Welcome to Thursday Doors! This is a weekly challenge for people who love doors and architecture to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos, drawings, or other images or stories from around the world. If you’d like to join us, simply create your own Thursday Doors post each (or any) week and then share a link to your post in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time). If you like, you can add our badge to your post.
Writing Challenge Update: We have almost three dozen photos to choose from. If you want to add to the gallery, you still have time. Entries will be accepted through this weekend. On Monday, May 1st, the writing begins. The process is simple: Pick a door – write a story/poem or anything of any length – post what you write on your blog and link to the Writing Challenge for 2023 page. At various point during the month of May (at least every Thursday and Sunday) I will update the table of writing entries. You can write and contribute as many stories/poems as you like!
If you don’t have a blog, but still want to submit an entry, send it to me in an email (noFacilities@gmail.com) and I’ll post it on your behalf. Please include enough information for me to attribute the writing to you.
In advance of Monday, I want to thank everyone who has contributed an inspirational photo for us to use.
As for my doors today, the gallery includes images from two buildings and one manufacturing complex that sit near the same corner in Simsbury, Connecticut. Dyno Nobel is the current owner of what began in th emid-1800s as Ensign Bickford. In 1831, William Bickford invented the safety fuse in Cornwall, England, which revolutionized the mining industry by improving safety dramatically. Later, in the early 1900s, they invented Primacord (which became a functional name for all detonating cord). In 2003, the complex, trademarks and processes were sold to Dyno Nobel.
Since the primary product of Ensign Bickford was explosive material, the entire complex was made up of many independent buildings. That way, if there was an explosion, the destruction would be limited to one building.
In 1910, Joseph R. Ensign, president of Ensign Bickford at the time, build what is now called the Ensign House. It was his family’s primary residence from 1910 until the early 1950s. In 1955, it served as the parish house for the First Church of Christ, which is located directly across the street. Today, the Ensign House has a restaurant and meeting rooms and some apartments.
The church was formed in 1683, and like many of the churches I’ve featured in the past, there have been several buildings (the “Church” refers to the Congregation). The current building was constructed in 1830.
I hope you enjoy these doors and I hope you will take a few minutes to check out some of the other doors linked here today. If you miss any, you can return on Sunday for the Weekly Recap.
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All five of my current books are now available in audio book form thanks to Amazon KDP’s Virtual Voice process. The voice is AI generated, but I can honestly say, it’s pretty darn good. The audio books are reasonably priced (all below $7 US) and, if you already own the Kindle version and want to add an audio version, you can do that for $1.99. There is a five-minute sample on the book page for each book. If you’re interested, click on any of the Dreamer’s Alliance book links below the image or on the link below for my latest book.
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