Kent
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As you may have gathered by now, I have done a lot of poking around (ahem, research 🙄) concerning Westenhanger Castle in Kent.(1) My concern has been what went on there in the late 14th century.(2) Well, there are times when the Internet is a double-edged sword for an amateur in search of accurate history.…
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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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SIR ROBERT BRACKENBURY – ‘gentle Brakenbery….*
“Princes”, “The History of King Richard III”, Battle of Bosworth, Buckingham rebellion, Calais, Constable of the Tower, Durham, Essex, Graham Turner, ightham mote, John Greene, John of Gloucester, Kent, Philippa Langley, Polydore Vergil, Ricardian Bulletin, richard haute, royal hunting estates, selaby, Sir Robert Brackenbury, Stony Stratford, Thomas More, tunbridge castle, W.E. Hampton, Walter HungerfordMy latest sparkypus.com post… The last charge of King Richard III. It is possible that it was during this charge that Sir Robert Brackenbury fell, alongside his king. Painting by artist Graham Turner **********SIR THOMAS MORE , A MAN FOR ALL REASONS: SAINT OR SINNER? ‘Of all Richard III’s Northern Lieutenants few were…
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Digging for Britain (series 11)
Alice Roberts, bags, bath houses, Cardiff, Carlisle, Chedworth, defences, digging for Britain, docks, dodecahedrons, Domesday Book, Dorset, Dover, Enfield, evacuation, Exeter Cathedral, flint tools, forty hall, Gloucester, Grampians, gun emplacement, Henry V, Hereford, Imber, Kent, Leicester cathedral, Lincoln, Lowther Castle, Marshes, mosaic tiles, mudlarking, Norfolk, Northampton, norton disney, nunneries, Owain Glyn Dwr, Platonic solids, postern gates, pubs, Roman Britain, roundhouses, Scotland, Septimus Severus, shoes, Smallhythe, Snodhill Castle, Strathclyde, Syston, timber, Tintern Abbey, trade, Trellau Park, Wales, Waterloo, William II, WW2 defences, WyeAs another year dawns, it must be time for another series of Britain’s archeological highlights, divided into five regions. This time, it started in the north with Carlisle Cricket Club hosting a dig associated with the bathhouse of the emperor Septimius Severus, a particularly steep part of the Grampians and Lowther Castle, a site that…
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All too often Kent, the “garden of England” is thought of as the county to come and go through, with not too much stopping on the way. But it’s a very beautiful county with a huge amount of history, and this article is about a week spent there simply exploring. It goes through the days…
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The boy who had been King Edward V….
“confessions”, “Lambert Simnel”, “Oakhanger”, “Perkin”, “Princes”, attainder, Battle of Bosworth, Battle of Stoke, bigamy, Catherine of Aragon, Coldridge, Devon, Dublin Cathedral, Edward of Warwick, Edward V, Elizabeth of York, Essex, executions, fiction, fire, George Duke of Clarence, Havering atte Bower, Henry of Buckingham, Henry VI, Henry VII, hunting lodges, illegitimacy, imposture, John Earl of Lincoln, Kent, Lady Catherine Gordon, Lady Margaret Beaufort, Lord Protector of the Realm, Ludlow Castle, Margaret of Burgundy, notebooks, Oxford, Portuguese marriage plans, Richard III, Richard of Shrewsbury, Richmond Palace, Sheen, Sir John Evans, Sir William Stanley, Spain, Thomas Grey Marquess of Dorset, Thomas Stanley, Titulus Regius, Tower of LondonLadies and gentlemen, please remember that this novella is a fictional account of what might have happened to the boys known as the Princes in the Tower. The theory about Coldridge is not my original thought, nor have I done anything personally to help prove it. To my knowledge there is nowhere called Oakhanger in Kent, let alone that it was held by the Earl of Lincoln. I…
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The news has broken that the Book of Hours belonging to Thomas Cromwell is here which appears in the Holbein portrait above, has been recognised (by Hever Castle curator, Alison Palmer) as the Hardouyn Hours, held today at Trinity College, Cambridge. You can view the Hardouyn Hours page by page at the Wren Digital…
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London created champagne before the French….!
abbeys, Anglo-Saxons, Bermondsey, Bishops of Ely, champagne, Christopher Hatton, Christopher Merrett, churches, Duchy of Cornwall, Elizabeth I, Farringdon Road, France, Gloucestershire, Hatton Garden, Henry VI, Holborn Viaduct, Kennington, Kent, London, methode champenoise, Piccadilly, Rocque’s Map, Romans, Saffron Hill, Samuel Pepys, secondary fermentation, Smithfield, Southwark, St. Andrew Holborn, St. Augustine’s Abbey, The Oval, Vindolanda, Vineyard Walk, vineyards, Wales, WestminsterYes indeed, it seems that Londoners invented champagne. It’s a claim that won’t go down well across La Manche, and I found it at this site, which is also where I found the illustration from Rocque’s Map below. “…If you could time travel back to medieval London you would [find it] awash with vineyards at…