This is another of those what is it? type posts, but on this occasion the answer can be found further down. Here is the first teaser shot.

Well, it is obviously a structure of some kind, with strange embellishments on the roof. Unwrap for more:

Here is another teaser shot taken shortly before opening and it can be seen that the little attic window things have been opened. Let us take a closer look.

What we are looking at is one of the mirrors of the unique Camera Obscura at Douglas Head.

Why is it unique? Let me explain.

A Camera Obscura is a bit like a carousel in operation- it is a cycle based attraction. You need someone to sell tickets and someone else to work the machinery. (It could be the same person, of course). You take the money, let the people in, do the show, let them out again, then repeat. There is another pitfall with a Camera Obscura- the more people who you squeeze in round the viewing table, the more who will see the picture upside down.

The inventor of the Douglas version, however, a Mr. John Fielding, patented an entirely different approach through. Instead of a single device which needed to be focussed and rotated, he came up with the idea of twelve fixed lens arrangements in a circle each one projecting onto  part of the table.  This way, you could walk round the table and look into each compartment to take in the view in that direction. It was put near the top of a high hill so that the poor depth of field wasn’t an issue.

It seems there was a hitch though, people lingered too long and kept going round and round. To solve this, he took out the 12th system (the one nearest to the entrance) and redesigned the attraction so that it was a one way walk-through in an anti-clockwise direction. (The P.T. Barnum approach of this blogpost title probably wouldn’t have worked here). This is why one of the mirrors is uncovered in the second photo.

As it is only open at weekends in the summer and the occasional public holiday, if you can’t get over to Douglas in person, here is a montage of the eleven views. The final photo is the view up to the lens within the first alcove. Note that it was a rather misty day, although it has to be said that the system isn’t particularly high definition anyway. Note how the flag in image 11 is out of focus as it is so close- the flag denotes that the attraction is open.

It is called the great union because of the union of the multiple lenses, I’m led to believe. I can’t find the patent online though (#19,597, issued in 1892)