Germany - St Michael's Church at Hildesheim

Stamp issue: 2 Jan 2010

The Church of St. Michael (German: Michaeliskirche) in Hildesheim, Germany, is an early-Romanesque church. It has been on the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage list since 1985.

Abbey Church of St. Michael's was constructed between 1001 and 1031 under the direction of Bishop Bernward of Hildesheim (993-1022) as the chapel of his Benedictine monastery. Bernward named the church after the archangel Michael, the Christian angel of protection who carries the deceased to heaven, because he planned to be buried in the Michaeliskirche. Bernward's plans were spoiled by his death in 1022, eleven years before the completion and consecration of the church in 1033. Bernward's successor, Godehard, transferred Bernward's remains to the crypt following its completion.

When the Reformation was adopted in Hildesheim in 1542, St. Michael's Church became Protestant, but the Benedictine monastery remained existing until it was secularized in 1803. The monks would still use the church and its crypt, which remain Catholic to this day.

St. Michael's Church was destroyed in an air raid during World War II on 22 March 1945, but reconstruction was begun in 1950 and completed in 1957. In 1985, the church became a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site, along with the Cathedral of Hildesheim, its collection of medieval treasures and its 1000-year old rosebush.

St. Michael's Church is one of the most important churches in Ottonic (Early-Romanesque) style. It is a double-choir basilica with two transepts and a square tower at each crossing. The west choir is emphasized by an ambulatory and a crypt. The ground plan of the building follows a geometrical conception, in which the square of the transept crossing in the ground plan constitutes the key measuring unit for the entire church. The square units are defined by the "double" alteration of columns and piers. There are 2 entrances on the each apse, and 4 entrances on the north and south side of the church.

Beside the choir and the cloister, the painted wooden ceiling (around 1230) is most famous of the Church's interior. It shows the genealogical tree of Jesus Christ. Bishop Bernward wanted to construct the pillars of the nave in the Niedersächsischer Stützenwechsel style, which means square pillars alternating with round ones. Above them, the wall closes with the clerestory, whose round arch windows attract the light from outside. Furthermore, light shines through the Gothic windows of the lower aisles beyond the arcade. Their ceilings are stone vaults.

Switzerland - Bernina line

Stamp Issue: 6 May 2010

The Bernina Railway is a single track metre gauge railway line forming part of the Rhaetian Railway (RhB). It links the spa resort of St. Moritz, in the Canton of Graubünden, Switzerland, with the town of Tirano, in the Province of Sondrio, Italy, via the Bernina Pass. It also ranks as the highest adhesion railway in the Alps, and - with inclines of up to 7% - as one of the steepest adhesion railways in the world.
On 7 July 2008, the Bernina Railway and the Albula Railway, which also forms part of the RhB, were recorded in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, under the name Rhaetian Railway in the Albula / Bernina Landscapes. The whole site is regarded as a cross border joint Swiss-Italian heritage area.
The most famous trains operating on the Bernina Railway are known as the Bernina Express.
The 61 km Bernina pass line features 13 tunnels and galleries and 52 viaducts and bridges. The property is exemplary of the use of the railway to overcome the isolation of settlements in the Central Alps early in the 20th century, with a major and lasting socio-economic impact on life in the mountains. It constitutes an outstanding technical, architectural and environmental ensemble and embodies architectural and civil engineering achievements, in harmony with the landscapes through which they pass.
The railway’s socio-economic consequences were substantial and lasting for mountain life, the interchange of human and cultural values, and changes in the relationship between man and nature in the West.

UK - Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Gardens

Palm House

Pagoda

Sackler Crossing

Stamp Issue: 19 May 2009

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, usually referred to simply as Kew Gardens, are 121 hectares of gardens and botanical glasshouses between Richmond and Kew in southwest London, England. The director is Professor Stephen D. Hopper, who succeeded Professor Sir Peter Crane. The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is also the name of the organisation that runs Kew Gardens and Wakehurst Place gardens in Sussex. It is an internationally important botanical research and education institution with 700 staff and an income of £56 million for the year ended 31 March 2008, as well as a visitor attraction receiving almost 2 million visits in that year. The gardens are a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Created in 1759, the gardens celebrated their 250th anniversary in 2009.
The Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, is responsible for the world’s largest collection of living plants. The organisation employs more than 650 scientists and other staff. The living collections include more than 30,000 different kinds of plants, while the herbarium, which is the largest in the world, has over 7 million preserved plant specimens. The library contains more than 750,000 volumes, and the illustrations collection contains more than 175,000 prints and drawings of plants. The Kew site includes four Grade I listed buildings and 36 Grade II listed structures in an internationally significant landscape.

