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Roman holiday: when emperor Hadrian became a tourist of ancient Egypt
As is still the case today, the wonders and landmarks of ancient Egypt drew in the tourists in the Roman era. They would carve their names into statues of pharaohs and take cruises down the Nile. Prof Mary Beard describes what happened when a particular party of elite Roman holidaymakers – led by the emperor Hadrian – descended on Egypt’s tourist hotspots in AD 130...
Roman emperors and aristocrats were great tourists. They were as keen as we are on visiting the famous sights of the Mediterranean world, and they brought home souvenirs by the bucket-load. The best guide we have to the appearance of the lost statue of the goddess Athena inside the Parthenon at Athens, an extraordinary creation in gold and ivory, comes in the stone copies made for travellers and tourists. These range from pricey, high-quality replicas to the ancient equivalent of fridge magnets. The most sought-after destination was Egypt, and the most alluring method of transport there was, as now, a Nile cruise. Julius Caesar holidayed on the river with Cleopatra. Half a century or so later, in AD 19, we know that Prince Germanicus, nephew of the emperor Tiberius, visited the country and took a boat up the Nile south from Alexandria. Read more | In the footsteps of Germanicus - a Roman General’s journey to Egypt No tourist, however, visited Egypt in greater style – or, I suspect, with a larger retinue of support staff – than the emperor Hadrian in AD 130. And no imperial party left quite such a lasting mark of their visit. In fact, you can still see the poems commemorating this trip, written by one of the emperor’s aristocratic fellow-travellers – a woman by the name of Julia Balbilla (more on her later). They are carved into the leg of an ancient Egyptian statue, just outside modern Luxor (ancient Thebes). It might seem like a rather upmarket version of ‘Balbilla (and Hadrian) was here’. But these poems not only document a tourist experience; they shine a light onto one of those hidden women of the Roman world. Balbilla was not an ‘ordinary’ woman, but one of wealth, glamorous connections, and talent. All the same, she usually slips below the radar of modern historians. Hadrian's imperial inspection Hadrian’s Egyptian cruise was only one part of a much longer journey for the emperor and his entourage. He was the most travelled of all the Roman rulers – and sightseeing, in our sense of the word, was no doubt only one side of the story. He was, after all, also inspecting ‘his’ empire and visiting the far-flung troops. By the time they reached Egypt, the imperial party had already been on the road (or at sea) for two years, taking in Sicily, north Africa, Greece and Gaza – in what was more a mammoth royal ‘progress’, or a court on the move, than a quick vacation. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/05/GettyImages-122221318webready-551406f.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="The emperor Hadrian and his wife, Sabina (portrayed here as Mars and Venus in a second-century AD statue) embarked on a years-long tour of his empire (Photo By DEA/G. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini via Getty Images)" title="The emperor Hadrian and his wife, Sabina (portrayed here as Mars and Venus in a second-century AD statue) embarked on a years-long tour of his empire (Photo By DEA/G. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini via Getty Images)" /> There must have been hundreds, if not thousands, of troops, bodyguards and administrators accompanying the Egyptian excursion, travelling on any number of boats, or following on land. (Some surviving ancient papyri record local worries about how on earth they were going to cater for this influx of officials and hangers-on, all needing billeting and feeding.) At the centre of this vast entourage were members of Hadrian’s intimate circle. The holiday from hell? His wife, Sabina, was one of them. Julia Balbilla was another, a celebrity of the Roman international ‘jet set’. The most notorious – and tragic – of them was the emperor’s young boyfriend, Antinoos. In Roman terms, a married man also having a relationship with a young man was not so unusual. But there was something a bit edgier here. Antinoos drowned in mysterious circumstances in the Nile in early October 130. The question of ‘Did he fall or was he pushed?’ has never been resolved. For those in this inner circle, the death of Hadrian’s boyfriend must have blighted the trip (was it ‘the holiday from hell’?). It is all too easy to imagine the atmosphere on the boats: the party tiptoeing around the grieving emperor, who was busy planning memorials to his lost love, and even starting the process of turning him into a god. You might well have thought that they would have called the whole cruise off. But they pressed on south. That was probably because Egypt’s most celebrated tourist high-spot still lay ahead. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/05/GettyImages-113493755webready-c492d25.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A bust of Antinoos, the emperor Hadrian’s lover. His sudden death in AD 130 cast a long shadow over the imperial tour of Egypt (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)" title="A bust of Antinoos, the emperor Hadrian’s lover. His sudden death in AD 130 cast a long shadow over the imperial tour of Egypt (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)" /> Hadrian’s party had already visited the Great Pyramid. What they were even keener to see was the statue on which the verses of Julia Balbilla would soon be inscribed: one of the so-called ‘Colossi of Memnon’. This 18-metre-high edifice has a long and intriguing history. It was originally constructed around 1350 BC, one of a matching pair representing the pharaoh Amenhotep III. This made it a venerable antique, almost 1,500 years old, by the time Hadrian came to visit. But, by then, its name had been changed and it had been credited with miraculous new characteristics. In a wholesale reinterpretation, the colossus was no longer Pharaoh Amenhotep. It was now believed to represent the mythical Greek hero Memnon, a fighter in the Trojan war, the son of the goddess of the dawn. The singing statue And what is more, it was said sometimes to make a singing noise first thing in the morning, as if greeting its mother. One explanation for this is a natural one. At some point in the first century BC, the top of the statue had been damaged, allowing water to penetrate the stone. As the temperature rose in the morning, the drying out of the water in the cracks of the sculpture might have made a hissing – or a singing – noise. Another explanation suggests that it was more of a scam. At least one ancient writer thought there might have been some boys around the back faking the sound of singing on makeshift musical instruments, to cash in on the tourist trade. Whichever is true, the statue eventually stopped singing. Either the ‘boys around the back’ found better ways to make money. Or (if you follow the natural explanation), a well-meaning repair of the statue blocked up the cracks, prevented the water getting in, and so stopped the singing. