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It's always amusing to find out what Americans think is old. Most of the buildings around here are mid to late Victorian with the odd Elizabethan dwelling sitti
by neilwilson 8y ago
It's always amusing to find out what Americans think is old. Most of the buildings around here are mid to late Victorian with the odd Elizabethan dwelling sitting about two feet lower than anywhere else. The church is 900 years old with the present building dating from 1483.
I chuckle when I realise we have public conveniences here in the UK that are older than Canada.
- RandallBrown 8y agoThe oldest building in this list is from 1190. Almost 300 years older than your example.
- jrhurst 8y agoSo question. I always see statements like this online. And I sometimes wonder what is the point. Like it's a colony. The oldest structure are from societies that are all but dead. What's the value of statements like that?
- ythn 8y ago> It's always amusing to find out what Americans think is old. It's not that we "think" those buildings are old. They are the oldest. There are no older buildings. Age is relative. If you colonize a pacific island, the oldest building will be 1 year old. That doesn't mean the colonizers think 1 year is a long time. If you want to get into a manhood measuring contest we could broaden the criteria to include native american structures.
- onion2k 8y agoIf you want to get into a manhood measuring contest we could broaden the criteria to include native american structures. I don't want to get in to a content, but I am interested in how old they are. The oldest structure here in the UK is a neolithic dwelling dated to ~3700 BC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knap_of_Howar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knap_of_Howar
- JdeBP 8y agoThe Americas have the likes of Watson Brake and Sechin Bajo, dated to roughly the same time as that, give or take a couple of centuries. * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17678841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17678841
- irrational 8y agoWell, there is Sechin Bajo from around 3,500 BC, though we know there were people in the Americas at least 8000 years before that, unfortunately their structures haven't survived (that we have found).
- rileyphone 8y agoTaos Pueblo is on here, there aren't a lot of standing Amerindian structures from that period.
- overcast 8y agoIt's always amusing when non Americans have to chime in with examples of all of their older things. As if it invalidates anything that's newer. This is an article about the oldest buildings in the states. Which means it's old for the Americans. We get it, you have older stuff, and your infrastructure is generally poorly laid out because of it. Congratulations! PS. 200km is apparently a "long way" for most Europeans. I find that amusing.
- pilom 8y ago"A person from the United States of America thinks something 100 years old is old. A person from the UK thinks 100 miles is a long way away"
- psadauskas 8y ago"The difference between America and England is that Americans think 100 years is a long time, while the English think 100 miles is a long way." --Earle Hitchner
- atomic77 8y agoThe UK has always had the advantage of being an island protected from the wars that periodically sweep through mainland areas. There are plenty of cities that I have seen Europe that, due to post-WWII reconstruction, make New York and Chicago seem positively old and historic.
- neilwilson 8y agoTectonically stable as well. On the other side there is Japan where there is very little old at all - the earthquakes and landslides see to that. It's a big problem. All anybody wants to do in England is buy and prop up some ancient building. It's hardly surprising we have an energy usage crisis. Everything ends up set in aspic.
- thieving_magpie 8y agoOh Neil. You silly goose. I'm glad the fact your structures are older than others brings such delight to your day.
- irrational 8y agoDoes your superiority complex help you sleep better at night?