Q is for... Quiet ... n ... Quirk

 

Hello and welcome! to another A-Z series on M-i-V... 

All through April I'm posting on the broad theme of Museums & Monuments Across the World - mostly those I've been to and a few on my bucket list that I haven't been able to visit yet. Museums are one of my favourite ways to get to know a culture, they sum up what those peoples want to preserve and pass onto their grandchildren, the facets they want to show their foreign visitors, how they perceive, present and preserve their own storyline and that of their interactions with the world. Come museum hopping with me!

Ah...here come the tough quookies cookies...Q is for Qal'at al Bahrain

Today I'm going back to one of my favourite places in Bahrain - the Qal'at al Bahrain or the Bahrain Fort. The Qal'at al Bahrain is a UNESCO World Heritage archaeological site with several layers of evidence of human settlement there, dating from 2300 BCE to 16th century CE, what's known as a 'tell' in archaeological terms. Around 25% of the tell has been excavated and the structures include various types of buildings  - residential, commercial, military, religious and public. 

The archaeological evidence collectively shows that Bahrain has been settled for over 5000 years and its inhabitants had trade relations with both the Indus Valley Civilisation and Sumer, serving as an important trading hub. The site served as the capital of the Kingdom of Dilmun. In fact, the oldest epic, the Epic of Gilgamesh mentions Dilmun  as a paradise and a meeting point of the Sumerian gods, the original Garden of Eden. The Dilmun economy's main trade was in date molasses/date honey.

The ancient and the new. View of the Seef skyline from inside the Bahrain Fort. 

Dilmun's importance declined by the 1st millennium AD and it was subsequently absorbed into various empires that rose and fell around the Persian Gulf.  Over the millennia therefore, Bahrain has been controlled by Persian Achaemenids, Parthian and Sassanian Empires, by the Greek Seleucid possibly, by Portuguese, Omanis and the British. 

The site museum building from the fort. 

There is a site museum which is tiny but presents this historical timeline in a cogent and interesting way. I've been there countless times, the fort and its surroundings are a great place to go to for people watching or plain relaxation.  The site museum offers a self guided audio tour of the fort. Also a short sound and light show on some evenings - Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays in English and Arabic. Not sure if that's been resumed after the pandemic.

The Qal'at al Bahrain - Bahrain Fort. 

It's worth visiting if you're in the area and/or you want to deepen your understanding of Bahrain's history and culture. The museum complements the main Bahrain Museum and it's good to take this one on after the Bahrain National Museum. 

Greek tetradrachms at the site museum. Proof positive
of Seleucid presence on the island. After the Greek
invasion, Dilmun was renamed Tylos. 

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Read more about the Qal'at al Bahrain  by clicking the link here and here.  And here is the official site, but it is just a brief few lines, that's all. Doesn't do justice imo. 

...also for Queen Charlotte's Cottage

Since we are on Q, I might as well mention the Queen's Cottage. It's one of the historic buildings that are dotted around Kew Gardens in London. I've already talked about Kew Gardens in my K post earlier. In some odd quirk of something Kew sounds exactly like Q too. That feels like sufficient reason to shoehorn it in here...

 Queen's Charlotte's Cottage in the Kew gardens. 

I was there early this month - and because last time we'd spent the whole entire time at the flower beds and Palm House and  the botanical art galleries, this time I made sure to go see the palace and the other royal buildings. Unfortunately the cottage wasn't open to view on the day I was there, but the surrounding area was quiet and lovely, no other visitors apart from us. This video gives a tour of the interior, but the commentary doesn't align with what the official guide says. Both Kew Palace and the Queen's Cottage are maintained by Historic Royal Palaces, an independent charity (as distinct from the Royal Botanic Gardens).

 

The Queen's Cottage was built circa 1771, almost a century and a half after the original Kew Palace building was built, at which point it was just a fashionable merchant residence and not a palace.  

The Cottage was built as a rest stop between the Kew Palace and the Richmond Lodge, making it an ideal place  for the royals to refresh themselves during their promenades. It was built as a rustic retreat, an early example of a cottage orne  - the bricks were deliberately rough, the window frames were repurposed from the previous century, the doors were battened  unevenly though inside the rooms were finished with perfect workmanship. The Cottage has two separate entrances as well as staircases - one for the family and one for the staff.

Queen Charlotte and her daughters used the retreat as a private space to take tea, relax and study the plants and animals that surrounded the cottage. It is secluded and in the midst of large paddocks which in the Queen's time contained a menagerie including exotic animals such as zebras and kangaroos. This is the only building that is said to show Charlotte's own decor preferences, though the interiors were refurbished by her daughter Elizabeth in early 1800s.

There are two levels to the building - the lower has a large room decorated with 150 engravings/prints and was used for dining. There is also a kitchen space which originally had no stove so no hot preparations, a stove was added later by the princess. The upper level has a large space with a parabolic roof decorated by elaborate vine and flower botanical paintings, some of which may have been designed and done by Princess Elizabeth herself. 

The cottage was used for the last time in 1818 for the double weddings of William, Duke of Clarence and Edward, Duke of Kent for serving refreshments after the ceremony.  These marriages were solemnised at a crisis point in the monarchy after the only grandchild and legitimate heir of George III and Charlotte passed away tragically young. So the Dukes were pressurised to take wives and produce an heir. Queen Victoria was the result. She hardly ever used the cottage but threw it and its gardens open to the public in 1898 as part of her diamond jubilee celebrations. 

Queen Charlotte's bedroom at the Kew Palace. She used it whenever she visited

Kew and died in this room on Nov 17, 1818. By then, George III's mental and

physical illnesses had worsened so much that he was living in permanent 

seclusion in Windsor. It was felt best that he remain unaware of her passing and

straw was laid down on the cobblestones to muffle the noise of the hearse. George

and Charlotte had a rock solid marriage and 15 children. The King was devoted to

his Queen and never took a mistress, rather unusual for a monarch.

Did you know that Queen Charlotte introduced the custom of festive Christmas trees and Pomeranian dogs  in Britain? She was also a keen amateur botanist and expanded the plantings at Kew Gardens substantially. 

Charlotte, NC and Charlottesville, VA in the USA are both named after Queen Charlotte. There are several other localities in the USA and Canada which have been named  to honour her. Read more about this Queen by clicking the link here. 

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Thank you for visiting and reading. Have a wonderful A-Z if you are taking the Challenge and a wonderful April if you're not!

Posted for the A-Z Challenge 2026