Dec 19, 2022
The game of fives became a popular sport in South Somerset from the mid-18th C. There are churchwarden accounts that record the problem of fives being played against church towers. One way around this was to construct purpose-built fives walls. These were mainly built...
Oct 5, 2022
Last week I caught an early train to London to visit a few places. I travelled into Paddington and then walked to the Wallace Collection in Hertford House, Manchester Square, W1. I ambled as the gallery does not open until ten. I reflected on the relative safety of...
Aug 31, 2022
Following the development of the elite country house from the medieval period onwards, it is evident there is a discontinuity in architectural function from the Romano-British culture. The break is the influence of Anglo-Saxon culture, who have a preoccupation with...
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...
Sep 25, 2021
Tewkesbury Abbey was originally a Benedictine monastery and is now a parish church. It was built in the early 12th C and remains, although in part, a significant example of Norman architecture. In the 14th C the abbey received an upgrade. This post looks at the...
Aug 3, 2021
THE SHELL GROTTO AT JORDANS, SOMERSET Shell grottoes grew as a fashion in the 18th C. The grotto was a creation of somewhere ‘other’ than the formal country house and garden. A magical place embellished with exotic shells, corals, fossils, stalactites, stones and...
