Talk:Helen's Tower

Quotations

The following quotations might be useful when revising or reviewing the article.

Architecture - "the room on the second floor has a heavily coffered ceiling emblazoned with heraldic devices, and the third floor is richly panelled with timber Gothic tracery including rib vaulting and barley sugar columns". Patton (1999), p. 49. According to the photos it is not really heavily coffered, but quite ordinarily.

- "octagonal library". Williams (1995) p102. It cannot really have been a library with the double windows and the plates with the poems there is not much place left for book shelving.

- "The tower is built of random blackstone, with granite quoins, sandstone trim to the arrow-slit windows, and odd bits of rendering." Brett (2002), p270. However, granite is not mentioned in the Historic Buildings Details.

History - "celebration rather than funereal tribute". Patton (1999), p. 49.

- “It was possibly built as part of the extensive improvements to the Clandeboye estate undertaken by Lord Dufferin after he attained his majority in 1847 to relieve unemployment and the destitution caused by the Famine”, Stamp (1985), p. 29. Cited in Brett (2002) p268.

Poems - "As an only child, Dufferin adored his mother, Helen Sheridan (a descendant of the playwright), and in 1861 the thirty-five-year-old Marquess had persuaded Tennyson to write Helen's Tower for the decorative 'old-world' tower that he had built in his park and named for his mother. Creating this tower was an intensely literary act: in his appeal to Tennyson to write a poem for it, Dufferin called it his 'Palace of Art'." Batchelor (2014), p. 260.

- "Tennyson sent three versions of a possible poem, of which after some further correspondence he and Dufferin agreed a twelve-line version." Batchelor (2014), p 260.

- "The walls of the upper room are panelled with specially solicited poems by Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Thomas Carlisle, Sir Edwin Arnold, Rudyard Kipling, Richard Garnett, and WS Blunt - among others." Brett & Merrick (2002), p. 268. The verb 'Panelled' is somewhat misleading. The poems are on metal plates.

Sources

The following sources might be useful when revising or reviewing the article.

Batchelor, John (2014). Tennyson, To Strive, to Seek, to Find. London: Vintage Books. ISBN 978-1845950767. Preview on Google Books. I cannot get page numbers from this source.

Brett, CEB; Merrick, Anthony C W (2002). Buildings of North County Down. Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society. ISBN 978-0900457579. Helen's Tower is discussed on pp. 270–273.

Patton, Marcus (1999). Bangor - An Historical Gazetteer. Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society. ISBN ??? Helen's Tower is discussed on pp. 48-49.

Stamp, Gavin (1985). Clandeboye. Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society. Helen's Tower is discussed on p. 29.

Williams, Jeremy (1995). A Companion Guide to Architecture in Ireland 1837-1921. Dublin: Irish Academic Press. ISBN 978-0716525134. Helen's Tower is discussed on p. 102.

Rated as a Stub

@Johnsoniensis: Dear Johnsoniensis. I saw you rated the article Helen's Tower as a stub. You are a highly esteemed and very experienced Wikipedian and I am a newby. However, how can this article be a stub? WP:STUB says a "A stub is an article deemed too short to provide encyclopedic coverage of a subject." This article has a readable prose size of 1609 words. It has infobox, structure, images, 20 references from 9 sources. I do not see much room for further encyclopedic development on this relatively simple and limited subject. I have obviously tried to push this article. What have I done wrong? What should I have done more? With many thanks! Johannes Schade (talk) 19:22, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

I am sorry for the poor assessment; I was carelessly assuming that the existing ratings were adequate without studying the article itself.. A better rating would have been "B".--Johnsoniensis (talk) 19:29, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

@Johnsoniensis: Dear Johnsoniensis. Thank you very much! ... and happy Christmas.