buildings
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This useful guide is a vital accessory when you next visit the Middle Ages. How will you manage without your mobile phone, internet or social media? When transport means walking or, for the better off, horse-back, how will you know where you are or where to go? Where will you live and what should you…
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When we wonder about our DNA, origins and so on, there’s one that I’m pretty sure will never turn up in my distant history: I am not descended from troglodytes. I hate going underground—the Circle Line in London made my hair stand on end. My entire experience of caves consists of Cheddar, Wookey Hole and…
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Reblogged from A Medieval Potpourri @ sparkypus.com A view of the bridge from Southwark, c.1630. Note the houses that are standing to the south of the Stone Gate, shown here adorned with heads on pikes, were in fact on the first pier of the bridge. This is one of the few remaining pictures showing the city…
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According to The Prince’s Master Crafters: The Next Generation (Sky Arts), a new young generation of crafters is desperately needed to halt a virtual haemorrhage of endangered skills, and who better to drum up support than His Royal Highness, Prince of Wales, who is always at the forefront of matters concerning our heritage. The…
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Recently the rains washed off some soil in a muddy Shropshire field, and yet another metal detectorist had a lucky find–a hawking ring from the Elizabethan period. The most intriguing thing to me was the very bold lettering spelling the name JOHN TALBOT AT GRAFTON across the band of the tiny ring. As it was…
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Finding the Roman roads of England and Wales can be tricky, but now there’s a “London Underground” map that identifies them all. Well, not quite, but mostly. On discovering this site I went immediately to find Stone Street in Kent…but it’s marked as unnamed. Stone Street is definitely a Roman road. It’s still there and…
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St. Philip Howard and the greyhound in the Tower
4th Duke of Norfolk, Anne Dacre, Armada, attainder, attempted exile, Catholicism, Church of England, dysentery, executions, Father Edmund Campion, Father Robert Southwell, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, Jesuits, John Foxe, Lady Mary Fitzalan, martyrs, Philip Howard Earl of Arundel, restoration in blood, saints, treasonPhilip Howard, lived from 1557-1595. He was the only son of Thomas Howard 4th Duke of Norfolk by his first wife, Lady Mary Fitzalan who was, of course, the Arundel heiress. Philip’s father was executed for treason against Queen Elizabeth I in 1572, which explains why Philip was not allowed to succeed as Duke of…
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I love to see historic properties come up for sale. They are almost always wonderful on the outside and inside, but Earshall Castle in Scotland (55 miles from Edinburgh) has proved the exception. It’s the ancestral home of relatives of Robert the Bruce, but you wouldn’t know it. Yes, it’s beautiful and dramatic on the…
The New Murrey and Blue blog 