with the Kingdom of Oman, if only to pass quickly over my apparent error. Muscat, the Omani capital is almost due east across the Arabian Peninsula from Mecca. Worshippers in Muscat, thus face west and those in Mirbat, where my second Omani mosque is situated face north-west. My excuse? Part 2, Praying Facing West was overlong, this one a bit shorter, so I cheated. Sorry.

The Arabian Peninsula with Mecca, Muscat and the much smaller town of Mirbat ringed in red

The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, Muscat

Sultan Qaboos came to the throne in 1970 in a bloodless coup against his father. Oman was then a British protectorate and his coup had British support. Far more liberal and progressive than his father, Qaboos ruled for 50 years as an absolute monarch, albeit a benevolent one (provided you did not cross him).

Oman’s oil money made him immensely rich, but he ensured the people also saw the benefits, providing vast numbers of new homes. He paid for the mosque (built between 1994 and 2001) from his own purse.

The complex is too large for a single photograph, so here is a model.

The Qaboos Grand Mosque, Muscat (model in Salalah museum)

The reality involves acres of gleaming marble…

Gleaming marble, Sultan Qaboos Mosque, Muscat

….and manicured gardens.

A small part of the manicured gardens, Sultan Qaboos Mosque, Muscat

There is a women’s prayer hall that can accommodate 750….

Lynne, in the women's Prayer Hall, Sultan Qaboos Mosque, Muscat

….while the men’s prayer hall has space for 6,500 (progressive but not that progressive!) It has an ornate mihrab…

Mihrab, Sultan Qaboos mosque, Muscat

….intricately designed squinches (the devices that allow circular domes to sit on rectangular bases)….

Squinch, Sultan Qaboos Mosque, Muscat

….and a breathtakingly huge dome and chandelier.

Dome and chandelier, Sultan Qaboos Mosque, Muscat

All the lines are elegant, the colours muted and calm. The mosque is grand without being grandiose, elaborate without being fussy. Designed by British-Iraqi architect Mohammed Saleh Makiya it is the most beautiful modern mosque (maybe modern building) we have seen.

We visited on the 14th of November 2018, just before the Sultan’s 78th birthday. He died without issue in January 2020 and was succeeded by his cousin, Sultan Haitham.

The Tomb of Mohammed Bin Ali, Mirbat

Sultan Qaboos was born in the southern city of Salalah. Once his mosque in Muscat was completed, he started another in his hometown. It is very fine, but not a patch on his mosque in Muscat.

Mirbat, a small town 70km along the coast from Salalah has a nice new mosque in the centre…

New mosque where the largely abandoned old town abuts the shiny new town, Mirbat

…but on the edge of town is a little gem, a tiny mosque almost filled by the tomb of Mohammed Bin Ali.

Nobody knows who Mohammed Bin Ali was. Some say he was a descendant of The Prophet who brought Islam to the area, others that he was a saint who founded a madrassa and died in 1160 CE (long after the arrival of Islam). No matter, his memory is respected, whatever he did. Photographs were not allowed inside, so here is one of Lynne outside.

The tomb of Mohammed Bin Ali, Mirbat

Muslims are buried on their sides with their faces toward Mecca, the orientation of some of the surrounding graves suggests they are pre-Islamic and so over 1,500 years old.

See Salalah and the South Coast (Nov 2018)

Jordan

Jordan is welcoming to foreign tourists, but the same is not true of its mosques. Few are of particular architectural interest, and the locals prefer to go about the serious business of prayer and worship without unnecessary interruptions. The major exception is the King Abdullah I Mosque, where foreigners are warmly welcomed – provided they are properly dressed.

Lynne properly dressed. The 'brown gown' was supplied by the mosque. Her own headscarf was tied by the attendant

King Abdullah I Mosque, Amman

The mosque was built 1982-9 during the reign of King Hussein and named after his father.

