buildings
-
Today in 1917, the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was renamed the House of Windsor, at the behest of George V and his advisors. There has been a series on Channel Five about it, focussed on the Castle and Great Park, whilst rather too gossiply and less historical than it could have been, was highly informative, with…
-
Tucked away off the north ambulatory of Westminster Abbey, so small it doesn’t seem possible it’s anything more than an entrance to the adjacent Chapel of St John the Baptist (which is also known as the Chapel of St Erasmus) is the Chapel of Our Lady of the Pew. The original entrance to the St John…
-
Historical reconstruction showing the moat below the walls of Paris (left), the Bastille and the Porte Saint-Antoine (right) in 1420 We all know about the storming of the Bastille on 14th July, 1789, resulting in the continued annual celebration of the occasion throughout France. But the Bastille was a medieval fortress, and we, the English,…
-
Courtesy of the Mortimer History Society:
-
The exterior of Bradford City Hall is adorned with sculptural interpretations of the kings of England. There are forty of them, from William I to Queen Victoria. The website indicated below gives a brief description of each one. So, let us examine the likeness and description of the four kings of concern to us, Henry VI, Edward…
-
UPDATED POST AT sparkypus.com A Medieval Potpourri https://sparkypus.com/2020/05/26/the-coronation-chair-and-stone-of-scone/ As we reminded you yesterday, Richard and Anne were crowned on the 6th July 1483, a crucial part of the ceremony being when Richard was crowned with St Edward’s crown and invested with the royal regalia while sitting on the Coronation chair also known as St Edward’s chair,…
-
“King Edward III is remembered in history for starting the Hundred Years War, annexing large parts of France for England, as well as being the reigning king during the period of the Black Death. What he is infinitely less well-known for, is building a small royal residence at Rotherhithe in South East London, the remains…
-
The great hall at Dartington Hall, near Totnes in Devon, is a magnificent example of 14th-century architecture, but there is a little oddity that not everyone will notice. It concerns the supporting figures on the corbels supporting the five-bay hammerbeam timber roof. The figures are angels holding the heraldic shields of the families that have…