Carolineld

LATEST ARTICLES ( 803 )

• Ghost Signs (114): Victorian Correspondence

  

  In neighbouring Glastonbury and Wells are two signs (one not strictly a ghost sign) which remind us of the days when letters were sent by post rather than email. Read more

  Posted on 29 January 2015 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Below the Water Line

  

  I've walked around locks, taken boat trips through them, but recently the Canal River Trust gave the opportunity to walk along the bottom of one. Happily, it... Read more

  Posted on 15 January 2015 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Clay Pipes and Anti-slavery

  

  From the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, clay pipes were used somewhat as cigarettes are today: they offered a relatively inexpensive way of smoking, and... Read more

  Posted on 04 January 2015 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Top Ten of 2014

  

  The final hours of 2014 are a good time to look back at my blogging year, so here are the ten most popular posts. First, the five most popular written this... Read more

  Posted on 31 December 2014 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Tay Bridge Disaster

  

  This week marks the 135th anniversary of the Tay Bridge Disaster, which saw a train plunge into the River Tay during a storm on 28 December 1879. All those on... Read more

  Posted on 28 December 2014 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Poisonous Plants and a Modernist Masterpiece

  

  In the depths of midwinter, it's good to look back at the brighter days of summer. Courtesy of a visit during Open Gardens Weekend, let's wander round the... Read more

  Posted on 23 December 2014 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Duchess of Deptford

  

  Hogarth's prints are full of detail, much of it significant to his eighteenth-century audience but obscure to the modern viewer. Read more

  Posted on 18 December 2014 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Murals in and Out: Camberwell Library and Bath House

  

  The Edwardian building housing Camberwell's former Passmore Edwards Library Bath House has two murals. The first is something of a local landmark, its tiles... Read more

  Posted on 13 December 2014 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Please Adjust Your Dress

  

  While I don't actively plan my visits around the presence of Victorian cast-iron urinals, it's always a joy to come across them - at the National Railway Museum... Read more

  Posted on 29 November 2014 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Crystal Palace in Paris

  

  The amazing Crystal Palace, star of the 1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park and later of Crystal Palace Park in Sydenham, was destroyed by a fire in 1936. Read more

  Posted on 17 November 2014 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Speaking Arms - the Chappe Telegraph

  

  In the eighteenth century, it took the best part of a week to get a message from Paris to the naval port of Brest and receive the reply. By 1800, it could be... Read more

  Posted on 08 November 2014 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Ghost Signs (113): Lewisham Paint

  

  This lovely ghost sign on Belmont Hill was uncovered earlier this year when a hoarding was removed - many thanks to Alan Burkitt-Gray for telling me about it. Read more

  Posted on 25 September 2014 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• London Exploration, Large and Small

  

  If you want to explore London this weekend, there are some exciting options available. The biggest, of course, is the annual Open House weekend. Read more

  Posted on 18 September 2014 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Vintage Tractors

  

  For the 22nd year, Plenee Jugon in Brittany hosted a Festival of Mechanisation, featuring farm vehicles from the 1920s to the 1950s. There were lots of vintage... Read more

  Posted on 12 August 2014 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Bristol Time

  

  Moving a country from solar time to unified time is no easy matter (France had three separate kinds of time at one point). However, the railways made it a... Read more

  Posted on 29 July 2014 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Cupboards-full of Roman Wall

  

  Eager to protect Londinium, the Romans built a wall around the city at the turn of the 3rd century, and kept working on it for the next 200 years. Read more

  Posted on 20 July 2014 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Edwardian Tourist Tat

  

  London is awash with tacky souvenirs: improbable snow globe scenes, inaccurate plastic postboxes on keyrings, child-sized fake policemen's hats. Read more

  Posted on 13 July 2014 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Ghost Signs (112): Beds on Whitechapel Road

  

  At first glance, 201 Whitechapel Road is a pleasant Victorian building but not of particular interest. However, above each first-floor window is a painted... Read more

  Posted on 29 June 2014 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Tin Tabernacle, Battleship

  

  Intended to be temporary structures, tin tabernacles were cheap flat-pack churches or chapels, ordered from a catalogue and erected quickly to tide the... Read more

  Posted on 22 June 2014 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY

• Open Garden Squares

  

  Don't forget that this weekend is Open Garden Squares Weekend, when all sorts of London gardens and green spaces welcome visitors. One ticket (£12) gives you... Read more

  Posted on 13 June 2014 CULTURE, DESTINATIONS, HISTORY