INSIDE THE MEDIEVAL MIND: THE WALL PAINTINGS OF NETHER WALLOP

In the small quaint Hampshire village of Nether Wallop, filming location for the BBC’s MISS MARPLE, stands St Andrew’s church, a medieval establishment built on Saxon foundations. From the exterior it looks rather ordinary (save for the strange funerary pyramid in its grounds!) but inside is a glory of wall-paintings dating from the Saxon era…

1066: A Year to Conquer the Cauliflower….

According to Mark Twain, “A cauliflower is nothing but a cabbage with a college education.” And maybe he’s right, but the BBC documentary series “1066: A Year to Conquer England”, starts off with cauliflowers that must have had a Tesco education. There they sit, large, super-white, plump, and nestling in beautifully tender, pale green supermarket-trimmed…

Coming up this year:

As you can see, Kit Harrington will soon portray Robert Catesby in a BBC drama about the Gunpowder Plot. Catesby, shot while resisting arrest, was one of the lucky ones. Then again, our folk memory of the seventeenth century is not entirely accurate. Here it is.

A fictional treason case

In real life, there were no high treason cases in the United Kingdom after 1946 and no peacetime cases after 1913. However, regular viewers of Crown Court, which was shown on ITV from 1972-84, will have seen an episode in which a Congolese man was convicted and sentenced to death during that time. The episode…

THE DOCTOR AT BOSWORTH?

Recently the fannish world was shocked by the announcement that Peter Capaldi would be leaving the role of Doctor Who. Several of us sagely nodded and said that, along with a new Doctor, why not produce an episode which features Richard III, since he has been the ‘king in the news’ these past few years…

The Black Cat of Kidwelly….

  The picture left above is from https://tinyurl.com/h3s5pds, the one on the right is from https://blackcatrescue.wordpress.com/tag/black-cat-myth/ Last night I watched a programme in which the family history of the actor Ioan Gruffudd was traced. Rather amusingly, right at the end, he learned he was descended from Edward I, the very king who subjugated Wales. Oh, what…

Gloves? Or bare hands….?

BBC TWO: Henry VIII’s Enforcer: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Cromwell, information concerning which will be found here. This programme is very interesting, and I recommend it, but it’s not the content that has prompted me to write this, rather the treatment of an ancient copy of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s “History of the Kings…

Perhaps they should call it …

… “Primary School Challenge”? According to one of the Cambridge teams on January 9th, Edward IV and Edward V had the same mother. According to Jeremy Paxman, Margaret “Beaufort” was married to the Duke of Burgundy. To be fair, she did marry four times, even though the first was annulled. Oh dear. Weshall have to…

Brat Farrar

Josephine Tey’s novel Brat Farrar is widely perceived as having been based on the Victorian Tichborne case where a well-upholstered Australia-based butcher’s son posed as the missing claimant to a baronetcy. Arthur Orton/ Castro persuaded Roger Tichborne’s mother that he was the heir to the title, but very few others and lost his court cases.…

The return of an old favourite

Time Commanders, the television programme that replayed old battles from a studio and saw a Norman army lose at Hastings – oh yes – is back after eleven years. There will only be three episodes and Richard Hammond has given way to the somewhat louder Gregg Wallace but it will be on BBC4 tonight at…