The New Murrey and Blue blog

Alice Roberts has been back on our screens with a third series of the above. This time, she visited (Mediaeval) Lincoln, (Restoration) London, (Naval) Portsmouth, (Elizabethan) Plymouth, (Steam Age) Glasgow, (Georgian) Edinburgh and (Industrial Revolution) Manchester, albeit not in chronological order like the two previous series. There was a focus on Nicola de la Haye at the Second Battle of Lincoln, Charles II’s scientific and theatrical interests, Nelson‘s career and Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, Drake, Hawkins and Raleigh against the Armada as well as voyages to America, the great medical discoveries of a cramped Glasgow, the closes of Edinburgh with evidence of the first overdraft and some body-snatching and the influence of Marx, Engels and the Corn Laws in Manchester. As usual, Roberts (left) is accompanied by Ben Robinson in the helicopter, flying over the seven towns in question, all of which are now cities, as are all but one or two of the other twelve.