Verity

At 66' 5" tall, the statue Verity, which dominates the harbour entrance in Ilfracombe, Devon, is (apparently deliberately) 10 inches taller than Antony Gormley's 1998 Angel of the North. Yet whilst the Angel is uplifting, the truth of Verity is that although she's impressive in a monumental fashion, she's also unsubtle, obvious and brash, like most of Damian Hirst's work.

Weighing in at 24.6 tons, the statue was created in 2012. It is a variant of traditional representations of Justice, usually presented blindfold and holding aloft the sword of truth and holding out the eponymous scales of her calling. This Justice is pregnant. Whilst she brandishes the traditional sword, the scales are held behind her, at half cock.

Standing upon a tumble of law books, Verity is complete one side, but flayed and sectioned the other, the skull and foetus both visible. Both the representation and the stance, the latter supposedly a reference to Edgar Degas's c.1881 statue Little Dancer of Fourteen Years, are similar to those of Hirst's 2005 statue, The Virgin Mother.

The statue was cast, in multiple sections of bronze, which are affixed to a stainless steel frame, by the Pangolin Editions foundry of Stroud. The sword, and the upper part of the arm holding this, are of one piece of fibreglass. When installed the statue was the tallest in the UK, a record now held by Falkirk's The Kelpies. It has been loaned to Ilfracombe for 20 years.

Regal Cinema, Oswestry

In the 1930s Oswestry boasted three cinemas. The King's Theatre, later renamed the Granada, then later still the Century Cinema, in New Street, is now a Wilco store. The Public Hall, subsequently renamed the Picturedrome, then the Playhouse, and finally the Plaza, in Oswald Road, has long been demolished.

The Regal Super Cinema opened on 22 May 1933, occupying the corner of Leg Street and English Walls. The architect was Lionel Arthur George Prichard, of Liverpool. The architectural practice is still going strong. The first film shown was the pre-Code (Hollywood censorship) comedy "A Successful Calamity", featuring George Arliss and Mary Astor.

Independently operated, the cinema could seat 1,080 cinema-goers, 744 in the stalls and 336 in the circle. Sydney Bernstein, of Granada Theatres Ltd, took an interest in November 1934, although Granada did not fully own the cinema until February 1955. It closed for improvements, and re-opened on 23 May 1956, now named the Granada Theatre.

The cinema traded as such until 14 June 1975, when it passed into the hands of an independent operator. It reopened on 25 February 1976, once more named the Regal Cinema, but now with 839 seats. In 1985 the cinema was split into two screens, and the capacity was reduced to 522, 261 for each of the screens. A third screen, added in 1987 on the former stage, added another 66 seats.

Later the capacity was reduced once more, to 259 in front of a single screen, the remainder of the space converted to a nightclub. The Regal closed on 16 June 1994, and the building remained vacant until March 2003, when it was gutted. Two floors were inserted and, from spring 2004, the building reopened as a clothing store. It has, since then, housed a variety of clothing and charity shops.

There are plans afoot, in the form of the Regal Project, a local community interest organisation, to purchase the Regal, and the adjoining retail space, 16 Cross Street (photos 3 to 6), and convert the two, combined together, into a multi-use arts and culture facility.

Foel Ortho

Foel translates from the Welsh as bald, or bare, hill. But the hillside at Foel Ortho is anything but bald.

In a ruinous state at that time, the farmhouse was discovered in 1967 by Jenny and Eddie Matthews.

The steep acre of ground, between Penybontfawr and Lake Vyrnwy, has over the decades been graced with a series of DIY follies.

With winding and stepped paths between fake rocks, stone-retained terraces, a mock castle, towers linked by a bridge, buttressed walls, and a giant chess set, the place is like nothing so much as a miniature Portmeirion.

Freetown Christiania

Christiania, now covering about 19 acres of the military barracks of Bådsmandsstræd (abandoned from 1967), and remnants of the city ramparts, in the Christianshavn area of Copenhagen, was squatted in 1971.

A mission statement was co-authored by the journalist Jacob Ludvigsen: "The objective of Christiania is to create a self-governing society whereby each and every individual holds themselves responsible over the well-being of the entire community. Our society is to be economically self-sustaining and, as such, our aspiration is to be steadfast in our conviction that psychological and physical destitution can be averted."

The residents developed their own set of rules: no stealing, violence, guns, knives, bullet-proof vests, hard drugs, or bikers' colours. Known also as Freetown Christiania, the commune's cannabis trade was largely tolerated by various Danish governments, some of which saw the area as an interesting social experiment.

Since 1994 the residents have paid taxes for services such as water, electricity and rubbish disposal. The area's open but illegal cannabis trade was ended in 2004, after which outside biker gangs vied to take over the market.

A Christiania resident was killed in April 2005 as a consequence of the resulting violence. The weed trade recommenced, and has operated ever since, other than subsequent to a shooting in 2016 and for a while after police raids.

Since 2010 matters have settled somewhat, and Christiania now operates (largely) under Danish law. Some of the buildings, including the Grey Hall riding house (used as a concert venue), the half-timbered Commander's House, and the 17th and 18th century powder magazines, were listed in 2007 by the National Heritage Agency.