Amman is hilly, and the mosque sits on a platform surrounded by a wall, several metres above street level, making it impossible to photograph from outside. Once inside you are too close, but I did my best. A blue-domed circular prayer hall accommodating 3,000 worshippers sits in the centre of a courtyard, with minarets at its four corners.

King Abdullah I Mosque, Amman

The interior is a huge, calm space with subdued lighting and the underside of the dome, if not quite as breath-taking as the Sultan Qaboos Mosque, is impressive.

Inside the prayer hall, King Abdullah I Mosque, Amman

We had been warned we might need to hurry as prayer time was approaching. The days when the muezzin climbed the minaret to give the call to prayer are long gone, and I had assumed that his job now is just to flick a switch and start a recording. Maybe in some places it is, but not here. The dark-robed man standing with his back to us between mihrab and minbar had a microphone in his hand and was singing the call to prayer live.

The call to prayer live, King Abdullah I Mosque, Amman

We were ready to go as the faithful flocked in, but they didn’t. Only three answered the call; at 11.20 on a working day few can make it to the mosque, but many will find a quiet corner to pray.

see Amman (Nov 2019)

Egypt

Cairo

Cairo

With over 20 million citizens, Cairo is the biggest city in Africa and in the Muslim world. Known as the ‘City of a Thousand Minarets’, it has an ample supply of mosques.

Muhammed Ali Mosque, Cairo Citadel

The rocky outcrop of Cairo’s citadel might not dominate as it once did, but it can be seen from all over this otherwise flat city by the Nile.The profile of the Muhammed Ali Mosque, built on its highest point, is familiar to every visitor and appears on the city flag.

The Muhammed Ali Mosque from the Gayer-Anderson Roof Terrace

Muhammad Ali Pasha, became Ottoman governor of Egypt in 1805. He rebelled, twice invading the Ottoman heartland and in 1842 could have taken Istanbul had the European powers not brokered a peace. The peace granted him and his descendants rule over Egypt in perpetuity. Perpetuity lasted until 1952 when King Farouk was deposed.

The Mohammed Ali Mosque, Cairo Citadel

Work on the mosque started in 1830 and was completed by Muhammed Ali’s son in 1857.

The Muhammed Ali Mosque

The mosque is open to tourists, and is usually crowded (at least it was in pre-Covid days).

Inside the Mohammed Ali Mosque, Cairo Citadel

In 1980, Lynne and I stood with my sister, then a local resident, in the courtyard outside the mosque and looked across Cairo. We could make out the Pyramids some 14 km away, just beyond the city’s eastern boundary. We tried again in 2010 and all we could see was smog. Perhaps it was the weather, but maybe it was more significant. We contented ourselves looking down rather than across at two more large mosques and two smaller ones a little closer to.

Looking down from the citadel at the Sultan Hassan and Al Rifa'i mosques, Cairo

The Ibn Tulun Mosque, Cairo

The Muhammed Ali Mosque is fairly recent, as these things go, but the citadel’s first fortification was started by Saladin in 1176. The Ibn Tulun Mosque, barely a kilometre from the foot of the rocky outcrop, was three centuries old before Saladin began building.

Ibn Tulun was appointed ruler in Egypt by the Caliph of Baghdad in 868 CE. He promptly declared independence and founded his own dynasty, which ruled until 905. His mosque, built in the ninth and tenth centuries, is massive and plain. Its open courtyard 'has the grandeur of the desert where all of Allah's worshippers are prostrated equally beneath the sun' (The Rough Guide to Egypt). It was extremely hot the day we were there and we had the place to ourselves. The simplicity and quietness were impressive - few places in Cairo are ever quiet - but I would have thought that worshipping in the open courtyard was a recipe for sunstroke (maybe I have spent too much of my life in the chilly north).

The Ibn Tulun Mosque, Cairo

The unusual minaret with an external spiral staircase is traditionally said to have been the result of Ibn Tulun  absent-mindedly twisting a scrap of paper and then justified his fiddling by presenting it as a design for the minaret.

