A broad landscape of archaeology, history and heritage.
It’s that time of year again, the end of November, turning into December. As I write, it is less than a month from the winter solstice. Everything becomes greyer, the dark shadows expand, and corners of rooms disappears. The leaves are at the end of their tether, with great mashes of mulch on the roads […]
Read More Mid WinterA few years ago, I bravely decided to take some photographs of reused masonry in the south wall of Winchester Cathedral. There were some wonderful carvings and details, which I had intrigued me since a child. Before I knew it people were stopping and asking what I was up to. I explained and with that […]
Read More I take photographs of wallsThe City of London seems to be built on coffee shops. Every street, alley way, has at least one. There are certain chains that even locate their shops around the corner form each other, almost in competition with themselves. Obviously there is capacity for the multitude of coffee shops, but it amazes me how so […]
Read More The Coffee HousesI almost spat my coffee across the train carriage when I saw my name in a 15th century manuscript.
Read More The 15th Century Ancestor.This short cold period we are in, and my research on 17th century coffee houses took my mind to wearing wigs.
Read More It’s cold out there… wear a wig.J.T. Smith published the Ancient Topography of London in 1815. Within it, I discovered a “sunken building”.
Read More J.T. Smith’s Ancient Topography of LondonThis is a hillfort with a limited future”, says a reviewer talking about Flower’s Barrow, an Iron Age hillfort on the Dorset coast. Its life is limited. It seems appropriate to look at something falling into the sea this month, as last September I wrote about Dunwich, a medieval town that has slowly disappeared into […]
Read More Flower’s BarrowThe heat did me in this week. I am usually OK with high temperatures, or at least I thought I was. I have often worked outside in soaring temperatures. As an archaeologist I worked in wide open fields during heatwaves and remember the sweat dripping off my nose like a leaking tap. I developed a […]
Read More HeatwaveWhat is London Wall? It is many things including a main road. It is archaeology, history and mythology. But above all, it is a boundary, that, although no longer here, is still ever present.
Read More London WallThe yew tree in the Corhampton Church graveyard appears to predate the church.
Read More CorhamptonIron Age hillforts have an impact on the landscape. In this blog I look at Old WInchester Hill in Hampshire.
Read More Old Winchester HillJacob Foster’s gravestone is the last in Dunwich. To us, it represents so much more than just Jacob.
Read More the last gravestone in dunwichThe Mode on Communication of Cholera is a scientific publication by John Snow, the doctor, physician, and, unbeknownst to him, early epidemiologist. It contains his findings on Cholera and how it was spread, or, communicated. Up to the late 1850s the theory of disease contamination was one of miasma. To ensure disease was not spread, […]
Read More The Hand of John SnowWalls have so much to say. All the scars, knocks and scrapes tells of a wider story.
Read More A Wall Will tell a 1000 StoriesDark Earth is an amorphous, bland and unremarkable archaeological deposit. but it represents so much more.
Read More Dark EarthA fossil shell trapped within a rock. It was formed maybe a 100 million years ago. So innocuous, but it will outlive me.
Read More A Fossil Shell Trapped Within a RockRivers are more than simple flow of water to the sea. They are means of travel and transport, ecology, religion and boundaries.
Read More Rivers, Bridges and BoundariesWe are always surrounded by our past. we walk through it without even realising how connected with it we are.
Read More Ancient Towns, Ancient TeethSutton Hoo is only the burial ground of King Raedwald. His Manor was a few miles north.
Read More WuffingasI don’t know exactly when the realisation dawned upon me, but for most of its history, London was really, just the “square mile”, the City of London. That City is a Roman creation, and still is very much Roman. The present boundary of it mirrors the Roman town, Londinium. But I am thinking of this […]
Read More London is a Roman CreationThe last thing I was expecting our lockdown to bring was a serene and eerie atmosphere. It is something I am not used to, and it leaves me unsettled. I could not put my finger on it, until I realised it was a lack of modern noise that was unnerving. It is the thing science […]
Read More The Silence and the NoiseA 1772 list of East India Company ships, from the Jerusalem Coffee House.
Read More The Coffee House Ships ListCesaer Picton. Slave, servant, gentleman.
