Unlike Northampton and Oxford, St. Alban’s (City) is on the Thameslink network and also has a branch line to Watford Junction. Accommodation can be expensive but the less historic Luton is surprisingly convenient as a base, being about fourteen minutes away on the same line and costing about five pounds for a day return. Turning right… Continue reading The “awkward mediaeval cities” (3) : St. Alban’s
Tag: Boudicca
Digging for Treasure
There are several interesting archaeology series on television and Channel Five has now joined in with an ensemble programme, headed by two familiar personalities (Dan Walker and Michaela Strachan) and a similarly ubiquitous chief archaeologist (Raksha Dave), but with more of an emphasis on metal detecting for the British Museum’s Portable Antiquities Scheme, including Roman… Continue reading Digging for Treasure
Colchester’s Dutch Quarter
Like other towns near the east coast, Colchester was partially settled by Hugenot refugees from the Low Countries in the sixteenth century. The Dutch Quarter is defined as being to the immediate north of the middle of High Street, as West Stockwell Street turns off at the Town Hall. This Victorian structure has six historic… Continue reading Colchester’s Dutch Quarter
Britain’s Lost Battlefields (with Rob Bell)
Channel Five’s reputation for history programmes has risen greatly over the past few years. At the heart of this, first in a Great Fire of London series with Suzannah Lipscomb and the ubiquitous Dan Jones, has been the “engineering historian” Rob Bell, who has toured bridges, ships, buildings and lost railways in his own amiable,… Continue reading Britain’s Lost Battlefields (with Rob Bell)
Digging up Britain’s Past
This Channel Five documentary has just completed a second series, with Alex Langlands and Raksha Dave, late of Time Team, in place of Helen Skelton. One particular episode was about Auckland Castle, where the “Prince Bishops” of Durham have lived for centuries and where archaeology is being carried out around the building. One of these… Continue reading Digging up Britain’s Past
London: 2000 years of history (channel 5)
Who let Dan Jones out? At least, as in his last outing, he is accompanied both by a historian (Suzannah Lipscomb) and an engineer (Rob Bell), narrating and illustrating almost two millennia of the city’s past. In the first episode, we were taken through the walled city of “Londinium” being built and rebuilt after Boudicca’s… Continue reading London: 2000 years of history (channel 5)
What was the London Stone’s original purpose? And who erected it…?
These days, the London Stone (also called the Brutus Stone) is set into the wall of the Bank of China on the south side of Cannon Street, EC4. Well, part of it is. Just the tip. The entire Stone stood originally in Candlewick Street (Cannon Street) on the south side near the gutter, facing the door of… Continue reading What was the London Stone’s original purpose? And who erected it…?
Ancient Ratae, City on the Soar
In the second century BC, in a Britain still filled with wild boar, beaver, lynx, bears and wolves, a group of people settled near to the River Soar. The descendants of Bronze Age peoples and Neolithic farmers, they built a series of huts on the east bank of the river, their settlement extending across some… Continue reading Ancient Ratae, City on the Soar
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