Mar 19, 2022
On a recent visit to Rome, I found myself wondering what it must have been like for the young patrician of the 18th C Grand Tour. Travelling would not have been comfortable and may well have been dangerous at times. But the arrival in Rome would have fortified the...
Feb 26, 2022
Many years ago, I happened upon Nunney Castle whilst out on a walk in the area. I was mesmerised by this ruined castle, set in the centre of a village surrounded by a moat. It was not the classic, Norman stronghold on a rocky outcrop. I felt I had been transported...
Feb 13, 2022
The term ‘Caernarfon lintel or arch’ comes from the use at Edward I’s Caernarfon Castle of the frequent use of passage doorways with shouldered lintels sitting on convex corbels. Edward’s castle at Caernarfon was started in 1283. These doorways also at exist at Wells...
Jan 30, 2022
England still retains a number of lock-ups, clinks or ‘blind houses’. They were used as staging posts to hold an offender on their route to a magistrate’s court. They were also used to incarcerate those disturbing the peace, vagrants, and drunks. The parish was...
Jan 16, 2022
Main Picture: Wall Painting of Thomas Becket restored in 1984 at St Thomas a Becket Church, South Cadbury, Somerset. The year 2020 was the 850th anniversary of Thomas Becket’s death and the 800th anniversary of the translation of his body to a new shrine in Canterbury...
