Artefacts of the Afterlife
This week I visited the Tutankhamun Exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in London: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh. It was a beautifully curated exhibition. I was astounded to see that wooden objects survived from 3345 years ago in fantastic condition. I couldn’t help...
Funeral Hatchments at Crowcombe Church
I recently visited the Holy Ghost Parish Church at Crowcombe in The Quantock Hills, Somerset. The Carew Chapel contains some fine hatchments. Besides church architecture the fixtures and fixings provide us with clues to social history. Human social history evolves and...
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....
Exploring Building History
Exploring Building History is a non-commercial site. It is my own personal musings on architectural history. There is wealth of built heritage in England, and as I explore and think about what I see, I post my reflections on this site.