The post Christmas history road trip begins.

On a stretch of Roman road. Image
Stokesay Castle. A manor house with military pretension more like.

Still. One of the best. ImageImage
Bibury. So distractingly beautiful it makes you forget the Brexit clustastrophe Image
Ludlow Castle. An over mighty fortress for the over mighty Mortimers. Image
A medieval gate at Ludlow. Which manages, gloriously, to incorporate a pub. This pub was established the same year that George Washington first went west to kick the French out of the Ohio Country. Image
This bizarre building is Lodge Park and it's the only surviving 17th Century grandstand. It was built for spectators to watch a giant deer coursing event. It was later renovated into a house. Image
An almost untouched 1940s utility room. Image
A national treasure in Ludlow.

It is possible that the expression "up sticks and move" comes from the era of timber framed houses. Owners could dismantle them, pack up the frames and move on.
But it's also possible that like most things, it was made up in the 19th Century. Image
Can some very clever architectural historian show us all the different centuries of building in this frame?

I think Ive got 15th, 16th, 18th, 19th, 20th- looking forward to being corrected. Image
I show the kids the probable site of the Brunanburh battlefield, where Athelstan's spear-hordes slew a flock of kings and princes and where I once blew the horn of battle.

New Years sun on the Dee estuary. Close to one of Britain’s earliest identified Stone Age settlements, four millennia before Stonehenge was begun. Image
Chepstow Castle, one of the earliest surviving stone castles in Britain. Begun in 1067 by one of the Conqueror's relatives. Perched on cliffs towering over the River Wye, built on the land claimed by the princes of Glamorgan- this was an act of aggression. Image
Visited in a downpour. This was the driest shot. Kids required major post war reparations.

Also- this is the oldest part of the castle. There are recycled Roman tiles embedded in the structure.
Tintern Abbey. Thread stealer. Image

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More from @thehistoryguy

22 Sep 21
Around a quarter of Nelson's fleet at Trafalgar were born outside Britain.
A witness reports in 1702: 'London is a world by itself. We daily discover in it more new countries, & surprising singularities....There are among the Londoners so many nations differing in manners, customs & religion, that the inhabitants themselves dorft know a quarter of them'
Cromwell invited Jews into Britain to, among other reasons, boost the financial and trading sectors. William III built on this and Sephardic Jewish communities moving from Amsterdam to London helped to make the latter the centre of finance in NW Europe.
Read 10 tweets
4 Sep 21
Today on the podcast:

A Bomber Command recording which we believe to be unique. Steve Stevens DFC made an audio recording of a raid over Essen in 1943. 75 yrs later I listened to it with him for the podcast.

Please listen here: podfollow.com/dan-snows-hist… Image
Sadly Steve died two years after I interviewed him. But you can watch him and gear his story in this History Hit documentary:

access.historyhit.com/videos/the-unh…
I'll never forget him showing me the prayer book that he used to carry with him on operations. With the prayer he wrote out, memorised and would quietly say as he revved up the engines for take off. Image
Read 4 tweets
9 Jun 21
In which I get triggered for being called unpatriotic:
Here are some things that I consider unpatriotic; showing a lack of regard for this nation's people, traditions and law.

First: illegally shutting down Parliament, and in the process lying to or, at best, not being totally open with the Queen.
Giving a seat in our legislature to someone who donates money to keep you in power.

If that was in Africa we would issuing high minded ethics lectures.
Read 9 tweets
8 Jun 21
Today in 793 Vikings raided Lindisfarne:
"Never before has such terror appeared...as we have now suffered from a pagan race...The church of St Cuthbert is spattered with the blood of the priests of God, stripped of all its furnishing, exposed to the plundering of pagans."
Alcuin
Nothing survives from the time of the raid, this carving known as the Domesday Stone, was part of the rebuild and depicts the End of Days with a horde of men wielding Viking weapons...
One monastery where there is evidence of a Viking raid is Portmahomack, Tarbat Peninsula, Scotland. It was wiped out by Vikings in 800. With no evidence left at Lindisfarne it is the only archaeological evidence for a violent Viking raid in the UK. Smashed skills & masonry
Read 4 tweets
10 Apr 21
I'm on a VIKING ROAD TRIP!
The legend @CatJarman is guiding me across England on the trail of the Great Heathen Army from East Anglia where they martyred King Edmund to the edge of Salisbury Plain where Alfred won his greatest victory.
Very excited to be back in one of the most remarkable and important Anglo-Saxon/Viking sites in the country. St Wystan's church in Repton was a royal & religious centre of the kingdom of Mercia. The 8thC crypt was the final resting place of several Mercian kings.
The monastery was looted & smashed by the Great Heathen Army in 873. Only the crypt survives. The Vikings buried their own outside the church including the famous 'Repton Viking' who was hacked to pieces but buried with a Thor's Hammer around his neck, a sword by his side....
Read 6 tweets
11 Nov 20
100 years ago today London witnessed a revolution.

An unknown soldier, in a coffin of Hampton Court oak, with a crusader sword from the Royal Collection, was buried among the monarchs in Westminster Abbey.
A century before the dead of Waterloo had been robbed, tipped into mass graves, then exhumed for fertiliser & dentures!

Now in the eyes of many, including the Prime Minister David Lloyd George who grew up in a cobblers cottage, a soldier was a fellow citizen, a voter, an equal.
So at least four soldiers were exhumed, and one was chosen at random. He was awarded the Legion d'honnneur, accompanied by Marshal Foch and a division of troops, placed aboard HMS Verdun and arrived in the UK to a Field Marshal's salute.
Read 7 tweets

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