Priory Accommodation

The Science Circle grid was our first destination this week and it is something quite out of the way in terms of our usual visits - this one is a piece of opensim history and a piece of RL history, combined. It's the build by Christi Maeterlinck, Mount Grace.
This is a first class build! If you read this blog, you may recall an article about it some time ago - this week, finally, was our opportunity to do a group visit. Not the full tour which offers a deep dive into the documented past of both the construction and rl history of the place, but a quick look, in anticipation of other visits.

Once again, Jessica 'lifted' Pixel was on hand to film the whole shenanigans, giving a real time pixel-eye view of what it's like to come on these trips. 

The regions offered some serious latency, at first, but we sat for a while and waited for bodies to arrive. This is primarily a prim build, with some small additions like animals and static figures, all laid out on a 2x2 and despite grave issues in recent weeks that made teleporting in seem dicey, on the day we were all able to jump to Mount Grace from the clubhouse, if not in one piece, at least in increments. The mood was positive as we let the scenery and our companions appear before our very eyes. Even Forest's dress showed up in the end! 

Luna Lunaria: The planets aligned and I'm finally able to attend during a work day lol

Thirza Ember: just waiting on the others a couple of moments

Taarna Welles: I can see most avatars :)

Mal Burns: Oddly I am normalish - but took a while

Forest Azure: i'm still a nude statue, i guess?

Luna Lunaria: yes,  I hate getting caught with my pants down

Thirza Ember: you are nude with something wrapped round your leg

Forest Azure: yeah, with real big feet

Once everyone's bits had showed up, we went to a lovely vantage point on the sim and the surrounding trees. If you go to the actual place in England, there are just a few walls left standing of the original religious complex, so this is a journey that is truly not possible in real life.

Thirza Ember: so I guess this would be the relative position of the Main road to York ...the people traveling would be able to see this really fancy religious establishment, with lots of fields and farms all around it, from the equivalent of the freeway

Unadecal Arado: probably a Roman road

Thirza Ember: this part of the UK has pretty atrocious weather, the monks who came here actually looked for places where the conditions were harsh, I guess they felt it made them more spiritual

Mal Burns: or less likely to get molested, visitors I mean

Thirza Ember: There is a huge amount of documentation available... Christi has gone into a lot of detail with lots of nc givers to click on, plus links, about the historical details, and the construction too. This build was in New World Grid, and then ended up on OSgrid, but after some years, the person who was hosting it decided to give up his server... so it looked like the build would go offline completely.

Luna Lunaria: The story of many virtual builds :-(

Thirza Ember:  But luckily, space was found here on Science Circle grid for it thanks to the efforts of Stephen Xootfly and Agnomen Queasar... there are four or five nice historical and science builds here on the grid. The Science Circle is a club in SL, and they sometimes run tours to visit the regions in opensim, like this and Abyssinia, and Portage - all places we've been on Safari too. Here on Mount Grace, everywhere you go you should see stones like the one by Lucy, they contain notecards in english and french, these tell the RL story of the place.

We headed back to the main gates. A fair amount of rubberbanding inevitably accompanies long walks where there are a lot of people and we are stressing the server. It's less atmospheric to just tp but that can often at least give you a fighting chance to not crash. The Safari crew like to sit, because it gives us the quite possibly voodoo illusion that we are making life easier for the server. Plus it makes us look zen as we wait for the world to regain its textures. Everyone's own personal lag is as subjective as a spiritual experience. No two people get it quite the same, not even 2 avatars operating off the same computer.

Thirza Ember: how laggy is it for you guys

lifted pixel: laggy :D

Star Ravenhurst: I restarted my computer and relogged and this time everything rezzed fast. This new viewer is harsh on my Avatar. Rezzing has been an issue

Taarna Welles: It's OK for me

James Atlloud: a bit laggy - felt like a ghost was pushing me backwards

Alexey Kazarovic: Which are better from the point of view of lightness and performance, prims or meshes?

Tosha Tyran: meshes, at least in opensim

lifted pixel: prims all day, gimme cubesssss

Tosha Tyran: in sl it is quite different, it is expensive to import them and they have a different land impact

lifted pixel: no one optimizes their meshes there because they don't really have to

Tosha Tyran: according to Licu, the land impact of mesh in Opensim equals the number of "prims" in meshes

Thirza Ember:  Christi isn't here yet so let me share a few things she put in a notecard... quote: "I’m a retired occupational psychologist, Emeritus Professor of Constructivist Managerial Psychology for pete’s sake… So whence the interest in Mount Grace? I’ve a broadly Christian background, but I’ve no particular involvement in the religious life or commitment to it. When the kids were small, we use to go for Sunday picnics to the RL Mount Grace Priory, about 25 miles away, and that’s what started my interest in the site. Lots of happy memories!  So I got hold of the site plans as surveyed by English Heritage, and used them to construct this simulation, years ago when there were no mesh or sculpties: this is largely system prims! It took me 2 years and I still tweak it now and again. I had fantastic help from Virtus, a French educational trust, in arranging French-language translations of the information cards. And if you’d like to read about the simulation, and how it was constructed, please have a look at these; open in Powerpoint after the Dropbox access." - end quote.

We entered the first, vast courtyard, the hub of business, then took a look inside the church where the artwork, not genuine to this building but ideal for contextualizing the period, transports you back to the inventive, passionate, dangerous times that were the Middle Ages.

Thirza Ember: this place had all monks from very wealthy families and so their relatives were equally high status, lots of fancy visitors I bet

Tosha Tyran: yeah, the rich families stuck those sons that would not inherit into a monastery ...this is a lovely build and the story behind it is just as lovely but man! I am glad I am no nun

James Atlloud: A gated community.. a walled garden.

