The ancient Egyptian underworld
The earliest funerary texts we have are the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts and unlike later texts they did not include images, consisting purely of hieroglyphic...
British Museum
RICHARD JEFFERIES contrasted the pigeons outside the British Museum (‘To them the building is merely a rock, pierced with convenient caverns’) with the humans vainly...
Stalingrad
Eighty years after it ended, the Battle of Stalingrad remains a byword for the horror of modern warfare Why is the battle so important?The Battle...
Shear genius
Christopher Stocks traces the story of topiary, from its ancient origins to the modern day WE don’t know who first looked at a bush and...
The history of English Home old and new
ON Wednesday, November 26, 1947, the aesthete, conservationist and writer James, or ‘Jim’, Lees-Milne arrived in Yorkshire by train for a visit to Harewood House....
Crowning glory
On 2 June 1953, Queen Elizabeth II was crowned during a three-hour-long ceremony of pomp, pageantry and almost 1000-year-old tradition at Westminster Abbey. She was...
England’s last boy king
Edward VI was a palefaced, sickly child. Just nine years old when declared king in 1547, he would be a puppet of powerful courtiers and...
The Koh-i-Noor: a 105-carat controversy
The Koh-i-Noor “is neither the biggest diamond in the world, nor the most beautiful”, said Anita Anand in The Guardian. But it is “arguably the...
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service,” vowed a fresh-faced Princess...
A PRINCESS IS BORN
When she was born on 21 April 1926, in Bruton Street, London, nobody could have foreseen that the first child of the Duke and Duchess...
Once home to Clan Jardine
Built in 1450, Spedlins, in the Dumfries and Galloway region of Scotland, is thought to be one of the most haunted buildings in Britain, and...
HISTORIC TOWNS WINCHCOMBE
In February 2021 Winchcombe was struck by one of the few meteorites to land in Britain, yet this was just the latest significant event to...
The Duchess’s Downfall
If you are one of the millions of people who tuned into the superbly crafted mini-series A Very British Scandal, you will be familiar with...
THE MAN WHO ENRICHED LONDON
In a new book, Michael McCarthy charts the life and times of the medieval mayor who left London in a much better condition than he...