Thomas Hardy
-
My father was a Dorset man—Bridport born and bred—and was always proud of his county. And rightly so. It is indeed breathtakingly beautiful and unspoiled. I remember as a child the excitement of changing trains at Maiden Newton, to take the branch line to Bridport. Leaving the rush and noise of the main tracks and…
-
Wanted …
Albert Dock, Alice Roberts, ampitheatres, anchorites, Anglo-Dutch Wars, Anglo-Saxon burials, animal bones, Antony Bek, Auckland Castle, Bishop’s Stortford, Blitz, Cat Jarman, chapels, Cheshire, Civil War, cobalt mines, Coleshill Manor, copper, Cornwall, debased coinage, demolition, digging for Britain, docks, Dorchester, Dorset, Edinburgh, Elizabeth I, English Channel, fire, fireplaces, flint tools, forts, Harlaxton Hall, Haverfordwest, henges, Henry VIII, hill forts, Holyrood Park, HS2, Hull, Iron Age, Isabelle German, Islay, jewellery, Lincolnshire, Liverpool, Loftus, Londonderry, matriarchy, Mercia, midlands, Mint, Neolithic Era, Old Coppernose, osteoparosis, Oxford, Peterborough, piermasters, prince bishops, Priories, recolouring, rheumatoid arthritis, Robert Greville Lord Brooke, Roche, Roman baths, Romans, roundhouses, Rutland, Rutland mosaic, salting, Scarborough, shields, sieges, silver plating, South Blockhouse, spiral staircases, Stane Street, Streethouse, Stuart Prior, syphilis, The Anarchy, Thomas Hardy, Tower of London, Vespasian, Victorians, volcanoes, Wessex Archaeology, Western Isles, Wiltshire, York, YorkshireDigging for Britain is back, just twenty hours into the New Year, for series 10 (excluding a few specials). Alice Roberts is still the host, with Cat Jarman and Stuart Prior. The first episode included a Roman road in Bishop’s Stortford, an Iron Age matriarchy excavated in Dorset and a Lady of the Mercians (but…
-
An Irish take on the British peerage system
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Charles “III”, Charles I, Charles II, Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Birkenhead, Earl of Wessex, Edward Earl of Wessex, executions, Godwin Earl of Wessex, hereditary peers, House of Lords, Ireland, Irish Central, Irish Treaty, Niall O’Dowd, Oliver Cromwell, posthumous execution, royal titles, Thomas Hardy, Viscount CastlereaghHere is an article from Niall O’Dowd of “Irish Central” to mark the accession of Charles III. It makes a number of good points, although some others are debateable:1) Wessex may have ceased to be as a Kingdom when Athelstan took over the others (Mercia, Northumbria and East Anglia) but it had Earls in the…
-
Anne of Cleves’ House
Anne of Cleves, Anne of Cleves’ House, annulments, Archbishop Cranmer, car homes, Chelsea Old Manor, Greenwich Palace, Hans Holbein, Haverhill, Henry VIII, Jedburgh, John Ashdown-Hill, london overspill towns, Mary Queen of Scots’ House, non-consummation, physiotherapists, Rochester Abbey, Royal Marriage Secrets, Suffolk, Thomas Cromwell, Thomas HardyHere it is, the house in Haverhill that the “sister” of Henry VIII lived in for a few years, as part of their non-consummation annulment settlement, only six months after the “marriage” in Greenwich to follow a betrothal at Rochester. She outlived Henry, Holbein who painted her, Cromwell who arranged the wedding, Cranmer who presided…
-
Here is an amusing read in the Horrible Histories vein…well, its title tells that much. Richard III gets a mention. It seems Jane Austen questioned “…’whether Richard III really did kill his nephews, writing: he was a York [and] I am inclined to suppose him a very respectable man’…” But yes, it’s a send-up. Heaven…
-
There are so many wonderful old buildings nestling away in the British countryside. We are so lucky to still have them. Beautiful 15th-century Great Chalfield Manor in Wiltshire was “loved back to life by an Edwardian engineer, Robert Fuller, and his scholarly architect, Sir Harold Brakspear”. Now it has been rescued again. “. . .…
The New Murrey and Blue blog 