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/05/BAL59238webready-d2de590.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="The Colossi of Memnon were the ultimate tourist destination of the second century AD. By the time Hadrian visited, they were already almost 1,500 years old (Photo by Bridgeman Images)" title="The Colossi of Memnon were the ultimate tourist destination of the second century AD. By the time Hadrian visited, they were already almost 1,500 years old (Photo by Bridgeman Images)" /> But for several hundred years the singing statue was the biggest attraction in Egypt. Visitors turned up at dawn hoping that Memnon would perform for them. He couldn’t be relied upon, but it was thought a wonderful sign of good luck if he did. Some of those who got lucky had their visit commemorated with an inscription carved into the statue’s leg (presumably they paid local craftsmen to do the actual carving – at, I imagine, a hefty price). In one of the earliest examples, around AD 20, a Roman by the name of Servius Clemens simply recorded in Latin that he “heard the voice of Memnon and gave thanks”. Two centuries later, in one of the latest inscriptions, a philosopher called Falernus gave a more flowery account in Greek verse of his own experiences. “When he saw his mother, Dawn, dressed in her saffron robe,” the statue “made a sound sweeter than clear speech.” It is among this group of 107 inscriptions that we find the four verses, again written in Greek, by Julia Balbilla – as well as a few lines composed by the empress Sabina herself. From these we can reconstruct what happened on the imperial visit in November AD 130. When Balbilla and Sabina first showed up at the statue, it stayed resolutely silent. In her poem entitled ‘When on the first day we did not hear Memnon’, Balbilla made the best of what might have been a PR disaster, suggesting that Memnon had only remained silent “so that lovely Sabina would come back again”. Indeed, they did go back. Then, probably on the next day, as another poem happily records, “I Balbilla heard the divine voice of Memnon”. In a poem headed ‘When the emperor Hadrian heard Memnon’, Balbilla records a successful visit by Hadrian himself, most likely on his own. “Seeing Hadrian the ruler of the world,” she writes, “Memnon greeted him as well as he could, before he had even greeted the rays of the sun.” In other words, Memnon appeared to prefer Hadrian over his own mother. And the statue went on to speak to the emperor twice more, making it “clear to everyone that the gods love him”. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/05/HW3537webready-55867d8.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="For centuries, Roman tourists flocked to one of the Colossi of Memnon to hear it ‘sing’ – and then carved inscriptions into it, like those shown here (Photo by jackie ellis/Alamy Stock Photo)" title="For centuries, Roman tourists flocked to one of the Colossi of Memnon to hear it ‘sing’ – and then carved inscriptions into it, like those shown here (Photo by jackie ellis/Alamy Stock Photo)" /> So, after a rocky start, the visit must finally have seemed like a triumph. In the more than 50 lines of Balbilla’s verses, however, we learn about more than the royal party’s encounter with the singing statue. Although we have little information about Balbilla from almost any other source, we can extract a surprising amount about her life and her world-view from the poems. Balbilla was the descendant on her father’s side of the royal family of the eastern kingdom of Commagene, and on her mother’s side of a Roman governor of the province of Egypt – and is at pains to highlight this elite ancestry within her poetry. She stresses that one grandfather, Antiochus, had been a king and that the other had been a prestigious scholar. She even calls her father and mother ‘king’ and ‘queen’, despite the fact that the effective rule of the royal house of Commagene had ended when her grandfather was ousted by the Roman emperor Vespasian. Poetic skill and antiquarian learning There is a pride, almost a pushiness, in how Balbilla vaunts her rank. And she makes no secret of her own scholarship. Her poems feature learned and slightly pretentious references to byways of ancient myth and history. She spends four lines on the deeds of the Persian king Kambyses, who in the sixth century BC had apparently tried to demolish the statue but paid the price with his life – so providing the foil for Balbilla’s piety towards Memnon. Balbilla’s verses are composed in a style and language that mimics the first Greek female poet, Sappho, who lived around 600 BC on the island of Lesbos. It is almost as if a poet today were to compose perfectly in the manner of Geoffrey Chaucer: a boast of poetic skill, rhetorical sophistication and antiquarian learning. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/05/2T4KAY8webready-2db79d2.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="Greek poet Sappho, thought to be the figure with a stylus and wax tablet in this first-century AD image, inspired the verses that Balbilla carved onto the Colossus of Memnon (Photo by Peter Horree/Alamy Stock Photo)" title="Greek poet Sappho, thought to be the figure with a stylus and wax tablet in this first-century AD image, inspired the verses that Balbilla carved onto the Colossus of Memnon (Photo by Peter Horree/Alamy Stock Photo)" /> But there was perhaps even more to it than that. By adopting Sappho’s language, Balbilla was reminding her readers of the very beginning of the tradition of female poetry in which she proudly followed. And, by writing up their visits to the statue in that language, she was maybe also hinting at a closeness between herself and the empress Sabina. For Sappho was also famous for her erotic friendships with young women whom she celebrated in her poetry. (Our term ‘Lesbian’ comes from the name of Sappho’s island.) Read more | From Sappho to It’s a Sin: 9 LGBT+ histories, chosen by experts All this adds vividly to our picture of Hadrian’s tourist party. We can only guess at the precise relationship between Sabina and Balbilla. How close a match it was for that between Hadrian and Antinoos, no one can know. But Balbilla was certainly not some kind of junior companion on the trip, almost a lady-in-waiting to the empress. Her poems give the lie to that, parading her literary skill, scholarly expertise and her royal blood. My hunch is that she felt her own ancestry far outclassed that of the Roman emperor. Hadrian was new to power; he had been adopted by his predecessor, Trajan, from outside the circles of royalty – from a family of no inherited distinction. The blue-blooded Balbilla came from generations of a royal dynasty, which traced its lineage through king after king, back to a right-hand man of Alexander the Great. And, thanks to her grandfather’s service as governor of the province, as well as her own learned study, she probably knew a lot more about Egypt than Hadrian did. Beyond the encounter with Memnon, those were precisely the points she was trying to rub in over the course of her extraordinary poems. This article first appeared in the June 2024 issue of BBC History Magazine
