Wednesday, May 28, 2008

"While he was still a soldier in the Second World War, the present Duke of Wellington was fighting in Syria, among the great classical ruins of Palmyra, because the Germans had an airport there and the Vichy French were defending it." As he took refuge in a ruined Syrian temple, he looked up and saw above him the ceiling from his dining room back home at Stratfield Saye." The reason is that in the eighteenth century, classical drawings of these buildings came back to Britain. "These drawings were used to help design British buildings in that classical style.
"So the ceiling of the Duke of Wellington's dining room at Stratfield Saye is an exact replica of the temple in the Syrian battlefield."

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