Norfolk
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Huge volcanic eruptions have always affected parts of the world that are often far, far away from the centre of the event. A famous (to me) example of this was in 1815 with Mount Tambora (in what is now Indonesia) which created such clouds and darkness that it made 1816 “the Year Without a…
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This BBC article explains how a Californian follower on Twitter solved the case of an inscription on a mediaeval silver seal matrix. The wording on the rim is almost certainly Declina a Malo et fac bonum (“decline from evil and do good”) from Psalm 36:27 (ie 37 nowadays).
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We all know that ladies of the Victorian era often fainted because their corsets were too tightly laced. A tiny waist was highly desirable. Well, it still is, of course, but not to such a ridiculous extent. This tortuous lacing would have been difficult enough for young women to endure, but Heaven alone knows…
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Recently Bacton Priory, destroyed in the Reformation, has recently been recreated as a 3D model to show how it may have appeared in the late Middle Ages. This is part of a project on the Paston family, who wrote over 1000 letters during the Wars of the Roses period, helping to give historians greater…
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Ah, how we all love to hope that one day some vital documents pertaining to Richard III will turn up…in an old, old chest in a long-forgotten corner of an undercroft…or at the top of an ivy-covered tower with a spiral staircase so dangerous it’s dodgy to even breathe near it! Or, as in this…
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Here we have the poet and hymnwright William Cowper (left), who we referred to in our previous article but couldn’t find the evidence for the Essex anniversary in February. The usual sources have been a little troublesome but we know from Lord David Cecil’s The Stricken Deer that he was the great-nephew of an Earl…
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We all know the Bayeux Tapestry, and marvel at it. Now it has a smaller twin that can be admired just as much. The following passage is from this article. “. . .Grandfather hand-carved 230FOOT wooden scale model of Bayeux Tapestry to help get over the death of his teenage son (despite missing three fingers…