9 places where British astronomy flourished
Dr Allan Chapman of Wadham College, Oxford looks at nine places linked to the 'grand amateurs' who exemplify Britain's fascination with the night skies
Considering our climate – seemingly perpetual cloud cover and driving rain – you may wonder how astronomy ever came to flourish in the British Isles. But it did – and spectacularly so. The study of the heavens had, of course, already reached a high level of sophistication in Babylonia and Greece long before it left any written traces in Britain. However, historians would love to ascertain what the builders of Stonehenge, Newgrange near Dublin, and the stone circles of Scotland knew, for the precise astronomical alignments of their monuments still fascinate us today. Written astronomy within these islands, however, goes back to around AD 700, with the Venerable Bede of Jarrow monastery and the ‘saints and scholars’ of early medieval Ireland. Contrary to the myth of the ‘Dark Age’, the monk-scholars of that time had a general familiarity with classical science. Indeed, they needed it to undertake the complex lunar and solar calculations that were necessary to fix the moveable feast of Easter. And by 1250, classical astronomy was being routinely taught in the then new Oxford and Cambridge universities, and in numerous monasteries. In fact, Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales of c1381 are full of Greek astronomical knowledge. Read more | How has our understanding of space developed over the past 5,000 years? In the 16th century, Sir Thomas Digges and others were writing about Copernicus’s new idea of a sun-centred universe. Then, on 26 July 1609, Thomas Harriot made the first surviving drawing of the moon, using a telescope, beating Galileo’s more famous observations by four months (although Harriot never published). But it was in the 17th century that British astronomy scaled the heights. Sir Christopher Wren, Dr Robert Hooke and Bishop John Wilkins in Oxford were pioneer telescopic astronomers, and Wilkins, in the late 1640s, was seriously discussing the possibility of life on other worlds. He even designed a ‘flying chariot’ in which to ascend to the moon. Of course, central to this whole enterprise had been Wilkins’s role in founding the ‘club’ in Wadham College, Oxford, which – following King Charles II’s restoration to the throne in 1660 – became the Royal Society, in Gresham College, London. Every subsequent British monarch, down to Queen Elizabeth II, has been patron of the Royal Society. Yet neither King Charles II nor any other British monarch has had any financial or other control over the Royal Society; nor over the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) after its founding in 1820. Indeed, this led to a circumstance that made British astronomy, and all British science, unique in Europe. Unlike the continental European scientific academies, where the monarch or the state exerted firm control, the Royal Society (and the RAS) were self-funded. The fellows financed their own researches, while loyally drinking the sovereign’s health. This created a tradition which has been called ‘grand amateur’: ‘grand’, because they pioneered fundamental research into all branches of astronomy; and ‘amateur’, because they did it for their love of science. Indeed, even when the Revd John Flamsteed became the first Astronomer Royal at Greenwich in 1675, he had to provide his own instruments and equipment. Crucial to the rapid post-1660 development of British astronomy was the early establishment of a dynamic scientist-craftsman relationship. Those men who were to design and build increasingly powerful telescopes, precision clocks, and other research instruments were not underlings, but respected scientists in their own right, and many were elected fellows of the Royal Society. For British science has always been talent-led, indeed, an open meritocracy. Between the 17th and 19th centuries, this meritocracy produced a galaxy of astronomical talent that included Jeremiah Horrocks and Sir Isaac Newton. Then came George Graham and John Harrison, both clock-maker physicists, and that founder of modern deep-space telescopic astronomy Sir William Herschel, who rose from a Hanoverian army bandsman to a knighted fellow of the Royal Society. In the Victorian age William Lassell, having made his fortune as a Liverpool brewer, spent it on financing his own world-class astronomical researches into solar system bodies. Meanwhile, the spectroscopic researches that first made possible the chemical analysis of the stars and nebulae (galaxies) were financed by Sir William Huggins on the profits of the family silk firm. And it was John Jones, a self-educated labourer working on Bangor docks, who became the first Welshman to build a spectroscope and a photographic reflecting telescope. A growing number of women also took up the science. The less rigid social structures of self-funded British astronomy gave opportunities to trailblazers such as Caroline Herschel, Mary Somerville and Lady Margaret Huggins that they would have lacked in the university-professor-driven astronomy of continental Europe. Read more | 6 women in science history you (probably) didn’t know about Astronomical science so expanded in the 20th century, however, that the old ‘grand amateur’ system was superseded by a new university-led science, with Cambridge playing a leading role. Yet astronomy is still the science in which serious amateurs continue to make amazing discoveries. 