Around the arcade is a sycamore frieze. It is over 2 km long and bears a fifth of the Koran in Kufic script. That must have a taken a dedicated person a long time.

The arcade, Ibn Tulun Mosque

Ibn Tulun was one of the ‘three favourites’ in the 2011 post this series has grown from. The others, the Emin Mosque in Turpan, China and the Sheik Lotfollah Mosque in Isfahan, Iran are in Praying Facing West. All three would still be contenders were I now to pick a single favourite.

The Cairo Mosques appear in Cairo Before the Revolution (which might as well have never happened) Feb 2011

Dakhla Oasis

The vast majority of the 100 million Egyptians live either in the Nile Valley or on the coast. Most tourists can be found there too, but it is possible to travel across desert Egypt.

In 2009 (pre-blog) we followed the well-maintained road from Luxor west and north through the oases of the New Valley Project (Kharga, Dakhla, Farafra and Bahariya) and then to Siwa. The map below shows a Bahariya – Siwa road, but in 2009 that was a drive across the desert.

From Luxor on the Nile we travelled west to Kharga and Dakhl, then South to Bahariya and west to Siwa

An oasis is not a pool with a couple of palm trees, it is a depression in the desert where the surface drops close enough to underground aquifers to allow cultivation. The oases cover substantial areas and each has Roman and/or Pharaonic sites, many of them hardly touched by archaeologists.

Kharga is the largest of the New Valley Oases with a population of 70,000. Dakhla is smaller, approximately 80 km long and 25 km wide and consists of four contiguous small towns surrounded by cultivated fields.

Nasr El-Din Mosque, El-Qasr

We spent two nights at the eco-lodge on the ridge above El-Qasr the semi-fortified easternmost town of the Dakhla oasis.

The 12th century Nasr El-Din Mosque with its pepper pot minaret is typical of Ayyubid Architecture (The Ayyubid dynasty, founded by Saladin, ruled a big chunk of the Middle East from 1171 to 1260).

Mosque of Nasr El-DIn, El-Qasr, Dakhla Oasis

Inside is the tomb of Nasr El-Din. Arab history is replete with Nasr El-Dins, and I have no idea who this one was.

Tomb of Nasr El-Din, El-Qasr, Dakhla Oasis

Mut

The citizens of El-Qasr have largely forsaken the old town. The new town has new mosques and Nasr El-Din is now only a historical monument. The day before in Mut, at the other end of the oasis we came across a very basic, and maybe very old, mosque that was still in use. There is no decoration, the room is purely functional, but has all that is needed, a mihrab to show the direction of Mecca, and a clock so prayers can be held at the proper times.

Mosque in Mut, Dakhla Oasis

Libya

We visited Libya in 2006 during a brief thaw in Anglo-Libyan relations. It was an edgy experience; in some towns you could feel the tension in the air. We quickly discovered that Colonel Gaddafi was no longer respected, and if we could discover that, it meant he was no longer feared, either. Five years later he was shot dead while hiding in a drain.

Gamal Abdul Nasser Mosque, Tripoli

The Jamal Abdul Nasser Mosque in Algeria Square is so white it could be made of icing sugar.

Gamal Abdul Nasser Mosque, Algeria Square, Tripoli
As Tripoli cathedral in 1960
Public domain, Sourced from Wikipedia

Built as Tripoli’s Roman Catholic Cathedral in the 1920s when Libya was an Italian colony, it was converted into a mosque in 1970 after Colonel Gaddafi came to power. It retains its basic Romanesque design and basilica shape, though the façade has been modified in line with Islamic taste.

Square minarets are common in Morocco if unusual elsewhere. This square minaret, though, is in Venetian not Moroccan style.

Mosques Visits in Libya

The highlights of our trip were the well-preserved Roman cities of Leptis Magna and Sabratha near Tripoli and the Greek cities of Apollonia and Cyrene near Benghazi.

