Elizabeth

St Martin-in-the-Fields: Oasis for the Soul

Sometimes, things go wrong in life. You lose people you love; someone close to you becomes ill – or you do; things don’t work out at work, and so on. Add a couple of small things, like your kitchen tap developing a persistent drip, or realizing that you still haven’t made that difficult phone call, and, suddenly, you are in a bad place.

This is when you need a personal oasis; a place that’s safe and quiet and not too far away; somewhere you can just be.

Moroccan rose bath oil and scented candle

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Three Mills: Britain’s Oldest Tidal Mill

I just love exploring old factories, mills, dockyards, etc., places where people once worked. I find them very atmospheric, and it’s easy to imagine all sorts of skulduggery going on. So, when I had to chance to visit Three Mills, I jumped at it.

Tucked away in Bromley-by-Bow is one of London’s best kept secrets. Mentioned in Domesday Book, Three Mills has been milling for over a thousand years on a tidal stretch of the River Lea. The third mill, a windmill, was demolished in the mid nineteenth century, and what we have left is House Mill, an 18^th century Miller’s House, a Custom House and the Clock Mill. We know that, in the 12^th century, the mills were owned by the Cistercian abbey of Stratford Langthorne and, after the Reformation, they became privately owned but continued to mill grain from the surrounding area.

General view: Left: House Mill, Miller’s House, Custom House; right: Clock Mill; the river Lea (not visible) is behind the walls Continue reading Three Mills: Britain’s Oldest Tidal Mill

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Henry Wellcome’s Cabinet of Curiosities

Henry Wellcome was born in Philadelphia in the U.S.A. in 1853 and came to London in 1880. He made his fortune as a pharmaceutical entrepreneur and founded the Wellcome Trust in London which funds medical research. He was also an obsessive collector of things medical and his collection is wide-ranging, not to say eccentric, and includes a number of objects only tenuously connected with medicine.

Sir Henry Wellcome (1863-1936) by Hugh Goldwin Rivière. Born in America. Took British nationality in 1910. F.R.S. and knighted 1932.

Some early photographs of him in America show him with what looks like a travelling Cabinet of Curiosities and, certainly, this is impression one gets from the Wellcome Trust’s historical collection in London.

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A Hundred and One Blogs

I have posted 101 blogs since I began, rather hesitantly, back in 2016 and, my goodness, was that a steep learning curve. I see that I have covered a lot of subjects – from the frazzled: Dejunking One’s Life: The Cupboard of Doom; and the slightly bonkers: Napoleon’s Toothbrush; to literary criticism: Is Mr Rochester really a Woman in Disguise?; to travels abroad: The Park of Monsters (Italy); and visits to interesting places in and around London: A Visit to Kensal Green Cemetery. There are posts on Jane Austen’s novels: Jane Austen: The Power of Money; and visits to Art Exhibitions: Celebrating Artemisia Gentileschi; as well as posts on simple pleasures: The Rose Beetle (as seen by Gerald Durrell in Corfu, and me in Albania), and: I Love Cambridge Market.

Easter daffodils in my garden

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‘A Girl of the Limberlost’ by Gene Stratton Porter

When I was fifteen, my mother gave me Gene Stratton Porter’s A Girl of the Limberlost for Christmas. It was a book she’d loved as a child and she thought I might like it, too. First published in 1909, it was republished sixty-one times, and, by the time the author died in 1924, more than 10 million copies of her various books had been sold. A Girl of the Limberlost was also turned into a Silent Film.

Gene Stratton Porter, courtesy of Wikipedia

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2 Temple Place: Jazz. the Shock of the New

I always look forward to the annual exhibition at Two Temple Place, next to Somerset House, and this year is no exception. Rhythm & Reaction: the Age of Jazz in Britain examines the influence of jazz on British art, design, music and society over the last 100 years. It’s a lively and thought-provoking exhibition, full of amazing objects. 1920s and 30s jazz plays in the background. At one point, I was talking to two other visitors about an old gramophone on display and, within minutes, we were singing snatches of Ambrose’s Tiger Rag to each other – it’s that sort of exhibition.

New music, new instruments: left: saxophone 1938, silver-plated brass; and right: soprano saxophone, silver-plated brass, 1929

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Mothering Sunday

Today, the fourth Sunday in Lent, is Mothering Sunday. From at least the seventeenth century, Mothering Sunday was the day when young apprentices and maidservants had the day off to visit their mothers. They would bring her a cake as a gift, often a traditional Simnel cake, and a small posy of spring flowers.

Daffodils

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Jane Austen: The Power of Money

I have been struck by the number of wealthy older women in Jane Austen’s novels who exercise stringent financial control over various young male relations.

The importance of money: 19th century reticule

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Frederick, Prince of Wales’s Royal Barge

Frederick, Prince of Wales (1707-1751), eldest son and heir of King George II, true to Hanoverian form, couldn’t stand his father. Unlike George II, who was something of a Philistine, Frederick loved music and the arts. So, naturally, when he commissioned a royal barge from the architect and painter, William Kent, not only was it designed in the newly-fashionable Rococo style, ornately carved and gilded with 24-carat gold leaf, it was faster and more eye-catchingly splendid than any barge his father owned. It was launched in 1732 and, as you can see, it certainly makes a statement. Note the huge Royal Standard.

Prince Frederick’s barge – expressly designed to annoy his father

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Mithras, God of the Morning

On a cold winter’s morning, in the 3^rd century A.D., a centurion called Parnesius of the Ulpia Victrix stood on Hadrian’s wall and gazed at the bleak, heather-covered hillside to the barbarian north. This was not a posting he’d wanted, and he missed the olives and wine of his native Tuscany, but he had a job to do and he must make the best of things.

Mithras slaying the sacred bull, Ostia museum

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