9 places associated with the history of British astronomy St Albans Cathedral, St Albans, Hertfordshire One of the world-changing inventions of medieval Europe was the mechanical clock, the ancestor of all exact self-acting machines. The son of a working blacksmith in Berkshire, Richard of Wallingford was first educated by local Benedictine monks, and then went up to the order’s Oxford college, where his mathematical brilliance flourished. He was especially interested in calculating devices, and, upon becoming abbot of the great Benedictine monastery of St Albans in 1326, he set about fabricating his clockwork universe. His astronomical clock was powered by a large weight on a rope, and the energy generated passed through a sophisticated arrangement of gears to turn a circular star-disk around the Earth, which was then believed to lie at the centre of the universe. It also showed the current positions of the sun, moon and planets, rang bells, and computed lunar eclipses. It was one of the wonders of the age. Although Richard did not invent the clock, he made major contributions towards its development, and was not only one of medieval Europe’s most accomplished astronomers, but also a mechanical engineer of genius. Sadly, the original clock disappeared during the Reformation, before St Albans Abbey became a cathedral. But fortunately Richard’s engineering drawings survived, making it possible for 20th-century scholars to rebuild it. The cathedral is open all year and the replica clock can be found in the exhibition area near the north transept. Trinity College, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire Founded by King Henry VIII in 1546, Trinity College, Cambridge was destined to become a world-famous ‘nursery’ for astronomers and scientists. It was here, for instance, that Sir Isaac Newton, between 1666 and 1690, brought to fruition his theory of universal gravitation, in which he developed his six-primary-colour theory of ‘white’ light. It was also here that he invented the ‘Newtonian’ reflecting, or mirror, telescope – the ancestor of some of the most powerful telescopes in the modern world. Newton’s intellectual legacy inspired many Trinity College (and other) astronomers for centuries, and still does. The Revd Dr Nevil Maskelyne of Trinity became Astronomer Royal in 1764, and his work played a major role in enabling navigators to use exact lunar tables to find their longitude at sea. And Maskelyne was the first of several Trinity Astronomers Royal. Sir George Biddell Airy in the Victorian age was another, while a recent Master of Trinity, Lord Martin Rees, was Astronomer Royal and president of the Royal Society. Newton’s legacy to modern science was enormous, for he showed that both terrestrial and celestial realms were governed by common mathematical laws. Trinity welcomes visitors to the college for most of the year. St Michael’s Church, Much Hoole, Preston, Lancashire Where a Bible clerk first witnessed the transit of Venus Jeremiah Horrocks is generally regarded as one of the founders of British telescopic and modern mathematical astronomy. In 1639–40, this Liverpool-born, Cambridge-educated 21-year-old was living in Much Hoole, probably as a schoolmaster, and serving as a Bible clerk in St Michael’s Church. What propelled him to posthumous fame, however, was his calculation, prediction and observation (with his friend William Crabtree of Salford) of the first witnessed transit of Venus across the sun’s disk, on 24 November 1639. This was a very rare event. Horrocks observed the transit by projecting the image of Venus, silhouetted on the brilliant solar disk, onto a piece of graduated paper, and making careful measurements. Even before 1639 Horrocks had come to suspect that the sun and planets exerted invisible physical forces upon each other, and when Sir Isaac Newton published his Principia in 1687, he cited Horrocks’s work. Horrocks died suddenly on 4 January 1641. Horrocks’s subsequent fame was enormous. The early Royal Society collected and published his surviving papers in 1672, and the Revd John Flamsteed greatly admired him. In the 1850s several memorials to Horrocks’s achievements, including two beautiful stained-glass windows and a memorial tablet, were installed in St Michael’s Church, while he also received a memorial in Westminster Abbey. Old Royal Observatory, Flamsteed House, Greenwich, London The public focus of British astronomy since 1675 has been the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. Founded by King Charles II as part of the project to enable sailors to find their longitude at sea from the position of the moon, and designed by Sir Christopher Wren (with contributions from Robert Hooke), the Royal Observatory was under-funded from the start. Wren had to use materials recycled from the demolished Tilbury Fort, and still ended up running £29 over his £500 budget. Yet Wren’s observatory is not only one of our national architectural gems, but its Astronomer Royal directors – from John Flamsteed in 1675, onwards – turned it into a world-class scientific institution. Using large graduated instruments, Flamsteed, Edmond Halley and their successors, mapped the positions of the stars, and elucidated the orbit of the moon so as to enable a navigator to fix his position anywhere on the surface of the Earth by Captain Cook’s time in the 1770s. Greenwich served the Royal and Merchant navies, along with sailors across the world. The Greenwich Meridian was internationally accepted by 1884, while Sir George Airy had initiated the telegraphic GMT time service in 1852. Greenwich ceased to operate as an observatory in 1954, but is much more than a museum; it is where so much astronomical research took place.The Royal Observatory is now part of the National Maritime Museum. Read more | The history of daylight saving time The Monument, Fish Street Hill London Few commuters and sightseers in the City of London realise that the 202-feet-high stone column erected in the 1670s to commemorate London’s resurgence from the Great Fire of 1666 was originally designed by Robert Hooke and his friend Sir Christopher Wren (both astronomers) to serve also as a giant telescope. Indeed, ascending above the original observing chamber is an open space within the spiral staircase, the top of which could once be opened up to reveal a clear view of the sky directly above the viewer (the zenith). <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2012/11/GettyImages-531542407-8fee428.jpg" width="5311" height="3541" alt="The Monument, a 202-feet-high stone column erected in the 1670s to commemorate the Great Fire of London, was originally designed by Robert Hooke and his friend Sir Christopher Wren (both astronomers) to serve as a giant telescope. (Getty Images)" title="The Monument, a 202-feet-high stone column erected in the 1670s to commemorate the Great Fire of London, was originally designed by Robert Hooke and his friend Sir Christopher Wren (both astronomers) to serve as a giant telescope. (Getty Images)" /> This was all part of an attempt to prove that the Earth rotated around the sun, for if we moved in an orbit that was 180 million miles across, then there should be a tiny ‘parallax’ displacement (a difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight) of star