Butterflies, Flowers and Figsbury Ring

A couple of weekends ago I was staying in a cottage on top of a chalk downland hill in Wiltshire. The views are stupendous. Look south on a clear day and you can see the Isle of Wight. I love the wealth of Ancient History here. Wiltshire is criss-crossed by a number of ancient, Prehistoric roads, the most famous being the Ridgeway, on the north side of Salisbury Plain.

The Ridgeway with barley growing on the far side. This ancient road is much wider than a footpath Continue reading Butterflies, Flowers and Figsbury Ring

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Chatham’s Historic Dockyard

The Historic Dockyard, Chatham, on the River Medway in Kent must surely be one of the most extraordinary places in the U.K. and, I’m ashamed to say, I scarcely knew it existed. It had been a Royal Naval Dockyard since Henry VIII’s time; the diarist, Samuel Pepys, in his capacity as Clerk of the King’s Ships visited regularly in the 1660s.  Charles Dickens’ father worked in the Cashiers’ Office here from 1817-22. At least I’d heard of the Dockyard’s famous ropewalk – over a quarter of a mile long, and still in operation. What’s more, the dockyard is only forty minutes by fast train from London, so I had no excuse not to visit.

H.M.S. Gannet (1878) in dry dock

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Dunluce Castle

Only a few miles east of the Giant’s Causeway, perched on Northern Ireland’s basalt cliffs, the spectacularly-sited Dunluce Castle plunges straight into the Irish Sea. (Game of Thrones fans will recognize it as Pyke Castle, stronghold of the House of Greyjoy.)

Dunluce Castle has inspired many books and films. from C. S. Lewis’s Cair Paravel, the capital of Narnia, to ‘Game of Thrones’

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Queen’s Gallery: Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, 1875-6 Tour of India

The Queen’s Gallery’s new exhibition, Splendours of the Subcontinent: A Prince’s Tour of India, 1875-6, examines a largely forgotten episode in the thirty-four-year-old Prince of Wales’s life, and one which is full of surprises.

1. Perfume holder in the form of a lotus flower presented by the Maharaja of Jaipur. A hidden mechanism allows the petals of the flower to open, revealing a red and yellow enamelled cup. It is made of gold, enamel, diamonds and pearls.

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The Contessa’s Bequest

I’ve just collected a box containing nine books from the library of a ninety-three-year-old cultured and elegant lady I’d known for many years who died last year. She left a number of her books and runs of architectural magazines to various museums and institutions, and the rest were to be shared out among her many friends. A few months after the funeral, I got a book list of well over 1500 books – I could choose as many I liked and it was, more or less, first come, first served.

The experience of looking through the huge list, printed in minute 8pt, was a bit like exploring Aladdin’s cave, with dash of delving into a bran tub. All I had were the titles and author; I had no idea whether the book was large or small, paperback or hardback. They were divided into sections covering the Contessa’s areas of interest: Architecture, Italy, History (social and cultural), the Arts, European Royalty, etc. and a small selection of fiction.

THE ETRUSCANS: History and Treasures of an Ancient Civilization

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Glenarm Castle’s Walled Gardens

The story of Glenarm Castle begins with a murder. In 1242, John Bisset, a hot-headed young Scot of Norman origin, was implicated in the murder of Padraig, Earl of Atholl, after a tournament in Haddington, where John’s uncle Walter was beaten by the earl. In revenge, John murdered the earl, set fire to his house to conceal the crime, and fled to Ireland.

It was John Bisset who built the first castle at Glenarm on the Antrim coast, facing his old homeland. Bisset then fades from the castle’s history. But every castle worthy of the name needs a good murder in its founding story.

Glenarm Castle

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Strangford: a Charming Small Port

Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland is Britain’s largest sea lough, covering 58 square miles. It runs north to south with the long, narrow Ards peninsula running down its eastern side between the lough and the Irish Sea. At the lough’s south-eastern edge a narrow channel leads to the sea; with the picturesque little port of Strangford on the west side linked to Portaferry on the Ards peninsula by a car ferry.

View across the straits from Strangford to Portferry: the yellow rape field is on the far side

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The Giant’s Causeway

The Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland is something I’ve long wanted to visit and last week my wish was granted. Geologically, it comprises over 40,000 interlocking basalt columns of different sizes created over 60 million years ago as a result of intense volcanic activity (the temperature needed to create them is between 840ºC and 890ºC). As the molten basalt cool, pseudo-crystals form creating the mainly hexagonal columns we see today. It was granted World Heritage Site status by UNESCO in 1986.

The Giant’s Causeway from the east side

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Jane Austen’s Writing Master Class

Jane Austen’s niece, Anna Austen Lefroy (1793-1872) was, as far as we know, her only relation who was also a novelist – though, in her case, an aspiring one. When she was nineteen, Anna asked her aunt various questions regarding her own novel Which is the Heroine? For example: does Dawlish have a decent library? Jane’s answer was that it was ‘pitiful and wretched’. What I found interesting was that Jane understood her niece’s concern to get things right. Both wrote contemporary novels and they both knew that accuracy was important.

 

Jane Austen, after Cassandra Austen, stipple engraving, published 1870, National Portrait Gallery

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Korea: from placenta jars to moon jars

Korea is very much in the news just now, so I thought I’d visit the British Museum’s Korean Gallery to find out more about the two countries; after all North and South Korea share a long history, a language and, until the Second World War, a common culture. It is important that we know more about them.

Reconstrusted sarangbang in a gentleman’s house of about 1800

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