A review of Westminster Abbey: Behind Closed Doors….

I have now watched all of the Channel 5 series Westminster Abbey: Behind Closed Doors, which is so packed with information that I hardly know where to begin with this review. Aha, did I hear you say the beginning might be a good idea? You’re right, so here goes with a selection of descriptions from…

The art that made us

This is another fascinating BBC2 series, illustrating English and British history through the evolution of our art. The eight one-hour episodes, narrated by David Threlfall (Men of the World), feature:The Roman and pre-Roman periods, Beowulf, the Norman conquest and the Bayeux Tapestry;     The Black Death, Wilton Diptych, Piers Plowman, Chaucer, Julian of Norwich,…

St Paul’s Cathedral, before, during and after the fire of 1666….

We all know what St Paul’s Cathedral looks like now – that enormous Wren dome looming over the City of London from Ludgate Hill. The above illustration is a reconstructon of the original St Paul’s. What a wonderful building! And how tragic that it was burned down in that cursed fire of 1666. There is…

Great Tom came before Big Ben….!

  Now that it seems probable/possible that “Big Ben” will not be fully restored and ringing again until 2022, perhaps it is….ahem….timely to remember that he was not the first such huge bell, nor was the Elizabeth Tower the first bell tower to be erected close to Westminster Palace and Hall. There was a predecessor,…

Oh where, Oh where, has Chaucer’s “Foul Oak” gone….?

    According to Project Gutenberg, on 6th September 1390 Geoffrey Chaucer was mugged at a place called the Foul Oak, but not the Baginton Oak. Rather was it on what we now call the Old Kent Road but was originally the Roman Watling Street, leading out of London, on the way to Canterbury and…

Discovering Shakespeare’s London

Panorama of Old London.  The Old Bridge stood to the west of the new one.   https://www.britain-magazine.com/features/inspiration/shakespeares-london/. Of course Shakespearean London is post Ricardian but most of  the streets and buildings covered in this interesting article would have been there in Richard’s time. For anyone visiting London,  this article  would be an excellent referral point…

London: 2000 years of history (channel 5)

Who let Dan Jones out? At least, as in his last outing, he is accompanied both by a historian (Suzannah Lipscomb) and an engineer (Rob Bell), narrating and illustrating almost two millennia of the city’s past. In the first episode, we were taken through the walled city of “Londinium” being built and rebuilt after Boudicca’s…

The Fabulous Cheapside Hoard….

I have just watched a fascinating BBC documentary from 2013, concerning the amazing hoard of 17th-Century (and earlier) jewels that was found in Cheapside at the beginning of the 20th Century. The documentary is called Secret Knowledge: The Hidden Jewels of the Cheapside Hoard, and was presented by modern jeweller, Shaun Leane. You can see…

Tales of a Ricardian Traveler – Debunking a Myth at Dartington Hall

Originally posted on RICARDIAN LOONS:
Lady on Horseback, mid-15th c., British Museum Dartington Hall, near Totnes in Devon and just southeast of Dartmoor National Park, represents a uniquely British form of historical contradiction. It is both medieval, having parts of a Grade I-listed late 14th century manor house, and modern, being the current home of…

TREASON 2 – The Parliament Of Devils, 1459

Introduction This is the second of two articles I have written about treason. In the first article, I wrote about the Merciless Parliament of 1388 at which eighteen of king Richard II’s closest advisors and friends were tried by parliament and condemned as traitors, against the king’s wishes. In this article I am writing about…