positions over a six-month cycle. It was best to try to detect this parallax in the zenith, where the atmosphere did not bend the starlight. Hooke failed, alas, because in 1678 it was impossible to obtain a 200-feet-focal-length lens of sufficient quality. Nonetheless, he did important barometric pressure experiments at the top and bottom of the column. Visitors can still ascend the 311 steps to the top of the Monument and enjoy spectacular views across London. Listen | Rebecca Rideal responds to listener questions about the devastating blaze that swept through the capital in 1666 Herschel Museum of Astronomy, Bath, Somerset The already-known planets, being naked-eye objects, had been familiar since antiquity. But Uranus, out beyond Saturn, is a telescope-only planet. The object Herschel thought to be a comet turned out to be a new planet, propelling him to fame. Herschel, and later his sister Caroline, who acted as his assistant, were shining examples of the open, meritocratic nature of British astronomy. Becoming a successful and fashionable musician, he pursued his boyhood passion for astronomy, building high-quality telescopes. Having discovered Uranus – originally named Georgium Sidus, (King George’s Star) – William was elected a fellow of the Royal Society and he and Caroline went on to make discoveries that laid the basis of modern cosmology. Their Bath house is now a museum and open to the public. City Observatory, Edinburgh Midlothian On Calton Hill, which rises up at the east end of Princes Street and commands a magnificent view of Edinburgh’s 18th-century ‘new town’, are the domes of the Old Royal Observatory. Though there had been an observatory on the site since 1776, the present observatory began as a private institution in 1811, created by a group of scientific gentlemen of the University of Edinburgh. Its present buildings date from 1818, and on his visit in 1822 King George IV conferred upon it the title of ‘Royal’. In 1834, it became the research base of Edinburgh University’s regius professor of practical astronomy (a position now known as Astronomer Royal for Scotland), two of whom were professors Thomas Henderson and Charles Piazzi Smyth. It was Henderson who, in the late 1830s, completed pioneering research into measuring star distances, begun in South Africa. The Royal Observatory was, however, dogged by under-funding. This led the Scottish ‘grand amateur’ astronomer Lord Lindsay, Earl of Crawford to found, largely from his own resources, a new astrophysical observatory on Edinburgh’s Blackford Hill. In 1896, this became the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, and Calton Hill became the City Observatory. The building is currently closed for redevelopment. Birr Castle, Birr, County Offaly William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, was one of the grandest of the Victorian ‘grand amateur’ astronomers, for whom astronomical research had been a life’s passion. One of the great puzzles facing astronomers from the time of Sir William Herschel in the 1780s was the nature of deep space. What were those smudges of light which they called ‘nebulae’? Clearly, the only way forward was to build telescopes of increasing power to try to resolve what they were made of. Using the scientific training he received at Trinity College Dublin and Oxford, Earl Rosse devoted the resources of his Irish estates to attempting to find an answer. Using largely local Irish craftsmen, he designed and built what, for 60 years, would be the biggest telescope in the world. Its 72-inch mirror in a 52-foot tube, controlled by ropes between stone walls, discovered, among other things, the first ‘spiral nebulae’, or galaxies. Earl Rosse was a conscientious landlord, spending his private money on various projects to create employment during the potato famine. His sons continued his scientific work, while his wife, Countess Mary, was a famous Irish photographer. The beautifully restored telescope in the castle grounds can be seen by the public. Jodrell Bank Observatory, near Goostrey Cheshire At the end of the Second World War, Professor (later Sir) Bernard Lovell of Manchester University acquired the Jodrell Bank site as an early radar and radio astronomy research station. Radio signals from space had already been detected in America in the 1930s, but it was post-1940 radar technology that gave radio astronomy new research potential in peacetime. Lovell’s telescope had a great steerable metal dish, covering the whole sky and capable of focusing celestial radio waves and increasing their intensity. Coming into operation in 1957, the telescope immediately proved its worth by picking up signals from Sputnik’s booster rocket and other experimental artificial satellites. And since the 1950s, radio has opened up a spectacular new window on the cosmos. Jodrell’s technology is constantly being upgraded and its visitors’ centre greatly adds to the public understanding of cosmology. Dr Allan Chapman is a historian of science at Oxford University history faculty, with particular research interests in the history of astronomy, medicine, and science and religion This article was first published in the November 2012 issue of BBC History Magazine
10 things you need to know about the battle of Bosworth
The battle of Bosworth, fought on 22 August 1485, was the last significant clash of the Wars of the Roses. The armies of Yorkist king Richard III were defeated by Henry Tudor (later Henry VII), which heralded the end of the Plantagenet dynasty and marked the birth of the Tudor age. Richard III was killed during the brutal battle. But how did Richard III die? Here, Chris Skidmore, author of Bosworth: The Birth of the Tudors, brings you 10 facts about one of the most famous battles in English history
For many, 22 August 1485 remains one of the key dates in British history. Yet what exactly took place in the early hours of the morning (the battle was over by noon) still remains tantalisingly elusive. So, what are the facts? Many myths surrounding Bosworth remain prevalent – stirred by the imaginings of Shakespeare, whose famous words, “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse”, placed in the mouth of the defeated Richard III, are occasionally still recounted as part of the narrative description. Despite decades of research into what exactly happened at Bosworth, and where exactly the battle was fought, it seems truth remains inconvenient when it comes to telling a good story. That shouldn't stop anyone knowing the basic facts of one of the most famous battles in English history, however. So for anyone interested in knowing as far as possible 'what happened', here are 10 key things to bear in mind… The battle of Bosworth wasn't actually fought at Bosworth It only became known as the battle of Bosworth from around 25 years