buildings
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MORE ON ELIZABETH WOODVILLE’S LOST CHAPEL, LITTLE ANNE MOWBRAY AND THE WOMEN OF THE MINORIES
“Princes”, “Princess in the Police Station”, Anne Mowbray, Catherine of Valois, Chapel of Erasmus Westminster Abbey, Convent of the Minoresses, Earls of Shrewsbury, Edward IV, Elizabeth Woodville, Henry VII, House of Mowbray, J.P. Reedman, Katherine of Valois, London bombsites, Minories, Samuel Pepys, Sir James Tyrell, Sir Robert Brackenbury, St George’s Chapel WindsorWhile researching my novel on Anne Mowbray, the child bride of Richard of Shrewsbury, younger of the two Princes in the Tower, I found out several things I was previously unaware of. I knew, of course that young Anne’s burial was accidentally discovered in a crypt under a London bombsite that had disappeared. It was…
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One of the largest mass-burial sites ever found in the UK has been discovered next to Leicester Cathedral. It contains “….the skeletal remains of 123 men, women and children dumped down a narrow vertical shaft in the early 12th century….’Their bones show no signs of violence – which leaves us with two alternative reasons for…
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By Super Blue Channel Four’s occasional series about the lives of the Royal Family is back and this time it is focused upon Scotland. Dumfries House in Ayrshire is mentioned as is Glamis Castle, the home of their Bowes-Lyon ancestors, arguing that Scotland is where they feel most at home. Most of the hour was…
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If you hear a wailing and gashing of teeth, both anguished sounds will be emanating from me. Why? Because my rudimentary archaeological endeavours in my garden continue to unearth clay pipes The darned things show no sign of becoming rare and valuable. Other people find great treasures of one sort of another; I find…
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This was shown on BBC2 over three consecutive Mondays, featuring an all-Italian excavation of the abandoned city and the British volcanologist Dr. Chris Jackson. It featured the familiar story of the two-day eruption and pyrochastic flow killing thousands, including Pliny the Elder, before they could escape as many ran from the lava towards the sea…
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Today, 16 October, in 1987 something happened that most of us who are old enough will remember very clearly. Overnight we’d endured the raging of a terrible storm (see here, here and here). The resultant destruction of property and trees meant that Sevenoaks in Kent no longer had its famous seven oaks! In the…
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The disgraceful second marriage of the unpleasant 3rd Earl of Arundel….
“Copped Hat”, annulment, Arundel Castle, bigamy, Bodleian Library, child marriage, clement vi, dispensations, Earl of Arundel, Edmund Crouchback, Edward II, Eleanor of Lancaster, executions, Fitzalans, Havering atte Bower, Henry III, Henry of Lancaster, Hugh Despencer the Younger, illegitimate children, Isabel le Despenser, John Beaumont, Kathryn Warner, Lewes Priory, Limoges, National Portrait Gallery, popes, prisoners, Saint-Martial, scandal, Sir Edmund Arundel, tournaments, Tower of LondonIn January 1376, 63-year-old Richard Fitzalan, 3rd/10th (depending on how you calculate it) Earl of Arundel, passed away at Arundel Castle and was interred at Lewes Priory, where his 54-year-old second wife had lain to rest since 1372. The earl was nicknamed “Copped Hat” because of the type of gabled headwear he favoured, and he…
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I recently watched an episode of Antiques Road Trip in which a sequence was set in Hedingham Castle in Essex. It was Series 11, Episode 23, in which art experts Mark Stacy and Thomas Plant travelled through Essex and Suffolk on their way to an auction in Cambridgeshire. I fear I have not been able…
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The simple but elegant tomb of King Richard III at Leicester Cathedral is known to us all, and has been visited by thousands of people, but the cathedral itself needed attention and so the decision was made to close it for nearly two years while a considerable upgrading was carried out. But what you see…
The New Murrey and Blue blog 