Read More Cesar PictonMinerva and the Water God. I thought There was nothing between Minerva and the Water God. But I was wrong…
Read More Minerva and the Water GodMy very first archaeological dig was on a massive Roman farm estate, located right in the centre of the wheat production area of Roman Britain. It was a huge excavation and I spent a wonderful summer living in a tent. The Roman owner of this estate would have been a business “magnate”, as opposed to […]
Read More Water GodThe Metorpolitan Commission of Sewers, surveryors report, Soho, 1855 Thinking of my previous article on dirty books and manuscripts, I once worked on a book that was covered in very different kind of grime, and a very different context. This could be some archaeology I discovered in the archives? One area of history I have […]
Read More Another dirty bookAs soon as you walk into an archive store, you can smell the dust. 100,000s of books and documents dating back hundreds of years, all carry dust and dirt they picked up along the way. They are encrusted with it. As you open a book or the lid of an archive box, it hits you […]
Read More Dusty and Dirty BooksMany years ago, I found a box in the attic of my auntie’s house. She had just passed away and I was clearing the place. It was odd, as the whole of the attic was empty apart from this one box in the centre of it. The box was full of postcards, photographs, a piece […]
Read More Postcards, Woolwich Arsenal, 1917Kalendarium Hortense; OR THE Gard’ner’s Almanac, Directing what he is to do MONTHLY throughout The YEAR. AND what FRUITS and FLOWERS ARE IN PRIME. By John Evelyn. Esq; Fellow of the Royal Society Evelyn’s Kelendarium Hortense for May. It is very hot this weekend, so time to move your Orange trees from the Conservatory. […]
Read More The Gard’ners Almanac cont’d; Orange TreesThe Kaledarium Hortense is a classic gardening book by John Evelyn. It takes the gentleman gardener through the year, detailing what he is meant to do in the garden with fruit vegetables and flowers. Much of his advice is straight forward gardening knowledge and logic, and something you may well hear on TV, radio or […]
Read More The Gard’ner’s Almanac“On Saturday morning, an accident which has unfortunately terminated fatally, occurred to a man named Dobson,” starts a news article from the 1850s. “The deceased sat upon the stone while it was being raised, to prevent it shaking the scaffolding”. I read this out loud to an audience as part of a talk on the […]
Read More SHOCKING ACCIDENTThe meaning of historic places has very much changed in recent years. People have been using them in very different and personal ways, above and beyond the usual interest in architecture and historical events. I’ve seen this developing at Creake Abbey, an historic site I’ve been visiting for the past 15 years or so. It […]
Read More The AbbeyClaes Visscher’s panorama of London is one of the most famous images of the City for many reasons. We see the various landmarks across London, such as the churches, Leadenhall and the Exchange, all of them labelled. Architecturally the panorama is superb, with the buildings drawn in great quality, detail and precision. It shows us […]
Read More Visscher’s PeopleI don’t really believe in ghosts, or the supernatural, but I am fascinated by it. Rationally, I don’t believe in ghosts. Emotionally, I want to, or rather, want to be left with a feeling of mystery. I am caught between two worlds. Rational logic and emotional desire. I am not looking to explain, nor indulge […]
Read More There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio…An important peace treaty and charter was agreed and sealed at the beginning of the 13th century, that isn’t talked about that much today. It is tantalisingly possible to track down the exact place and the day it all happened on. The treaty of Kingston was agreed on an “island on the River Thames at […]
Read More The Treaty of Kingston – on this day and on this spot?The London Underground has given me high expectations. As soon as I set foot on the platform, I expect the train to arrive instantaneously. Once left the station, the train whisks me to my next destination, where I catch another to take me home. Everything is rushed. I can’t afford to miss that connection and […]
Read More A glimpse of the past London Underground through the means of Vertical ArchaeologyThis doodle of two entwined birds was drawn in May 1670 while recording the names of an illegal gathering in Kingston Upon Thames. The image is on the back of a document held in the Kingston upon Thames archives. It is a simple line sketch, using one stroke of a quill and ink pen, creating […]
Read More The Hand in Hand BirdsThere used to be a joke. Look up Engineering in the Yellow Pages – it says “See Boring”. A whole generation, or more accurately, the post modern generation, labelled engineering as being something for the un-adventurous, for those without passion or compassion. The subject has no style, taste or philosophy. It is an occupation not […]
Read More Engineering is a thing of beauty.A few lines and quotes from a blog I wrote a few years ago on Seething Wells. Hot Bubbling Wells at Seething Wells? ‘About half a Mile from the Bowling-Green at the West End of he Town [Kingston], is a Spring that is cold in Summer, and warm in Winter; it bubbles up, and is […]
Read More “Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be.”Soften your tread. Methinks the Earth’s surface is but bodies of the dead, Walk slowly in the air, so you do not trample on the remains of God’s servants. Abu al-Alaa al-Maarri It has a romantic ring to it: Flanders Fields. The Fields make up a beautiful, peaceful, rolling landscape. There are long lines […]
Read More Flanders FieldsArchive documents are dirty. They are especially so around the edges. Historians love the phrase “patina of history” and it is this you can see in the years of dust, dirt from fingers, smoke (fire places, tobacco) and from just being in a room where they were stored. Archive documents are also imperfect. There are […]
Read More Hawksmoor
An Historier's Miscellany 