Digging for Treasure

There are several interesting archaeology series on television and Channel Five has now joined in with an ensemble programme, headed by two familiar personalities (Dan Walker and Michaela Strachan) and a similarly ubiquitous chief archaeologist (Raksha Dave), but with more of an emphasis on metal detecting for the British Museum’s Portable Antiquities Scheme, including Roman…

London Bridge and Its Houses c.1209-1761 by Dorian Gerhold – a review.

Reblogged from A Medieval Potpourri @ sparkypus.com A view of the bridge  from Southwark, c.1630.  Note the houses that are standing to the south of the Stone Gate, shown here adorned with heads on pikes, were in fact on the first pier of the bridge.  This is one of the few remaining pictures showing the city…

ANOTHER PRECIOUS FIND TO ADD TO THE MIDDLEHAM JEWEL AND RING..

Reblogged from A Medieval Potpourri sparkypus.com The Middleham Jewel, AD 1450-1500.  Photo Anthony  Chappel Ross, Courtesy York Museums Trust. Two metal detectorists have recently had a sumptous litte find.  A tiny gold bible beautifully engraved.  Which is great.  But what makes their find super great is that it is yet another discovery made near the remains…

London’s Greatest Bridges (continued)

This series finally resumed on Channel Five at the beginning of October, to cover two of the newer structures over the Thames, neither of which are in the original form. As usual, Rob Bell’s enthusiasm is infectious and his programmes are highly informative. Episode Three covered Westminster Bridge. By 1700, the population of London was…

London’s Greatest Bridges (with Rob Bell)

The series began at London Bridge itself. From an engineering perspective, Bell explained that the wooden Claudian bridge was the first across the Thames , built on no fewer than twenty-nine artificial islands, making it very difficult to negotiate. It was replaced with a very similar stone unit by Henry II. The Haberdashers were very…

An early 17th-century view of Windsor Castle….

The image above is not one that I’ve seen before – but that’s just me, no doubt you all recognise it. It’s from the Album amicorum of “a man named Michael van Meer, who seems to have lived in Hamburg and travelled to London around 1614–15”. Unlike imagined reconstructions, this drawing was made of the…

Not all Speakers of the House of Commons left gracefully….

  Well, while researching the Painted Chamber of Westminster Palace, with particular reference to the “Good Parliament” of 1376, I couldn’t help imagining today’s House of Commons faced, not with someone like John Bercow (whose birthday it is today and is quite short with a head), but Edward the First! Can you just imagine old…

A corkscrew made from bits of Old London Bridge….

In 2014, a broken Victorian corkscrew made from pieces of old London Bridge was bought for £40,000 at an auction in Essex, over 100 times its asking price. See this article/, from which the following is taken:- “The corkscrew, the components of which are thought to be up to 800 years old, was bought by…

The Maligned Queen in the Car Park

Added to the list of monarchs and notables found or potentially to be found beneath car parks, tennis courts, and other such mundane places must be the Queen of Henry III, Eleanor of Provence. Buried in Amesbury Priory after her body was kept in ‘storage’ by the nuns for two months while her son, Edward…

CROSBY PLACE – HOME TO THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER 1483

UPDATED POST AT sparkypus.com A Medieval Potpourri https://sparkypus.com/2020/05/18/crosby-place-home-to-the-duke-and-duchess-of-gloucester/ The arms of Richard III in Crosby Hall  On June 5th 1483 the Duchess of Gloucester arrived in London and joined her husband at Crosby Place (1).  She had left both her small son and and  home at Middleham to join her husband, who had been staying…