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Sheela na gig: Warning - Explicit Content! - Celia Rees
At the end of September I met my New Zealand friend, Ismay, in Bordeaux. With my husband as expert driver, we were about to embark on a long planned research trip, looking at Romanesque churches,...
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Of Great Men by L.J. Trafford
Rome being grand.Photo by Scott RowlandAncient Rome is awash with Great Men, particularly in the era of the Republic when Rome was conquering all in her path on her way to becoming a full blow empire....
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At the edge of the world... by Carolyn Hughes
In September, our family revisited a favourite holiday destination. We hadn’t been there for several years and were eager to return. It being autumn, the weather was mostly chilly, and rainy, but it...
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Son et Lumiere - Ancient Portents by Elisabeth Storrs
To me a violent storm instils fascination and fear. After a long, sweltering day in Sydney, there is nothing quite as spectacular as a display of lightning bolts sparking on the horizon, or the sky...
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From Sinister to Sweet: The Strange Tale of the Nutcracker by Catherine Hokin
A deeply creepy inventor ‘uncle’, a seven-headed mouse, a little girl who tears her arm open on broken glass and a curse which traps first a queen and then a boy inside the misshapen body of a giant...
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Shot at Dawn. By Judith Allnatt
Private Henry Burden, a Northumberland Fusilier, was shot at 4 a.m. on 21st July 1915 having been found guilty of desertion. He was just seventeen years old.Like many young men keen for adventure and...
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Angelica Kauffman by Miranda Miller
My eighth novel, Angelica, Paintress of Minds, will be published by Barbican Press in June. to coincide with an exhibition of her work at the Royal Academy. A few years ago I had the good fortune...
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Matisse, Cinema and the French Riviera, by Carol Drinkwater
Sorry about the glare on the pictures' glass. I took these myself today while the sun was shining and I couldn't find an angle that blotted it out. The above are two of my many favourites of Henri...
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Felicia Skene: writer & philanthropist by Janie Hampton
Felicia Skene, left, with her niece Zoe Thomson, wife of the Archbishop of York, and her brother William Forbes Skene, Historiographer Royal of Scotland, in 1892.When I moved to Oxford I rather...
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A very long way from Rome - by Ruth Downie
If there’s a museum around, I’m usually to be found in the Roman section. But Roman sections are hard to come by in Hong Kong, where a recent visit forced me out of the comfort zone to discover the...
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Glimpses of Singapore's Past by Ann Turnbull
My first visit to Singapore, in October 2013, was in response to a family emergency. We stayed in Chinatown, near the General Hospital. The streets there are lined with shophouses whose upper storeys...
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The Defynnog Yew, a remarkable tree! by Katherine Langrish
One day in March this year,on a weekend in the Brecon Beacons, we stopped at the little church of St Cynog in the village of Defynnog to visit what some people claim may be the oldest yew tree in...
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The Best Historical Fiction for LGBT History Month - chosen by Anna Mazzola
February is LGBT History Month in the UK and therefore an excuse to pull together my favourite historical fiction novels that explore gender and sexuality throughout the ages.THE SONG OF ACHILLES BY...
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Creative Non-Fiction, into the Past - Joan Lennon
I'm a History Girl. I'm an advocate of fiction as a way into the past. And non-fiction as a way into the past. Then, in-between them, there's creative non-fiction. When asked - which doesn't happen...
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'No News but Flu': The Spanish Flu Pandemic, 1918 by Sheena Wilkinson
In real life I’m the world’s most squeamish person. Cough beside me on public transport and I guarantee we won’t be companions for long. But for some reason I can cope with almost anything on the page,...
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The Rajah Quilt and I....by Adèle Geras
There will be very little by way of illustration in this post. I am unsure of what's in copyright and what's not, so unless I'm quite certain of not contravening any laws, I'm going to leave this...
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'The Cure for Every Plague and Poison' by Karen Maitland
The Apothecary (circa 1752)Artist: Pietro Longhi (1701-1785)Of all the dangers that daily surrounded our ancestors the one that seem to strike dread into the hearts of the upper classes was the fear of...
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How to read a painting of the plague - Michelle Lovric
Today I should be flying from London to Venice. But obviously I won't be. And even if I could get there, I would be confined to my home, required to fill out a form if I wanted to cross the city to see...
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Culture and Society at Lullingstone Roman Villa by Caroline K. Mackenzie
Caroline K. Mackenzie with her book, Culture and Society at Lullingstone Roman Villa.© Archaeopress.Many of us have had our first introduction to Roman life through a visit, perhaps as a child, to one...
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The Woodward Tomb - Katherine Langrish
In steadfast Hopes of a happy Resurrection here lyes WILLIAM WOODWARDEldest son of THOMAS WOODWARD Citizen andCarpenter of London and ALICE his wife. A youth adorn’d with most Excellent Endowments of...
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