after it was fought. Instead, contemporaries knew it as the battle of 'Redemore', meaning place of reeds. Other names for the battle included 'Brownheath' and 'Sandeford'. The site of where the conflict took place has now been located two miles from the battlefield centre, close to the villages of Dadlington and Stoke Golding. The landscape would have been a marshy plainland (later to be drained), across which ran a Roman road. Listen | Historian and politician Chris Skidmore offers his take on pivotal moments such as Richard’s seizing of the throne, his death at Bosworth and the disappearance of the princes in the tower It is hard to imagine the scale of battle Richard III's army, at around 15,000 men, was approximately three times the size of Henry Tudor's army at just 5,000 men. Meanwhile the Stanley brothers (Henry Tudor's step-father, Thomas Lord Stanley, and Sir William Stanley) had around 6,000 men between them. These numbers meant that the battle site would have had to stretch across several miles. Treachery at Bosworth: what really brought down Richard III At the same time, Richard had an impressive military arsenal One account mentions 140 cannon, while the archaeological searches of the battlefield have found more than 30 cannonshot – more than any other discovered on a European medieval battlefield. Henry Tudor had landed in Wales on 7 August, and had marched more than 200 miles into England Richard III had been 'overjoyed' to hear of his landing, confident that he would defeat the 'rebel'. So confident was the king that he even delayed leaving his base at Nottingham by a day in order to celebrate a feast day. A novice when it came to battles, Henry Tudor remained stationed at the back of the field, while his forces were led by the Lancastrian general, John de Vere, the earl of Oxford, who also led Henry's vanguard In between the two forces was a marsh, which Oxford managed to navigate around, keeping the marsh on his right, before launching an attack against Richard III's vanguard, led by the aged John, duke of Norfolk. Bosworth: the dawn of the Tudors It was Oxford's crushing of Richard's vanguard that began to turn the battle for Henry: Richard's troops began to desert him In particular, his 'rear guard' – 7,000 men led by Henry Percy, the earl of Northumberland – stood still, and 'no blows were given or received', suggesting that Northumberland's men were kept out of the action. Perhaps they were unable to cross the marsh. Alternatively, tales of Northumberland's treachery were rife. Later he was killed by his own supporters for 'disappointing' Richard. Whatever the cause, the fact that the rear half of Richard's army did not engage in battle left the king in real trouble. Did Richard III really kill the Princes in the Tower? Richard was offered a horse to flee the battle, but refused “God forbid I yield one step”, he is reported to have said. “This day I will die as a king or win”. Richard spotted the standards of Henry Tudor (soon to be Henry VII) and decided to charge towards him with his mounted cavalry, perhaps some 200 men in total, wearing the crown over his helmet. The 5 greatest mysteries behind the Wars of the Roses The battle around the standards was brutal All accounts attest to Richard's strength in battle. Even John Rous, who compared Richard to the Antichrist, admitted “if I may say the truth to his credit, though small in body and feeble of limb, he bore himself like a gallant knight and acted with distinction as his own champion until his last breath”. Richard knocked down Sir John Cheyney, who at six foot eight inches was the tallest soldier of his day, while Henry's standard-bearer Sir William Brandon was killed. Richard's own standard-bearer, Sir Percival Thribald, has both his legs cut from underneath him, but still managed to cling to the king's standard. What happened after the battle of Bosworth? It was only when Henry was in 'immediate danger' that the Stanleys – or rather Sir William Stanley – came to his aid, crashing into the side of Richard's men and sweeping them into the marsh Sir William had nothing to lose if Richard had won – he had already been declared a traitor days previously. His wily elder brother, Thomas Lord Stanley, despite being married to Henry Tudor's mother, Margaret Beaufort, seems to have thought best to stay out of the battle altogether. When Henry was crowned on a nearby hill, one source reported that it was Sir William Stanley, rather than his brother, who placed the crown on Henry's head. Listen to historian Nicola Tallis exploring the life of Tudor matriarch Margaret Beaufort, in this lecture recorded at BBC History Magazine’s 2019 History Weekend Thanks to the discovery of Richard's remains, we now know in detail how Richard must have met his end One report puts his death down to a Welsh halberdier – the halberd being an axe-like weapon on the end of a six-foot long pole. The king's helmet seems to have been cut away (there are cut marks on the skull's jaw suggesting that the helmet's strap has been cut off) to expose his head. Several gouge marks in the front of the skull seem to have been caused by a dagger, perhaps in a struggle. Then the two wounds that would have killed Richard include the back part of his skull being sheathed off by what seems to be a halberd; if this did not kill him, a sword blade thrust from the base of the skull straight through the brain certainly would have done the job. Listen | Following the momentous announcement in 2013 that the body found in a Leicestershire car park was indeed Richard III, we spoke to Leicester archaeologist Lin Foxhall and Phil Stone, chairman of the Richard III Society, to get an inside view on the developments Richard was then placed on the back of a horse, trussed up like a hog (his insignia) with his 'privy parts' exposed, to be taken to Leicester, where his body was put on public display. Was the skeleton in the Leicester car park really Richard III? In conclusion, Bosworth remains a battle with an enduring appeal: it is not simply a tale of defeat and victory, but also of treachery and intrigue. But as recent discoveries have shown, the battle's own history remains very much a living one, with our understanding of where the battle was fought and how exactly Richard III died being completely transformed in recent years. The story of Bosworth, 529 years on, remains very much alive. Chris Skidmore is the author of Bosworth: The Birth of the Tudors (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2013) This article was first published by HistoryExtra in August 2014
The history of Tintagel Castle and the legend of King Arthur – plus 5 places to explore in Britain
Miles Russell and Spencer Mizen visit Tintagel Castle in Cornwall to explore its links with one of the world's great mythological figures...
