One Christmas, when I was a teenager, I was given a present of a five year diary. As each year was allotted only five lines, I decided it was useless and chucked it to the back of a drawer.
Waterlow Park: how can you remember what winter feels like in May?
Continue reading Winter Solstice
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I have often wondered where the archaeologist Howard Carter, of Tutankhamen fame, actually stayed whilst excavating in the Valley of the Kings on the trail of Tutankhamun’s tomb in November 1922. I imagined a dusty tent, perhaps with a flickering hurricane lamp, and mosquito nets over an uncomfortable camp bed somewhere nearby.
Howard Carter (1874-1939) Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery
Continue reading Searching for Tutankhamun: Howard Carter’s Hotel
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This weekend is the August Bank Holiday and, as the traffic to my blog is fairly quiet, I’m giving myself a small break. I have an interesting blog planned but it can wait a week. So, today, I’m looking at my browser background, that is, the photos I have as a background on my browser, and why I chose them.
Odeschalchi Castle, Bracciano. I liked this shot of the view taken halfway down the castle on the way out – it gives the picture depth
Continue reading Browser Backgrounds
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Today, I’m visiting Powis Castle near Welshpool; I love castles, and this one is both impressive and has stunning gardens. The earliest castle on the site dates back to the 13th century, but little remains. The old red sandstone castle, perched on its rocky outcrop which we see today, dates back to late Medieval times with a lot of subsequent rebuilding, repairing and extension in the 16th century when it came into the hands of the Herberts.
Powis Castle with the lead statue of Fame in front of it
Continue reading Powis Castle’s Magnificent Gardens
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I’ve just returned from visiting ‘Yeats Country’, namely, Co. Sligo on the west coast of Ireland, following in the poet William Butler Yeats’ footsteps. Yeats had a very varied life; he was: a poet and a playwright; interested in theosophy and the occult; a co-founder of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin; appointed Senator in the first Irish Senate in 1922; a lover of Irish myth and folklore; and passionately involved with a number of women. Any of these would make an interesting post. However, today, I’m looking at places which stirred his imagination as a child.
W. B. Yeats (1865-1939) by George Charles Beresford
Continue reading In the Footsteps of W. B. Yeats
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It’s a miracle that the Chelsea Physic Garden, London’s oldest botanic garden, has survived at all. Nowadays, it’s in a prime property location in the centre of London but back in 1673 it was simply four acres of land bordering the River Thames well outside London, acquired by the Worshipful Company of Apothecaries who needed a medicinal garden to grow herbs in order to train their apprentices in the identification and proper use of medicinal plants.
Garden Urn, Chelsea Physic Garden: in a 17th century garden, a touch of Classical elegance is expected
Continue reading Chelsea Physic Garden
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John Ruskin (1819-1900), an art critic and a man who held strong views on what values a society should hold, was one of the most influential men of his generation. For example, when Lucy Honeychurch, heroine of E. M. Forster’s A Room with a View (1908) visits the church of Santa Croce in Florence, she’s desperate to know which tombstone was praised by Ruskin. This is her first trip abroad and she’s unsure of her own taste; she needs the reassurance that she’s admiring the right one.
However, I think it’s fair to say that Ruskin is not always an easy person to appreciate in the 21st century. Nowadays, we like to view ourselves as liberal-minded and tolerant, particularly in sexual matters. An intellectually very gifted only child, Ruskin was brought up on strict Puritanical principles and cossetted by both parents. His mother had high moral standards and was a very controlling parent. It is not surprising that Ruskin turned out to be obsessive, sexually inhibited and highly-strung.
Watercolour sketch of a coastal scene with fortress by John Ruskin, 1841
Continue reading John Ruskin: the Power of Seeing
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We are getting towards the end of January; the temperature on Thursday slumped to 4C and the wind was bitter. My fingers turned white, even with my Alpaca wool gloves on, and the forecast shows that it will remain 6C at best for God knows how long. I’m not a winter person; cold just makes me want to hibernate.
The gardens at Ninfa
I long to be somewhere warm and Italian; somewhere with flowers, trees, shade as well as sunshine, flowing water and romantic ruins. Ideally, I want to be transported to the gardens amid the ruins of the medieval town of Ninfa. I cannot think of anywhere nicer – especially when, back in England, it’s so cold and wet.
Continue reading Ninfa, One of the World’s Most Beautiful Gardens
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It’s a sunny, late November day and my friend and I are inside architect Decimus Burton’s newly-reopened, Grade 1 listed, Temperate House in Kew Gardens, the largest glasshouse in the world. I have long wanted to see it but for the last five years it has been covered in scaffolding.
Exterior of the first section of the Temperate House glasshouse
Continue reading Kew Garden’s Newly-Restored Temperate House
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Recently, a friend and I visited the Walthamstow Wetlands, a new haven for birds and insects in north London. The story of how it came about is a very 21st century one – and, in these days of doom and gloom, very cheering. The A to Z of Victorian London from 1888 shows the River Lea meandering through marshland. An 18th century stretch of canal called ‘River Lea/Lee Navigation’ (the spelling varied) had been dug to bring goods from the country up to London, and, parallel to the canal, the Mill Lead powered several water mills, indeed, four mills are mentioned in Domesday Book. The area was good for fishing, and that was about it.
River Lea Navigation canal
Continue reading From Industrial Archaeology to Cormorants
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