Great Globe

The Great Globe (English: Great Globe ) has a diameter of about 3 meters and 40 tons in weight. Composed of 15 parts of globe from 1887 was made from the local limestone deposits of the Purbeck - Portland in England and is one of the largest stone balls in the world.

Location

The Great Globe is located a few meters below Durlston Castle Durlston Country within the parks, a 1.13 km ² (280 acres ) of landscaped park and nature reserve. The park is located south of Swanage on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, on the south coast of England.

In Swanage there are a number of historic quarries extending mainly along the cliffs to the south. In these quarries Purbeck stone and Purbeck marble was for Portland stone, broken.

History

George Burt (1816-1894), from Swanage, stone and quarry owner was. He became a successful merchant and Stone Contractors in London, a philanthropist and very wealthy businessman. Swanage was the birthplace of Burt, from there he negotiated later with the British natural stones and he wanted to develop the city into a prosperous place. In Swanage Burt built the Purbeck House, a large stone building for themselves.

In 1862 George Burt bought the hilly region around Durlston Head. On this land also some quarries from which his company won limestone as stone were. Until the 19th century there were numerous quarries in operation, from which large quantities of limestone were transported for buildings in London by sea. Burt wanted to develop this area into an attraction for tourists. In 1887 he built his Folly Durlston Castle on the hill at the southern end of Durlston Bay. The park contains historic quarries, like the Tilly Whim Caves, are broken down in the since 1810, no stones. Burt Tilly Whim Caves opened in 1887, for visits by tourists. The underground quarry was finally closed in 1976 due to rockfall danger to the public.

Burt also manufactures the Great Globe, a 40 -ton globe, three meters in diameter, in which the world map are engraved according to the findings from 1880 ..

Site

The ball rises above the shoreline of the park at about 40 meters above the lake, which is now visited by many tourists. Around the Great Globe are stone tablets with texts by William Shakespeare and the Bible, as well as maps to the English Channel and the United Kingdom, and further insights into the natural history of the world included.

For globe performs a stairway. Previously, visitors were up to the globe zoom, today it is fenced by an iron fence. Very close to the globe are in the green area eight large stone blocks that represent the compass.

The ball is a document for its time and gives the perception of the world of British imperial vision during the Victorian era in the late 19th century again.