King Arthur. Heroic British warlord who led the fight against marauding Anglo-Saxons, or a figment of a writer’s fertile imagination? It’s a question that’s been puzzling poets, chroniclers, historians and film-makers for more than 1,000 years. And nowhere does this question have more resonance than on a small, windswept, rain-battered headland projecting into the sea off north Cornwall: Tintagel. Numerous sites across north-west Europe – from Glastonbury Abbey in Somerset to the Forest of Paimpont in Brittany – have trumpeted their connections to King Arthur. Yet surely none are as intimately linked to the legendary warlord as Tintagel. King Arthur: 6 things you need to know about the warrior king and his legend That this is the case is almost exclusively down to the endeavours of one man: a Welsh cleric going by the name of Geoffrey of Monmouth. In the 1130s, Geoffrey set about writing a history of the kings who had ruled the Britons over the preceding 2,000 years. The resulting Historia Regum Britanniae is among the greatest pieces of medieval history writing – though not an entirely reliable one. It tells us, for example, that Britain was founded by the Trojans, and introduces us to King Lear. Yet, most significant of all, says Miles Russell, senior lecturer in prehistoric and Roman archaeology at Bournemouth University, is what it tells us about Arthur. “In his Historia Regum Britanniae Geoffrey gathered together a series of legends from western Britain to come up with a single narrative of the past,” says Miles. “So, in the case of Arthur, he related a tale that had been passed down by word of mouth through the generations. “In this story, Uther Pendragon is besotted with Igraine, beautiful wife of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall. Uther is determined to have Igraine for himself and so, with the help of the wizard Merlin, assumes the image of Gorlois and tricks his way into Gorlois’ castle at Tintagel. And it is here, Geoffrey tells us, that Arthur is conceived.” The real King Arthur: why are we so obsessed with trying to solve the mystery? 5 British castles with romantic histories It’s not hard to divine why Geoffrey chose Tintagel as the site of a key, dramatic scene in his retelling of a shadowy, mythical past. The modern world can seem a long way away when you venture out onto the island fortress on a dark winter’s day – the wind whipping around you and the sea raging below. Yet there’s more to Tintagel’s links to Dark Age Britain than atmosphere. “Geoffrey’s decision to choose Tintagel as the site of Arthur’s conception would have been informed by history every bit as much as legend,” says Miles. “We know that there was a lot of mining activity – primarily for tin – around here in the Iron Age. And, as Tintagel is such a dominant part of the local landscape, it’s more than possible that there was an Iron Age fort up here – perhaps ruled by an Arthur-like warlord.” Listen | Miles Russell offers a bold view on the historical King Arthur based on his reinterpretation of medieval sources What’s beyond dispute is that, by the sixth century, Tintagel was a bustling port – a key link in a thriving trade network that stretched from southern Britain down the Atlantic seaboard to the Mediterranean coastline. “You would have had ships coming in here from all over southern Europe to buy tin and copper,” says Miles, “and, in return, they brought with them exotic goods such as wine and olive oil.” That this is the case is attested by the hundreds of pieces of fifth to seventh-century pottery that have been discovered all over the island. Faint remains of what is thought to have been the residence of a Dark Age ruler also suggest that Tintagel was a site of some importance. Yet, following its brief heyday, Tintagel slipped back into obscurity – a draughty outpost on the edge of the kingdom. And there it probably would have stayed if it hadn’t been for the arrival on the headland of Earl Richard of Cornwall – brother of King Henry III – in the early 13th century. From magnificent ruins to imposing forts: 10 must-visit British castles The great building project that Richard initiated here in the 1230s still dominates Tintagel today. At its centrepiece is his castle and, though it’s now nothing more than a ruin, much of Richard’s handiwork – including two courtyards, a curtain wall and a gate tower – continue to defy everything that the Cornish weather can throw at them. But the question is, why did Richard choose to build at Tintagel? “Like many Norman aristocrats, Richard was entranced by the romance of the Arthur legend,” says Miles. “So when he decided to set up residence in northern Cornwall, what better way of establishing a bond with a heroic, Dark Age warlord – and, in doing so, effectively controlling the Cornish people – than by choosing the site where Arthur was conceived? For Richard, building a castle at Tintagel was a canny political move.” Richard’s desperation to establish himself as a latter-day Arthur is even reflected in the design of the castle itself. “Its walls are thin, and it’s built out of slate in a mock antiquated style,” says Miles. “This tells us that Richard wasn’t attempting to build a highly defensible stronghold but a romantic building that harks back to Arthur – part of what you could call a medieval theme park.” Geoffrey of Monmouth: the lost voice of ancient Britain If Richard was obsessed with King Arthur, he was far from alone. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae was hugely popular in the Middle Ages – and Arthur was its most feted hero. “The Normans loved Arthur, and that’s partly because he is said to have defeated the Anglo-Saxons, just like they’d done,” says Miles. “By identifying with Arthur, the Normans were saying: ‘We’ve got a kinship with an ancient line of British kings, so don’t dare question our legitimacy.’ You can see this in Henry II’s decision to commission Glastonbury’s monks to excavate the supposed graves of Arthur and Guinevere.” Polite society Yet the real genius of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s text is that it transformed a blood-soaked warlord, battling through the mud of western Britain into a universal hero, celebrated in polite society across Europe. Within decades, Arthur was being championed as a Christian hero during the crusades and celebrated as an icon of knightly chivalry by French writers. And this, says Miles, was a phenomenon with staying power. “More than 300 years after Geoffrey died, Henry VII named his eldest son Arthur to bolster his hold on the English throne. Henry VIII even used the Arthur legend – and its link to a form of British Christianity that predates the papacy – to justify his break with Rome.” But beneath the chivalry, the romance, and the political agendas, there remain questions: Where did the idea of King Arthur come from? Could the legend be based on a historical figure? “The trouble with this is that it takes us back to one of the most shadowy eras in British history – the chaotic, confused period that would have followed the departure of the Romans,” says Miles Russell. “Sure, there could have been a king going by the name of Arthur – this was, after all, a time