culture
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Haunted Essex
Colchester Castle, Cross Keys Saffron Walden, Essex, executions, Green Man Harlow, Harwich Redoubt, haunting, Howards, James Parnell, Kelvedon Nuclear Bunker, Manningtree, Matthew Hopkins, Mistley Pond, North Weald Station, Red Lion Colchester, Rose and Crown Colchester, St. Osyth, Ursula Kemp, Valence House Dagenham, White Hart Coggeshall, witchcraftSome of the venues in this article are surprising and the nocturnal visits sound very expensive but they include some classic historical venues. In Colchester, the Castle and (Howard) Red Lion are included, as is the Redoubt at Harwich, although the Kelvedon Nuclear Bunker and North Weald Station are much newer. In the north of…
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Dyer or Dire?
Anthony Adolph, BBC1, Berkeley Castle, Buckingham Palace, Catherine Cromwell, Chris Given-Wilson, codpieces, coinage, dancing, Danny Dyer, Danny Dyer’s Right Royal Family, Denmark, direct descent, Dover Castle, Dukes of Normandy, dyeing, Edward II, Edward III, Elizabeth Norton, fencing, France, Helmingham Hall, Henry II, Henry Percy, Henry VIII, Historyonics, horses, Hugh le Despenser, Isabella de Valois, Jane Seymour, jousting, Leeds Castle, Louis IX, Nick Knowles, Norway, Piers Gaveston, Ray Winstone, red hot poker, Roger Mortimer, Rollo the Viking, saints, Shrewsbury, Sir John Seymour, St. Margaret of Wessex, sugar banquet, Sweden, Thomas Becket, Tobias Capwell, Tower of London, Tracy Borman, West Ham, Who do you think you are?, William I, Wolf HallMany of you will remember the episode of “Who do you think you are” in which Danny Dyer was revealed as a descendant of Edward III. In this new two part series, he “meets” a few prominent ancestors, some even more distant. The first episode began with Rollo, ancestor of the Dukes of Normandy, which…
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I know I have (more than once!) written of a strange string of coincidences connecting Richards II and III and their queens, both named Anne. Now I have come upon another question that puzzles me. It is well known that Richard II loved his Anne deeply, and was distraught when she died suddenly in the summer…
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What was Christmas like for Richard III? I’m thinking particularly of 1483, his first as king. He still had both his wife and child, and the future must have looked set for a long and prosperous reign. He was only to have two Christmases as king, and by 1484 he and Anne had lost their…
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“Let us consider some of our genuine English culinary assets. Among the best of them are our cured and salted meats. Hams, gammons, salt silversides…” So begins one of Elizabeth David’s chapters in “Spices, Salts and Aromatics in The English Kitchen,” a charming book that takes us through centuries of English cookery with its yin…
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A friend in America sent me the following article, by Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post. Having just been researching the ancient route from Paris to Lyon, as it was in the late 14th century, I found it very interesting to think that the routes and places chosen by the Romans all those centuries ago, are…
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Once again, looking for one thing led to another – this time to a fascinating site about the history of Nuneaton. It provides interesting year-by-year, century-by-century snippets about historic events, the weather, and…did you know that hops, onions and cabbage were introduced from Flanders in 1400? No, nor me. Click to access nuneaton_history_alan_cook.pdf
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I know that gin is the tipple at the moment. Wherever you go, the selection of gin that is available is really quite astonishing. Oh, dear, can’t stand the stuff myself. Anyway, it now seems that Fotheringhay, Richard’s birthplace, is to launch a special gin in his honour in Fotheringhay Village Hall on 30th November,…
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