Below you will find links to some interesting history-related articles I’ve read recently, a photo from a recent historic trip, and an item about the history/practice of writing.
Enjoy!
History writing
- Is this the definitive answer to the question about London’s oldest surviving pub?
- A student uses ‘counterfactual history’ to analyse King James VI of Scotland’s role in the 16th Century North Berwick witch trials.
- A lovely story about the history and enduring significance of the White Horse of Uffington.
- What makes historians go: ‘wait, what?’
- In news that, sadly, does not surprise me, a new report shows that women are significantly under-represented in UK school history lessons. Read the full report.
History
I love a ruin. I’m not alone in this. Tate Britain hosted a whole exhibition on the subject (Ruin Lust, in 2014) which featured over 100 ruin-centric artworks which linked back to ‘a craze which began to overtake artists, writers, and architects in the 18th Century’. If I had the money and the space, I’d probably commission my own mock ruin (and crystal grotto!) like Charles Hamilton did at Painshill Park. For now, though, I must settle for visiting other people’s ruins. Preferably genuine ones.
A ruin that’s been at the top of my list for a long time is Whitby Abbey in North Yorkshire. This summer I finally made it there.
There’s been a place of worship on the rugged Whitby headland since about 657, originally presided over by the Abess (later, saint), Hild/Hilda. In 664 it was the site of the Synod of Whitby, which, in the simplest terms, was significant for agreeing the formula by which the date of Easter would be determined each year (the first Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring Equinox).
The origin of the current stone building dates to the 1200s. Whitby Abbey – now a ruined shell – was a Benedictine monastery, which expanded in several stages over three centuries. But in the 1530s it became a victim of King Henry VIII’s break from the Catholic Church and was ordered dissolved. The empty building remained largely complete until the first of several partial collapses occurred in 1736. By the 19th Century it was well and truly ruined, and a popular tourist attraction, helped, no doubt, by its part in Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’, published in 1897. Today, it continues to attract tourists – like me! – and maintains a striking presence on the cliff over the town of Whitby below.
Writing
What’s the purpose of / what do we hope to achieve by visiting preserved writers’ rooms?