The area was closed to the public by the residents in June 2011, but a year later they set up a collective fund to enable purchase of the land from the defence ministry, making the commune the landowners. No private cars are allowed within the commune, which is currently home to about 900 people.

Penang - Kek Lok Si

Covering about 30 acres, and home to millions of representations of Buddha, Kek Lok Si is the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia.

Built in the main between 1890 and 1905, the temple is still very much under construction. One of the chief patrons was Cheong Fatt Tze, he of Penang's Blue Mansion.

It is a pilgrimage destination for Buddhists from across South East Asia. Two monumental structures provide the key attractions.

The first is the Pagoda of Ten Thousand Buddhas - known also as the Pagoda of Rama VI, the king of Thailand who laid the foundation stone - completed in 1930. 98 feet tall, this houses 10,000 bronze and alabaster statues of Buddha.

The second is the 99 feet tall bronze statue of Kuan Yin, the Taoist goddess of mercy, the tallest in the world, still undergoing the decorative process.

Nearby is a 200 foot long pavilion of three tiers, completed in 2009. Both the latter can be reached by way of a funicular railway from lower tiers of the temple complex.

The temple's eclectic mix of Mahayana (complete enlightenment) Buddhism, Theravada (conservative) Buddhism, and traditional Chinese Taoism - Kek Lok Si Temple translates as Heavenly Temple, which covers all the ground - explains its widespread appeal.

The next planned development is a temple for the reception of Buddha relics. The fund-raising stalls of tat rather belie the Buddhist principle of not holding.

Penang - Goddess of Mercy Temple

Founded in 1728, the Goddess of Mercy Temple, in George Town, Penang, is the island's oldest. It is dedicated to Kuan Yin, the Taoist goddess of mercy, but started life dedicated to Ma Zu, the Hokkien deity of the sea, patron of seafarers.

Its conversion took place in 1824, when the temple was renovated, reflecting the more diverse origins of the Chinese community in the city by that juncture. The temple acted as mediator in disputes between the Hokkien and the Cantonese, run as it was by a balanced committee of the two ethnic groups.

These secular purposes transferred to the Penang Chinese Town Hall subsequent to the Penang Riots of 1867. Remarkably, the temple survived unscathed the aerial bombing that presaged the arrival of the Japanese in December 1941.

The building features extensive porcelain decorations, created in the chien nien style, which involves clipping into the requisite shapes many thousands of pieces from broken-up Chinese bowls of various colours.

Shell - Rock - Shell

The Church, in the form of James Ussher and his The Annals of the World, published 1650, hilariously asserted that all creation commenced at about 18:00 on 22 October 4004 BC. Ussher, Primate of All Ireland from 1625 to 1656, was out by about 13.8 billion years.

 

Our current best estimate of the age of the universe is 13.799 billion years, plus or minus circa 21 million years. This estimate is based on studies of microwave background radiation, which provides the universe's cooling rate, in conjunction with measurements of the expansion rate of the universe.

The carboniferous limestone rock of Great Britain and Ireland was formed between 363 and 325 million years ago. It is a sedimentary rock that formed in shallow tropical seas, made up of the shells and hard parts of trillions of sea creatures, in a matrix of carbonate mud. In lay terms, limestone is made from shells.

Under the hand of stone carver Lottie O'Leary, of Knucklas, Powys, a shell has re-emerged from a large limestone boulder. The work took five days and was undertaken with an angle grinder and a compressor-driven series of stone carving tools - the small photographs show stages of the carving. The shell is left incomplete to emphasize its origins - and those of the rock.

Azulejos

Azulejos are Spanish and Portuguese ceramic tiles, painted and tin-glazed. The Museu Nacional do Azulejo, the National Tile Museum, in Lisbon, tells their history.

In both repeating patterns, and pictorial panels, azulejos are found both inside and outside very many Portuguese churches, palaces, and public buildings, on walls, floors, and even ceilings. They are not just ornamental, but in some cases provide for temperature control within homes.

Of Persian origin - azulejo is derived from the Arabic zellige, meaning polished stone - the form was introduced into the Iberian peninsula by the Moors. Manuel I introduced the tiles into Portugal following a visit to Seville in 1503.

Following the Moorish tradition of horror vacui, the Portuguese often completely covered walls with faience azulejos, in a variety of colours. The blue-and-white tiles now synonymous with Portuguese architecture were introduced in the second half of the 17th century, from Delft, the Netherlands.

I, Ekco Robot

At 21" high, the AC97 is Ekco's tallest Bakelite-cased radio. It is also the company's most strikingly Art Deco cabinet design, which lies behind one of its colloquial names - the Robot. The set provided for MW and LW reception, tuning assisted by the central Mullard TV4 'magic eye' valve, which indicates signal strength - and provides the set's other nickname, the Cyclops.

The cabinet was designed in 1936 by Jesse Collins, elected a Fellow of the Society of Industrial Artists in 1945. In the same year Collins founded Britain's first true course in graphic design, at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, London. The set was available in two colours of Bakelite: the pictured walnut, and black (with ivory-coloured urea formaldehyde trim and knobs).