Jaap van 't Veen's photos with the keyword: ruins

Steenfabriek Fortmond is a former brick factory in the Duursche Waarden floodplain of the river IJssel near Fortmond; a hamlet which was created by the construction of houses for the workers. Bricks were baked at this location on the banks of the river IJssel long before the factory was built. In so-called field kilns, tiggels (bricks) were baked from river clay. A first factory was built in 1828 and Steenfabriek Fortmond (Fortmond brick factory) was founded in 1889. The existing ring kilns and chimney were built in 1919 and 1920. In 1976 the factory was closed during a remediation round aimed at reducing overcapacity in the business sector. In 1986 Staatsbosbeheer (a Dutch government organisation for forestry and the management of nature reserves) became manager of the site with the buildings and the surrounding floodplains. The values have been developed from 1989 into the Duursche Waarden nature reserve. After the complex was designated a Dutch national monument in 2003, the forty-meter high chimney, which has become rare of its kind, underwent a thorough renovation that was completed in 2006. This chimney still is a well-recognized landmark from afar. The ruins of the two dozen meters long and approximately five meters high brick ring kilns (dating back to 1919/1920), overgrown with trees and shrubs, remain in the natural state of decay in which they have been for decades.

Kloster Gnadenberg (Gnadenberg monastery) was the first Brigittine monastery in southern Germany. It was founded in 1422 by Count Johann I of Neumarkt and his wife Katharina. Katharina knew the order of the Vadstena monastery in Sweden, where she had spent her youth. In 1420 Pope Martinus V gave permission for the construction of the monastery. The official foundation document is dated 3 February 1426. The monasteries of the Brigittine Order (Order of the Most Holy Savior) were designed by the founder of the Order as double monasteries. The first monks came from the monastery of Paradiso near Florence in 1430. After the completion of the convent in 1435, the first nuns with their first abbess Anna Svenson came from the Maribo (Denmark) convent to Gnadenberg. After the reformation in the middle of the 16th century, the monastery went downhill until it was disbanded in 1570. From 1577 onwards, the properties were sold or fief used. In 1635, during the Thirty Years' War, the Swedish Tropics set fire to the church and parts of the monastery. Except for some buildings of the convent, Gnadenberg has been a ruin ever since.

The most important church on Agios Achillios island (see: www.ipernity.com/doc/294067/47395972) was the Basilica of St. Achilles. The church was founded at the end of the 10th century by Tsar Samuel of Bulgaria. Initially it was the cathedral of the empire of Samuel and later - until the middle of the 15th century - a bishop's church. In the basilica the mummified remains of Saint Achilles - a bishop from Larisa in Thessaly - were kept. These were brought to Agios Achillios after Tsar Samuel conquered Larisa in the 10th century. At the same time he commissioned craftsmen from Larisa to build the three-aisled basilica, which became the seat of the Bulgarian Patriarchate. The impressive church - (20 x 47 meters ) - was a cruciform basilica and among the ruins today one can see the famous sanctuary with three lobed windows, the pillars made of bricks and stones and a tomb on the south side. After the reoccupation of the area by the Byzantines in 1018, the church became dependent on the archdiocese of Ohrid. In 1072 it was plundered by foreign invaders, but it continued to function until at least the middle of the 15th century. Over the years the church was abandoned, deserted and finally became a ruin.

The Cistercian Abbey of St Mary and St Chad is dating back to the year of 1135 and was founded as a Savignac monastery. It was was inhabited by a small community of monks. The stone from which the abbey was built came from a quarry in the nearby settlement of Broseley. The main income for the abbey came from tolls charged on the adjacent bridge over the river Severn. Located near the border of Wales meant the abbey was destined to have a turbulent history. Welsh Princes and their followers regularly raided the Abbey and on one occasion in 1406 even kidnapped the abbot. The abbey was closed in 1536 by the order of Henry VIII during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The remaining buildings - situated on the banks of the river Severn - are now in the care of English Heritage and are open to the public. They can view the church, which remains largely complete and unaltered since its construction, although it is now without its roof. The impressive ruins are considered being one of the best preserved 12th-century examples of a Cistercian church in Britain.