A small dormouse curled up in a nest of dry leaves and twigs
Caution - cute content...
First Hazel dormouse found at Nymans, West Sussex.
📷 Kate Gould
Regret to announce that we’ve reached Wrong Coat season. Every coat you wear from now til mid April will be The Wrong Coat for the weather
It’s worth squinting to read the inscription on this one - a strong ending
Monument to Ann Gaderen (d.1699) at Whitchurch, Bucks
👇
You come to a fork in the shelving unit where two guards stand, one likes big books the other only tells lies.
How does that song go? I like big books and I cannot lie
☞ ☞ ☞ the index finger is a pointing gesture to be found in manuscript and print traditions. It was used to draw the reader's attention to a certain part of a text or image. This slow-moving thread highlight a few of them:
Oh, the grand old duke of york
He ██████████████████
He ██████████████████
And he ██████████████████
My photo shows the ruin of an eight-sided Roman brick lighthouse with four stepped levels. There is a central arched opening (doorway) at ground level. On the upper three levels, in line with the doorway, there are narrow rectangular window openings. The lighthouse stands 15.8 metres high and is 12.2 metres wide at the base. Roman fabric survives to a height of 12.5 m. The brickwork of the uppermost level was reconstructed for use as a church bell tower for the adjacent Anglo-Saxon church of St Mary in Castro, which can be glimpsed on the right-hand side of my photo. The lighthouse is dated circa 1st century to early- 2nd century AD. It was one of a pair originally built on each side of the Roman port of Dubris (Dover). The other does not survive. This lighthouse stands within the grounds of Dover Castle.
The Roman Pharos (lighthouse) at Dover, still standing after almost 2,000 years! 🤩
It is the tallest surviving Roman structure in Britain, and one of only three surviving lighthouses from the former Roman Empire! Dated 1st-2nd century AD.
📷 me
#Archaeology
Pleased to report some swan-tastic action over in the #palaeography realm of Bluesky today 🦢
Interesting will of the day 💌 in 1606 Thomas Williams of Camarthan remembered four "reputed daughters" and two "reputed sons" in his will, with at least two of his daughters having different mothers (both spinsters!). Both boys received property and money and each daughter got £5 and 20 sheep 🐑🐑🐑🐑
You too can learn a great many things by spending >1hour on a text based online game such as: the secret fish knowledge I didnt realise was in my brain, that the game's author thinks turtles and tortoises are the same thing, and how wrong your spellings of certain animals are
You know its time to give up on working for the day when you find yourself distracted for over an hour playing a online game you found about listing as many animals from memory as possible
anyway the consultation shuts tomorrow, one minute to midnight UK time: www.gov.uk/government/c... Amnesty have some good guidance here. Go on: media.amnesty.org.uk/documents/Am...
We've just reached another milestone - the 100th article in our Historian's Watch series! The piece is fascinating, too: it's an unflinching look at colonial anxieties about 'aggressive Black men' and how these fears became embedded in British immigration debates.
📢NEW POST: a report on Chris Hoban's recent performance of music inspired by our wills at a sold gig for Topsham Folk Club 📢
📜🎶🎻🪗🪕
@leverhulme.ac.uk @uniofexeterhass.bsky.social @uoearchhist.bsky.social @cemsexeter.bsky.social
lovely to run into you too!
photo of the outside of the national archives london
photo of coal dust covered hands and the edge of a box of documents
photo of a sleepy cat and a cup of tea
photo of 19th century graves at Kingston cemetary
Couple of pictures to summarise the first week of my trip to London; lots of time spent at the national archives, many hands washed (and rewashed), several museums visited, plenty of cat hangouts, a couple of late nights out, and one very muddy cemetary walk.
An historic illustration of a giant sea serpent dragging a man from a sailing ship.
🐍 #NationalSerpentDay is dedicated to snake appreciation, understanding their role in ecosystems, and helping to overcome fear or misconceptions about them, such as this one... This #myth was likely based on #oarfish sightings. Learn more: blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2014/10/the-... #ILoveBHL 📖 🧪
📜Bequest of the day📜
Royalist Sir Nicholas Crispe asks for an autopsy in his 1666 will:
'I would have my body opened that the Phisitiones may see the cause of my soe long shortnes of breath to be helpfull to my Posterity that are troubled with the same Infirmity'.
#EarlyModern 🗃️
A photograph of an ornate eighteenth-century silver punch ladle. It is positioned at an angle, with the ladle in the bottom left and the handle pointing towards the top right, positioned against a white background. Image caption: Cast, chased and engraved silver punch ladle; London hallmarks for 1738-39, mark of Paul de Lamerie, © Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2025, https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O156415/ladle-lamerie-paul-de/
📢 In Case You Missed It! 📢
January's 'Will of the Month' blog post is now live 📜
Read all about a Yorkshire widow's 'Living Will', as well as her ownership of 'global goods': tea, coffee, china, and a ladle for serving punch (made with sugar & spices) ☕🫖
sites.exeter.ac.uk/materialcult...
What a beautiful write up in The Guardian. It's been an honour to be involved in this exhibition and I'm so excited to see it in full when it opens this weekend - if you're in Plymouth it's a must-see!
I wrote a short blog on the Court of Orphans probate inventories held @thelondonarchives.bsky.social
A fascinating source for anyone researching early modern social history or material culture 📜
Link below 👇
www.thelondonarchives.org/blog/the-pro...
Today is “Take a Walk Outdoors Day”! So: grab a good book (preferably from De Gruyter) for a sunny bench, wrap up warm, and head out into the fresh air!
#brueghel #earlymodern
📣DEADLINE EXTENDED!
We are delighted to announce that we're extending the deadline for applications to our 50th anniversary conference!
At this busy time, we want as many people as possible to have the chance to apply.
Now accepting applications until 23 Jan!
socialhistory.org.uk/events/confe...
Painting of a swaddled baby, c.17th century edited to have a laptop and cup of tea near them
How it feels to hit your writing goals and empty your email inbox whilst remaining luxeriously cosy
Its on days like this, wet and windy and wild, that I'm very glad for work that lets me work from a large mound of blankets
Someone’s not looked at a single early modern history book before opening their mouth, clearly. By 1600, over 4,000 immigrants lived in England’s second largest city, Norwich - one in three people in the city had not been born in England.
Yes I had seen that one about! There's something about it that rings disappointingly for me, so the scrabbling around for an alternative will have continue until I'm forced to concede
I'm also still scratching my head for a good collective neutral noun for neices and nephews that doesn't sound massively naff so please pass on your ideas
Everytime I think I've got a handle on the different ways family descriptors were used by people in the 17th century, I come across another funny one; "my neece grace browne daughter of my sonne John"
