This lovely house near Puddletown in Dorset is a real gem – from Tudor origins with later additions, it’s a real treasure trove of detail, and unlike some of the stuffier visitor attractions, it’s staffed by friendly people who are happy for you to touch things, take photos…
Category: history
Every time we drive to Bath, I spot an old rust-stained fingerpost pointing down a country lane to White Ox Mead. One of those white cast iron signs with raised black capital lettering. And I muse on the fact that once upon a time in the dim and…
After months of prevarication, I’ve finally turned out the airing cupboard which had got to the stage of bursting the door open, there was so much linen in there. Whilst it felt good to bag up the old bedding and towels and stack the remainder tidily, there was…
Poltimore House, near Exeter, has a very chequered history – a Tudor mansion made over in the C17th, added to in Victorian times and set in grand grounds; the seat of the Bampfyldes until its slow decline, via use as a school, wartime billet, hospital, care home and…
Today promised warm fine weather, on only the second day from our very slow release from being locked up. I celebrated with a friend by visiting Blackbury Camp to take some photos of the trees before the place is overrun by selfie-obsessed hordes bent on trampling the bluebells…
Today I went in search of Lyme history on Monmouth Beach, west of the town. We tend to think of Lyme Regis as being primarily a tourist town, but like most coastal settlements, it had a number of industries in the past – fishing of course – but…
As beachcombing visitors to Lyme Regis will already know, the east beach there is a fertile source of industrial and domestic debris. I’m a confirmed rustaholic and collector of unconsidered trifles, so it’s one of my favourite coastal destinations! From Victorian times until the 1970s, land east of…