Originally posted on Travels with me aren't:
On the cover of my school history textbook was a photograph of a jewelled purse lid of gold and garnets – one of the treasures of the Sutton Hoo Ship Burial. Later,… Continue reading Sutton Hoo at last
Now Britain’s smallest city, St Davids has been a site of pilgrimage for centuries. It is one of those ironies of history that one of the highlights a visit today is the medieval bishop’s palace. The original monastic community established … Continue reading A place for pilgrims
This month, you may have noticed, there’s much celebration and commemoration of the centenary of the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings. You can discover a lot more at Cairo’s Egyptian Museum or there’s … Continue reading Over 5,000 years and counting…
Six miles south of Derby is a pavilion, incongruous and alone. Swarkestone Pavilion, as it is now known, probably dates from c.1631-2, close to a grand house built six decades earlier for Sir Richard Harpur, a successful lawyer and landowner. … Continue reading The Harpur-Crewe estates
If you love a peek behind closed doors, and local history piques your interest, then September offers you a bumper bundle of opportunities to satisfy your curiosity. Each constituent nation of the UK has its own heritage programme this month:- … Continue reading Open days, open doors
My ingredients for a perfect day out, in no particular order, are historic buildings and gardens, bookshops and tea shops. The town of Alnwick in Northumberland offers all these and more. Alnwick Castle has been in the hands of the … Continue reading A Perfect Day in Alnwick
If you’ve visited Sir John Soane’s Museum, you’ll know that the eponymous architect left his home in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, to the nation, via an Act of Parliament. This may seem like the final triumph in a long life … Continue reading The dynasty that never was
The Anglocentric cliché which claims that an Englishman’s home is his castle does a notable disservice to the rest of the British Isles. If your idea of heritage keeps a special place for castles, there are plenty of excellent examples … Continue reading Scotland’s painted castles
If I were ever so unfortunate as to be imprisoned in the Old Gaol at Hexham, I would definitely want to be accommodated on the first floor. The gaol was built on the orders of Archbishop Melton in 1330. Unusually … Continue reading Hexham: The Moving Skull and other stories
2022 is the 1900th anniversary of the construction of Hadrian’s wall – once the north-western frontier of the Roman Empire, now a UNESCO World Heritage site. Until last year the only part of the wall we had visited was Segedunum, … Continue reading Weekend on the Wall
Heritage Weekends 