buildings
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A group of ram-raiders in Dedham, Essex drove their vehicle into the facade of a plain, old Co-Op, causing considerable damage–and revealing behind the 1950’s front a timbered-framed merchant’s house built around 1520, with earlier medieval features such as a hearth and a large cauldron blocking the doorway, possibly as a talisman to ward off…
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I haven’t heard any of this music, on the site of Leicester’s Saxon Cathedral, so cannot say what it’s like. But it sounds intriguing …
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“….With archaeological evidence of Neolithic, Iron Age and Roman settlers and the foundations of a medieval palace under the East Lawn, the present site of Fulham Palace is steeped in history….” This is how the website for the palace commences a description of the site’s history. The palace was home to bishops for fewer than…
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I have just watched a truly aggravating documentary from this 2014 series. In particular the episode called “Secrets of Westminster”. It starts with the tomb of Edward the Confessor…for which they show the correct tomb, yes, but then include a lot of lingering close-ups of the tomb effigy of Richard II. The implication is, it seems,…
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Beneath the street in the little town of Royston lies an unusual cave filled with medieval carvings that appear to date mainly from the 14thc, although some may vary. Discovered only in the late 18th century, Royston Cave has been ascribed to pagan cults and to the Knights Templar–however, I think, much more prosaically, it…
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When researching the movements of King Richard II, I came upon a reference to Knapp Castle, where he stayed in 1384. Well, it proved awkward to locate at first, but then, when searched for under its correct spelling—Knepp—there it was in West Sussex . A lot of our medieval kings stayed in the original Norman…
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London: 2000 years of history (channel 5)
Admiralty Arch, Aldwych, Alfred the Great, ampitheatres, Anderson shelters, Anglo-Saxons, Black Death, Blitz, Boudicca, bridges, Brunel, Channel Five, Charles Booth, Charles I, cholera, City of London, Commonwealth immigration, coronations, Covent Garden, Crossrail, Dan Jones, Docklands, Edward VII, Elizabeth I, Ethelred II, Euston, expansion, glass, Golden Hind, Great Fire of London, Great War, Green Belt, Guido Fawkes, GWR, Hampstead, Harold II, Henry III, Henry IV, Henry VIII, hills, industrialisation, Jack the Ripper, Joseph Bazalgette, Kent, Lamb Street Teenager, land reclaimed, Londinium, London, Londonburgh, Londonwich, Metroland, Metropolitan Line, MI5 building, Norman stone, Normans, Northern Line, Old London Bridge, Paddington, pottery, railways, rebellions, Richard II, Richard Whittington, Rob Bell, Roman walls, Romans, Royal Ordnance factories, Samuel Pepys, Savoy, Selfridges, sewage system, shipping containers, Shoreditch, Sir Christopher Wren, Sir Francis Drake, Spanish ‘flu, Spitalfields, St. Paul’s, stone, Suffragettes, Suzannah Lipscomb, Thames, Thomas Wolsey, Tower of London, trials, Underground, Viking raids, War Office, Westminster, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Hall, White Tower, Whitechapel, Whitehall Palace, William I, William Wallace, ZeppelinsWho let Dan Jones out? At least, as in his last outing, he is accompanied both by a historian (Suzannah Lipscomb) and an engineer (Rob Bell), narrating and illustrating almost two millennia of the city’s past. In the first episode, we were taken through the walled city of “Londinium” being built and rebuilt after Boudicca’s…
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Here’s a little smile—well, smirk, actually—at Henry Tudor’s expense. It’s a snip from a new book by local (to Shrewsbury) historian, David Trumper, and released in November 2018, called ‘Now That’s What I Call Shrewsbury’. “. . .One of the photos recalls a brutal snub given by Shrewsbury to Henry Tudor – or rather, volunteers…
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In 1485, there were 22 monks residing at Bath Abbey, the place where Edgar was crowned ‘King of the English’ in 973 AD. However, the abbey was in decline and by 1499, when Bishop Oliver King visited it, to his shock the building was ruinous. King began a rebuilding project, making it the last great…
The New Murrey and Blue blog 