'Tis the evening before St Cuthbert's Day - one of the most magical days of the year!
Even though I won't be celebratin it as I normally would, by drinking to the memory of the great saint with @jonawils & @PhilippeAuclair, I will not be letting his feast day go by unmarked.
First - I'm excited to announce that there will be a special St Cuthbert's Day episode of @TheRestHistory, available tomorrow.
Grateful to dour socialist @dcsandbrook for agreeing that we could do it.
Second - I will be doing a monster walk around #AngloSaxonLondon. Not just the old Roman city, not just Lundenwic, not just Edward the Confessor's great abbey, but some of the settlements, assembly points & trading centres that surrounded what was then London.
I am doing this to try & get in shape for the sponsored walk I will be doing on 23rd April, when I hope to cross London from one side of the M25 to the other. This is in aid of my benefit year, which in turns is in aid for 3 incredibly worthy charities. tomhollandbenefit2021.com
Today is St Cuthbert’s Day, & - since I am unable to head for Durham or Lindisfarne – how better to celebrate it than by going on an insanely long walk in search of the scattered trace elements of #AngloSaxonLondon?
Anglo-Saxon London lacks the physical traces that makes a walk round Roman London so satisfying. For all that, though, it offers its own pleasures. Place-names, street-plans, churches: the stamp of the early Middle Ages can be found on them across the city.
“Anglo-Saxon London,” @Rory_Naismith writes, “is not reflected in any monuments that still stand today. Like Conrad’s London, it sits in a well-known landscape but hovers just out of our grasp in the shadow.”
So my walk today will be a grasping after shadows...
My appreciation of @j_amesmarriott’s good taste, already high, goes through the roof as he includes @TheRestHistory in his list of the best podcasts to listen to.
“Thoughtful, wise, informative and buzzing with clever ideas.”
Was football really invented in China? Why did it emerge in England? How did it spread to become a global popular sport? Why did the FA ban women from playing on their grounds in 1921? What is the link between the invention of barbed wire & Maradona? How did football get so rich?
“I think it is a major subject not in itself perhaps, but in the way it is woven in to almost everything else we do" - Robert Colls on sport.
Even if you've never watched football, it is a fascinating subject for a historian to mine.
Anne of Cleves' House is indeed the most remakarkable place to visit: as though you are entering the subconscious of an entire English county, and exploring its memories.
I made this film about Anne of Cleves' House with @jamiembrixton last summer. We are trying to ensure that @sussex_society survives the pandemic to celebrate its 175th birthday this summer. I hope it gives some sense of the fascination of its holdings.
Every 2 weeks we release a short film to celebrate the work of @sussex_society. Today's is about a remarkable place that boasts Britain's longest moat, & has hosted, variously, Edward I, evacuees from Rotherhithe & the Canadian military: @MichelhamPriory
Prompted by reading #ThisSportingLife to wonder if there would be a market for a self-consciously retro public school? One that gave free play to the bloods, was governed by totally arcane rules, & didn’t bother with any mollycoddling nonsense, but just aimed to raise sportsmen?
No, they’re not. They’re all about anti-bullying policies & self-realisation programmes these days.
“Of course there were always those who preferred to go blackberrying or read a book or be left alone with their feelings (“All English training is a system of deadening feeling’)...” #ThisSportingLife