Queen Elizabeth II 25th Anniversary Coronation First Day Cover, Togo postmarked on March 13, 1978.
Togo
Togo is a small, yarrow country sandwiched between Gh^na and Dahomey. In the south, which is a low plateau lying behind a sandbar and marshy inlets, the climate is hot and humid, but in the more mountainous interior it is cooler. The people, of Sangoan hunter-gatherer and Sudanic origin, were for centuries under the sway of neighbouring African kingdoms. Between 1884 and 1919 the Germans controlled Togo and from then until independence in 1960, the French. The economy relies on subsistence agriculture, although some coffee, cacao, palm-oil kernels, cotton, teak and phosphates are exported.
This issue by Togo depicts the west face of Westminster Abbey, which stands on the site of an ancient Benedictine Monastery. A Norman Romanesque church built by Edward the Confessor also predated the present Early English Gothic structure, begun by Henry III. The Abbey's Gothic architecture contrasts with Romanesque by its dramatic vertical domination; even the curve of the arch being broken by a point. This search for vertically paralleled feudal ideas of hierarchy, order imposed from above by God and king, and of happiness only being found in heaven. The horizontal, and all that broke the vertical, such as the leaves, flowers, fruit and fan vaulting of 'Decorated' Gothic, symbolised this world, the senses, and a greater equality among people. This decorated style may be seen in the rose-window in the South Trancept, the Choir and the Chapter House.
Its opposing trend, seen in the Abbey's Henry VII Chapel, is that of 'Perpendicular' Gothic, in which every element is subsumed in a spartan vertical monolith. This concept rapidly lost its appeal with the resultant emergence of absolute monarchs like Henry VIII, and individualism burst into the broader path of the Renaissance. The worldly ornamentation of the Decorated style then flourished as Baroque and Rococo, producing buildings such as St. Paul's Cathedral.
The Western Towers, in mock Gothic, are believed to have been designed by Sir Christopher Wren, and were not completed until 1745. The temporary Annexe seen in the stamp design was built specially for the Coronation, to shelter the assembling procession before it moved down the Nave.
