culture
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2025 will be the tenth anniversary of the King Richard III Visitor Centre and over the Christmas Season they’ve produced an interesting post, with lots of photographs, videos and memories of what’s happened since Richard was found in 2012. Take a look. https://x.com/kriiicentre
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No, I’m not picking a fight with Colchester’s claim to Humpty Dumpty, for they did indeed have a huge Royalist cannon called Humpty Dumpty which was destroyed by the Parliamentarians, see http://www.englishcivilwar.org/2012/04/tracing-siege-of-colchester.html and https://lordgreys.weebly.com/articles-and-features/humpty-dumpty-exploded). However, I definitely find fault with any silly notion about Richard’s horse at Bosworth being called Wall (https://murreyandblue.org/2022/01/02/humpty-dumpty-and-his-wall-were-richard-iii-and-his-horse/ and https://murreyandblue.org/2021/08/22/hey-diddle-dumpty/). That’s…
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When we think of alchemy and alchemists, we tend to categorise them as men. But no. There were women alchemists as well, as I discovered when I came upon this article which lists ten such women through history. One of the ten caught my eye. She lived in the reign of Elizabeth I, who was…
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♫♫ “Oh, the holly blooms in summer, as white as any snow….”♫♫
Celtic myths, Christmas carols, crafts, crown of thorns, dioecious, duke of argyll, fairies, foretelling, Halloween, holly, James II holly, Midsummer Day, New Year, Norse gods, plants, preston candover, robins, Roman culture, Saturnalia, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Holly and the Ivy, thor, thunderToday, 24 July, is my granddaughter’s birthday, and her name is Holly. Why was she given that particular name? Because her existence was first anticipated at Christmas. So my Holly is linked to both Christmas and Summer. She, like the holly in the above photograph, first actually bloomed at the height of summer. And her…
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As you have probably gathered by now, I’m rather partial to a spooky story, and one that appears in The Folklore of Oxfordshire by Christine Bloxham is that of the very early 16th-century Lord and Lady Tanfield and their ghostly chariot, in which they reportedly haunted Burford and Great Tew in Oxfordshire. A bit out…
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On 2 August 2019 I wrote this post—which contained the following link https://x.com/liz_lizanderson/status/1016611053394976768 concerning a portion of medieval livery badge thought to be that of Henry Holand, 3rd Duke of Exeter. The 3rd duke fought for Henry VI and died mysteriously at sea, it’s thought at the instruction of the very Yorkist Edward IV. The…
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For the purposes of this article, the sweet lady in question is Philippa of Hainault, the queen of Edward III of England. She was very interested in gardens and in acquiring new flowers. Perhaps she was influenced by her French mother, Joan of Valois, Countess of Hainault, who in around 1340 sent some cuttings of…
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As you can read here—A Brief History of Pearls -Story of Pearls, Facts about Pearls (americanpearl.com)—pearls have found favour with mankind for a very long time, and rightly so, for they are truly beautiful. That sheen. That cool-yet-warm glow. That delicate shade of….of whichever pearl you happen to be admiring at the time. For they…
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One of the things about being awarded, or inheriting, a peerage or baronetcy in the Early Modern period was the necessity to keep up appearances. Great families would compete to have better servants than their contemporaries. Whilst employing a better butler or housekeeper would be a relatively inconspicuous maintenance issue, a designer or gardener could…
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