Scagliola in Somerset: The Baroque Poulett Memorial at Hinton St George circa 1668
Tucked away in the Poulett chapel of St George’s Church, Hinton St George is one of the earliest works of scagliola in England. It is a remarkable work full of Baroque wonder. The Baroque in Europe arose circa 1600 and lasted until circa 1725. The memorial is for John...
Taking the waters since AD 60: The Cross Bath, Bath
Amongst my many ambitions is to desire to get to know the City of Bath better. I recently spent a morning on business there and couldn’t resist a little meander off the main high street. My quest led me down Bath Street, where facing me at the end is a near-triangular...
Earls Colne Church: Morality & Punishment in the Elizabethan Parish
Earls Colne, Parish Church of St Andrew, Essex A fascinating repository of parish records for the village of Earls Colne has been put together by a team at the University of Cambridge. The project that created the database ran from 1972 until 2002. The database...
The Skimmington Ride – Montacute House, South Somerset
Montacute House is a rare survival from the late Elizabethan moving into the early-Jacobean period. In this post I wish to examine an aspect of decoration in the great hall that tells of how local villagers would deal with a particular transgression of a neighbour....
Adoration of the Magi: Wall Painting at Berry Pomeroy, South Devon
On the first floor of the gatehouse at Berry Pomeroy Castle are the remains of a finely executed wall painting of the Adoration of the Magi. It dates from circa 1490 to 1500. (Kightly, Berry Pomeroy Castle, p. 7). The original castle, of which the gatehouse and...
Ambition in Terracotta: Layer Marney Gatehouse circa 1520
The spectacular gatehouse of Layer Marney is embellished with astounding terracotta ornamentation. This is particularly impressive when taking the date of its build into consideration. It was built during the early part of Henry VIII’s reign (reign was 1509 to 1547)....
Exploring Building History
Exploring Building History is a website and blog dedicated to establishing a resource of historical information related to the built heritage of England. The regular blog posts aim to provide the reader with a diversity of architectural history subjects. This could be a particular building, individual, monument, subject area, architectural element or historical source. Downloadable factsheets, produced on a regular basis, provide a snapshot of relevant historical data for building history study.