Elvaston Castle

Elvaston Castle is a stately home in Elvaston, Derbyshire, England. The Gothic Revival castle and surrounding parkland is run and owned by Derbyshire County Council as a country park known as Elvaston Castle Country Park. The country park has of woodlands, parkland and formal gardens.
The centrepiece of the estate is the Grade II* Listed Elvaston Castle. The castle has been neglected and is in need of restoration. Due to its condition, the building is not open to the public, and since 2008 has been listed on the Buildings at Risk Register.
Derbyshire County Council estimates the castle and estate requires significant investment for both restoration and to support its longer-term maintenance. In 2017 The Elvaston Castle and Gardens Trust was created to manage the estate once these works, which are already underway, are completed.
History.
Until the 16th century the estate was held by the Shelford Priory. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries the Crown sold the priory and its estates in 1538 to Sir Michael Stanhope of Rampton, Nottinghamshire. Sir John Stanhope (died 1611) granted the estate to his second son, also Sir John Stanhope (d .1638), High Sheriff of Derbyshire, in 1629.
The manor house was built for the latter Sir John in 1633. This Elizabethan-style house was redesigned and extended in a grand Gothic Revival style by James Wyatt in the early 19th century for the Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl of Harrington. Wyatt designed a new wing, a new great hall, and most of the interiors of the castle, but died before work was completed. His designs were carried out by Robert Walker between 1815 and 1829.
Further modifications were made in the 1836 by the architect Lewis Nockalls Cottingham; this work was on the Elizabethan-styled south front which was remodelled to match the rest of the now Gothic-styled castle.
This was the final modification and created the castle we see today.
During World War II, the house was turned into a teacher training college after the original college in Derby was evacuated.
The college vacated the house in 1947, after which time it remained mostly empty for the next two decades until its sale, starting a steady decline that continues to this day.
The Gardens.
The 3rd Earl, approached Capability Brown to remodel the grounds of the Castle. He turned down the commission due to the flatness of the estate, which he described as having 'no capability'. In 1830, Charles Stanhope, 4th Earl of Harrington commissioned landscape gardener William Barron to redesign the gardens.
The Fourth Earl caused scandal by marrying an actress 17 years his junior: Maria Foote. Maria and Charles were described as "inseparable and besotted"; the Earl wanted the gardens to be a "private and secluded oasis of great beauty" for himself and the love of his life. Barron would spend the next 20 years working on the gardens; he even brought in full-grown trees using a tree planting machine he had designed (an example of which is on display at Kew Gardens) to try to give instant gratification to the Earl.
The Fourth Earl and his Countess valued their garden for the romantic seclusion it afforded them, however following the death of their only son aged 4, the couple isolated themselves at the castle, never leaving and forbidding anyone from entering the grounds. (Some sources claim it was the Earl that instigated the seclusion and forbade his wife from leaving) Following the Fourth Earl's death in 1851, his brother, Leicester Stanhope, 5th Earl of Harrington, opened the gardens to the public. They became renowned as "a Gothic paradise", and are Grade II Listed.
The estate contains over 50 structures, including stables, kennels, a walled garden, a home farm, several cottages, gatelodges, an ice house and a boathouse. The gardens are listed Grade II* on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

Al-Khalidiyah, al-Hasakah Governorate

Al-Khalidiyah () or Khanik (; ; ) is a village in the al-Hasakah Governorate in northeastern Syria.
The village lies on the Tigris Khabur opposite to the Iraqi village of Faysh Khabur and is located 4 km south of the Semalka Border Crossing and just 3km to the south of the tripoint of Iraq, Syria and Turkey. The village is also famous as the easternmost settlement of Syria.
Khanik is inhabited by Assyrians belonging to the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East. A number of Armenians also live in the village.