UK - Hollyrood Palace

Stamp Issue: 1 Mar 1978

The Palace of Holyroodhouse, commonly referred to as Holyrood Palace, is the official residence of the monarch in Scotland. The palace stands at the bottom of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, at the opposite end to Edinburgh Castle. Holyrood Palace is the setting for state ceremonies and official entertaining.
Holyrood Abbey was founded by David I, King of Scots in 1128, and Holyrood Palace has served as the principal residence of the Kings and Queens of Scots since the 15th century. Queen Elizabeth II spends one week in residence at Holyrood Palace at the beginning of each summer, where she carries out a range of official engagements and ceremonies.
In the fifteenth century a guesthouse stood on the site of the present north range of the Palace, west of the Abbey and its cloister. Many of Scotland's medieval Kings stayed here before the palace's construction, and by the late 15th century Holyrood was a royal residence in all but name; not only was James II born at Holyrood in 1430, it was in Holyrood that he was crowned, married and laid to rest. Between 1498 and 1501, James IV constructed a new building, with Holyrood becoming a palace in the true sense of the word.
The palace was built around a quadrangle, situated west of the abbey cloister. It contained a chapel, gallery, royal apartments, and a great hall. The chapel occupied the present north range of the Great Quadrangle, with the Queen's apartments occupying part of the south range. A third range to the west contained the King's lodgings and the entrance to the palace. He also oversaw construction of a two storey gate house, fragments of which survive in the Abbey Courthouse. James V added to the palace between 1528 and 1536, beginning with the present north-west tower. In this tower are the famous suite of rooms once occupied by Mary, Queen of Scots.
The wooden ceilings of the main rooms are from Mary's time and the monograms MR (Maria Regina) and IR (Jacobus Rex) refer to Mary and her son, James VI. Shields commemorating Mary's marriage to Francis II of France are believed to have been carved in 1559 but put in their present position in 1617. The suite contains an audience chamber and the Queen's bedroom, leading from which are two turret rooms. It was in the northern turret room, on 9 March 1565, that the infamous murder of David Rizzio took place in Mary's presence. In later centuries, tourists were often convinced that they could see his blood stains on the floor.
After James VI became King of England in 1603 and moved to London, the palace was no longer the seat of a permanent royal court. James visited it again in 1617 as did Charles I in 1633, when he was crowned King of Scotland in Holyrood Abbey.
In 1650, either by accident or design, the palace was fired during the visit of Oliver Cromwell and his soldiers. Cromwell had the palace rebuilt, but his rebuilding was pulled down and Charles II had the palace re-constructed in its present form between 1671 and 1679 by Sir William Bruce. James VII and II lived at Holyrood between 1680 and 1682 while still Duke of Albany, in the aftermath of the Exclusion crisis.
After 1707, the Palace was used during the elections of Scottish representative peers. Bonnie Prince Charlie held court at Holyrood for five weeks during the 1745 Jacobite Rising, and following the French Revolution, George III allowed Louis XVI's youngest brother, the Comte d'Artois to live at Holyrood from 1796 to 1799. After their second exile, the French royals lived at Holyrood again from 1830 until 1832 when they moved to Austria.
In modern times, monarchs have spent at least one week every year formally holding court in the Palace in Edinburgh. The present Queen still uses it when she is in Scotland for State occasions (on non-State occasions, she stays at Balmoral). Its use has increased substantially since the setting up of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, with various members of the Royal Family, notably Prince Charles and Princess Anne often staying there. At the Palace the Queen meets and appoints the First Minister of Scotland. A meeting of the European Council was also held at the palace during the British presidency of the council in 1992.
The Queen's Gallery is located within the Palace complex, while the new Scottish Parliament Building is located across the road from the palace.
Architectural historian Dan Cruickshank selected the Palace as one of his eight choices for the 2002 BBC book The Story of Britain's Best Buildings.