Libya (My thanks to Lonely Planet)

We did visit two mosques. The 19th century Gurgi Mosque in the old city of Tripoli considers itself a tourist attraction and was welcoming…

Inside the Gurgi Mosque, Tripoli

….but the Atiq Mosque in the distinctly tense city of Benghazi would rather have done without us.

Atiq Mosque, Benghazi

The Imam wanted to know why Massoud (our guide, red cap) had brought in these infidels. Our driver Shaqiri listens somewhat bemused. Lynne smiles ruefully.

Ghadames

The vast majority of Libya’s 7 million people live along the coast. We ventured as far south as Ghadames, a border town for both Tunisia and Algeria. The new town looks prosperous and has the sort of mosques one might expect.

Mosque in Ghadames new town

The deserted old town is preserved as a museum with a fine old mosque.

Mosque, Ghadames old town

I do not know how modern Ghadames makes its living, but old Ghadames grew rich on the slave trade. 2,500 enslaved people, mainly from Niger, passed through each year in the 1830s. The trade was officially abolished in 1853, but Ghadames market continued until the 1890s supplying slaves to major markets in Alexandria and Constantinople. Weekly slave markets were reportedly being held in Khufra in southeast Libya into the 1930s.

Standing in what was once Ghadames slave market

Portugal

Portugal today is home to around 65,000 Muslims, mainly immigrants from former Portuguese possessions in Africa and India.

Portugal is not a Muslim country, and has not been since 1139 when Afonso Henriques was proclaimed the first King of Portugal after the Battle of Ourique. Another hundred years were required to remove the Moors from the Algarve, but since then Portugal has been solidly Roman Catholic.

For 500 years before the Battle of Ourique, most of the region that would become Portugal was governed by a series of Moorish Caliphates. The Church of Haghia Sophia in Istanbul became a mosque (and then a museum and then, this year, a mosque again) – see Praying facing South – and this post features the Gamal Abdul Nasser Mosque, formerly Tripoli Cathedral. I know of only one building that has moved the other way….

The Church of Nossa Senhora da Anunciação, Mértola

MĂ©rtola is a small town on the Guadiana river near the Spanish Border. Its was important during the decades of the Reconquista when its originally Moorish castle became a Christian castle, but since then life has been much more peaceful and its importance has waned considerably.

Portugal with MĂ©rtola ringed in red (Thanks to Worldometers.org)

The castle sits on a commanding height with the mosque just below its entrance. Long after it became a church the main door was remodelled in Renaissance style, but its position at the south means the church is much wider than it is long – an arrangement common in mosques but rare in churches.

The remodelled south entrance, Nossa Senhora da Anunciação,Mértola

The altar and statue of the Virgin and Child stand in front of the niche that was once the mihrab - the directions of Mecca and Jerusalem being indistinguishable from western Europe.

Altar, Statue of Virgin and Child and Mihrab, Nossa Senhora da Anunciação, MĂ©rtola

Several side chapels entrances are also of Arabic design, but this may be a later whimsy.

Arabic styled doorway Nossa Senhora da Anunciação,MĂ©rtola

See MĂ©rtola and Alcoutim: Strongholds by the Guadiana River(Sept 2017)

oo00o00oo

So ends my three-part trip around the best and/or most interesting mosques we have encountered. We have been fortunate to have visited some incredible places and have (almost always) been made welcome.

Which leaves the preachy bit:

I have not introduced the churches that have become mosques and mosques that have become churches to sow dissension. Christianity and Islam are monotheistic religions, so if there is one God, they must, in their different ways worship the same God. And their ways are not that different, worship God and be considerate to each other pretty well covers both. Lynne occasionally, quite rightly, takes offence at attitudes to women, but that is more cultural than religious and is changing (though with glacial slowness). Most of the people we have dealt with on our travels have been decent, honest people who have welcomed us to their countries.

And if Christianity and Islam are alike in their good points they are also alike in their aberrations. Men who believed themselves to be true Muslims and men who believed themselves to be true Christians were both capable of enslaving other men and women for profit. Shame on all of us.