12 May 2011

"Jacob's Ladder" (Jamestown, St. Helena)

In 1829, the Saint Helena Railway Company built an inclined-plane cableway on Saint Helena.  It was intended to lift supplies from the port and capital of Jamestown up to Ladder Hill Fort.  It was rebuilt as a long, steep staircase, by the Royal Engineers in 1871 now known as Jacob’s Ladder...

The staircase is now lit and can be used to climb up Ladder Hill, where the suburb of Half Tree Hollow has developed. The staircase consists of 699 steps and ascends 183 metres (600 ft). A timed run takes place up Jacob's Ladder every year, with people coming from all over the world to take part.
The phrase "Jacob's Ladder" has a biblical background, so it's not surprising that the Wikipedia disambiguation page is so long, listing over a dozen places and a bunch of other items, some of which are bloggable in their own right, such as the Polemonium (which we have in our garden), the folk toy, or this electrical spark gap -
- and others which I will discreetly pass over, such as the (shudder, NSFW) frenum ladder.

Additional photos of the Jamestown staircase are collected at Google Images and Flickr.  I don't plan ever to walk up any of these ladders; I'm more of a "Jacob's escalator" kind of guy.

Top photo credit paulineg2008, via On the Borderland and Uncertain Times.

5 comments:

  1. Nice post! I like the stylistic inclusion of a little humor. (Jacob's escalator).

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh dear. Curiosity killed the cat. Had to go peek at the NSFW link and I think I am done on the internet for today.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Acknowledgement on your blog of the source of the picture of Jacob's Ladder would be appreciated. http://www.flickr.com/photos/30593522@N05/5072943064/in/set-72157624879923581
    Regards
    paulineg2008

    ReplyDelete
  4. Done. Thanks for the heads-up. I had missed the link at the second via.

    ReplyDelete

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