Taarna Welles: If you see all those prims, what a progress we made in all those years...we are spoiled :) 

Tosha Tyran: yes, Taarna, true

Tosha Tyran: well, I love working in blender - but prims have something sweet to me as well

James Atlloud: preach to me man... lovely tile work on the ceiling

Luna Lunaria: I still use both mesh and prims in my structures

Thirza Ember: she really hasn't touched it in over 10 years so it is frozen in time

Taarna Welles: Nice!

Tosha Tyran: yes - and it looks just so nice, really

Thirza Ember: let's go into the big courtyard (may have to cam and jump)

Unadecal Arado: the cemetery. Very realistic

Thirza Ember: so a big space like this is essential for a community ia community with no sewers...

Luna Lunaria: eep

Unadecal Arado: even worse! A community with no servers

Forest Azure: lol una

Thirza Ember: no servers but loads of servants... of the Lord

Tosha Tyran: I love that cemetary, you can just feel the empathy with those passed... hi Christii

Roffellos Kisses: are we in dark ages England?

Luna Lunaria: Yes this is a monastery

Forest Azure: in the name of the rose :)

Roffellos Kisses: i have seen buildings of old brick like this ..often

Alexey Kazarovic: Hey Christi, thank you for your work, is very very interesting and and with lots of detailed information. I love reading the information and watching the figures send you the milestones.

Christii Maeterlinck: Welcome, Travellers, to Mount Grace Priory. Here we are in the year 1415, on a basic orientation tour of the Priory. The idea is that we all form a picture of what’s here, and then return as individuals on another day. The build is  to scale: so please REDUCE YOUR AVATAR HEIGHT to the minimum, This isnt SL, where rooms are 10m x 10m x 10m!

Thirza Ember: maybe not right now though LOL we have all the lag we need.

Taarna Welles: I'll duck

lifted pixel: lol min height gang

Christii Maeterlinck: Here we are halfway between Durham and York. It’s getting late and we need a bed for the night. You all look like well-to-do people, so I can arrange a private room. There’s a shared dormitory for merchants and townsfolk; while for riff-raff and the poor, there’s some alms, and they get sent on their way. We enter the outer bailey. There’s stabling over here, please follow me. Above the stables are granaries for the crops we’ve grown in our own fields outside, using local peasant labour.

Christii Maeterlinck: And here’s something that will interest you. We thresh the grain here… and do you see the semicircular lintel? It’s here to prevent the threshed grain from flying all over the place. That’s where the word ‘THRESHOLD’ comes from.

Tosha Tyran: ah...

Taarna Welles: etymology

James Atlloud: clever

Christii Maeterlinck: The apple trees are in this spot in the RL priory ruins

Unadecal Arado: Did they use them for cider?

Christii Maeterlinck: I wonder if they're descendants of those that are KNOWN to have been in the priory feidls in 1415!

Tosha Tyran: oh wow... reaching out for us

Christii Maeterlinck: Here is where the postulant monks live: the ones who act as servants to the 18 monks who have taken their vows and live in the inner area. Cam up to see it as a whole.

Christii Maeterlinck: And do you see the hatches to the right of the doors? that's  where the food was delivered to the monks, so they wouldn't have to open the doors and have their silence disturbed when meal were brought to them

Tosha Tyran: and where the little monks were made, maybe?

Christii Maeterlinck: LOL thats right Tosha... You had to serve your time as a servant to the seniors, before taking your final vows... Now back to the main cloisters and support areas, were the senior monks lived. And here's where the kitchens were located, and the brewery too... through here. Brewery left door, Kitchen right door, or cam in

Forest Azure: /me gets thirsty

Roffellos Kisses: 1415 a nice vintage !

Taarna Welles: I love the "kitchen".

Tosha Tyran: I just read an article today about monks declaring beavers to be fishes so they could eat beaver on fridays

Roffellos Kisses: ermm ok! I really cannot explain what I was thinking... but i have found  a privy!

Christii Maeterlinck: Laypeople stand at the back of the church, while the monks sit in the choir stalls. Go on through and try them: the stalls are scripted

lifted pixel: safari loves to sit

Forest Azure: /me sings a prayer

Luna Lunaria: we are professional sitters

Tosha Tyran: holy moly, murmur, holy moly... my wednesday monks prayer

Christii Maeterlinck: Each monk has his own cell: the houses all round us.... consisting of a sitting room, a prayer room, a bedroom and upstairs, a workshop... Cold running water is supplied to each cell from the gravity-fed water tank you see in the centre of the cloister.

Forest Azure: very interesting, Christi... thanks for the great tour

Kelso Uxlay: Christ - Thanks a lot for the guided tour

Star Ravenhurst: Thank you so much for the visit Christi. Wonderful build!

Roffellos Kisses: Thank you Christi this really is a labor of love

lifted pixel: this place is dense! thank you for showing us around... thank you for caretaking this piece of metaverse history!

Tosha Tyran: christy, this place is lovely, I will have to come again to train my praying abilities... so much to see and to read yet!

James Atlloud: Christi - this is very immersive - such detail.

Unadecal Arado: Thank you so much Christii. Love the build

Taarna Welles: Thank you Christii for this great tour and information. Would love to see this building in real some day.

Lucy Afarensis: Very interesting build

Christii Maeterlinck: But please come back and do the trip from the arrival point, and collect the info cards, for yourselves on an individual visit.

lifted pixel: thank you for having us!