of warlords, of kingdom fighting kingdom, of the Anglo-Saxon invasion. Yet the reality is that, such is the dearth of evidence, we can never know. “There is, for example, no earliest primary source that we can say contains the first secure reference to Arthur. A poem called The Gododdin, possibly from AD 600, compares one of its lead characters to Arthur, which suggests that he may have existed as a model of heroism by the start of the seventh century. “But the fact is, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Arthur is a composite character. He’s created from multiple different heroes. There could be elements of Magnus Maximus – the Roman commander of Britain who led a massive rebellion against the emperor Gratian. Then there’s a British general called Ambrosius Aurelianus. He is a prominent figure in the writings of a sixth-century British monk called Gildas, who described how Aurelianus defeated the English at a great (and seemingly historical) battle at a place called Badon.” King Arthur: five men who made up the legendary Dark Ages king Could this English-slaying freedom fighter have been the primary inspiration for the mythical figure that became King Arthur? Again, we may never know. But the fact that men such as Aurelianus lived in the period following Rome’s fall – an age when Tintagel was a thriving port and probably a power base – only serves to strengthen the site’s association with Arthur. And it is an association that has drawn visitors to Tintagel for centuries. After Earl Richard’s death, the island-fortress went into a long decline and the castle became a romantic ruin. That’s how it stayed until the 18th and 19th centuries when a series of artists such as Alfred Tennyson – fired up by a renaissance in interest in ancient Britain – began championing Tintagel’s connections to the Arthurian legend through paintings and literature. By the end of the 19th century, tourists were flocking here to witness ‘Arthur’s castle’ and ‘Merlin’s cave’. What did the Anglo-Saxons ever do for us? Celebrated creation While most modern historians agree that it is simply impossible to establish a historical link between Tintagel and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s most celebrated creation, those tourists keep coming. Tintagel is now one of English Heritage’s top five attractions, drawing up to 3,000 visitors a day in the peak summer season. With a new outdoor interpretation of Arthur’s legend (featuring interactive exhibits and artworks) set to be unveiled, and plans in place to build a new, 72-metre-long footbridge to link the mainland with the island in 2019, the future is looking bright for this Dark Age site. And that, says Miles Russell, is also the case for Arthur. “He’s moved beyond his status as an obscure British king to one of the world’s great mythological figures, and so there will always be another element of his legend that can be drawn out. I don’t think his story will ever end.” King Arthur: 4 more places to explore in Britain Cadbury Castle (Somerset) Where an ancient fort was upgraded This Iron Age fortress was first linked with Arthur in 1542, when the antiquary John Leland claimed that Cadbury had been ‘Camelot’. Excavations here in the late 1960s demonstrated that there was indeed significant remodification of the prehistoric fort in the post Roman period, but whether this was the headquarters of a monarch who inspired the myth of Arthur is unknown. Glastonbury Abbey (Somerset) Where ‘Arthur’ was reburied Glastonbury today has strong popular associations with King Arthur. This is in part due to the romantic setting of both the ruined abbey and the Tor, but also because it was here, in 1191, that monks disturbed two graves, supposedly those of Arthur and Guinevere, establishing Glastonbury as ‘Avalon’. The bones were reburied by the high altar, providing a lucrative pilgrimage attraction. The Great Hall (Winchester) Where a round table hangs On the wall of the Great Hall of Winchester hangs a large round table. (The round table was added to Arthur’s story in the 12th century, and has become a potent aspect of the myth.) Dendrochronology suggests that it dates from the late 13th century and it may have been commissioned by Edward I, who was a great Arthur enthusiast. Birdoswald (Cumbria) Where it’s claimed Arthur was slain Birdoswald was the Roman fort of Banna, an outpost at the western end of Hadrian’s Wall. Some have suggested that the fort provided the basis for the battle of Camlann, where Arthur fell in battle fighting the treacherous Mordred but, as with all things Arthurian, this is much disputed. Dr Miles Russell is senior lecturer in prehistoric and Roman archaeology at Bournemouth University. Words by Spencer Mizen This article was first published in the February 2016 issue of BBC History Magazine
Written in the stars: 7 celestial events that may have changed history
If you were paying close attention to the skies last night, you may have observed what is known among stargazers as a 'pink supermoon'. Here, Guy de la Bédoyère describes seven celestial events that may have changed the course of history, from the comet that carried William the Conqueror to victory in 1066 to the eclipse that helped Lawrence of Arabia defeat the Ottomans...
Stargazers across Europe were able to witness the emergence of a pink supermoon last night, with many documenting the event in breathtaking images. The 2020 celestial event meant that the moon appeared up to 14 per cent bigger and 30 per cent brighter than normal – depending on where you lived. It took place as many people live under lockdown due to the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus. It's not the first time a celestial event has been observed during a historic time. And, as Guy de la Bédoyère reveals, past observations have even changed the course of history... Learn more about the 2020 pink moon from Science Focus and BBC Sky at Night Magazine: In pictures: The 2020 Super Pink Moon Observe the perigee ‘Supermoon’ A match made in heaven How a solar eclipse of 585 BC persuaded two belligerent kingdoms to make love not war For the first known example of a celestial event changing the course of history, we must head to the sixth century BC when King Cyaxares, ruler of an ancient Iranian people known as the Medes, allowed nomad Scythians to settle in his kingdom. In return for Cyaxares’ hospitality, the Scythians trained Median boys in archery. But then the relationship turned sour. One day Cyaxares hurled abuse at the Scythians for going out hunting and coming home with nothing. In revenge the Scythians killed one of their trainees, chopped him up, cooked him and fed the meat to Cyaxares, pretending it was one of their hunting kills. Before Cyaxares got wind of their ruse, the Scythians had fled to the court of King Alyattes of Lydia at Sardis (western Turkey). Unsurprisingly Cyaxares was enraged by the Scythians’ antics, but Alyattes refused to send his visitors back. War raged between Lydia and Media for the next six years, with neither side able to gain the upper hand. Finally, during one battle, so the Greek historian Herodotus tells us, “day was suddenly turned into night”. So horrified by this were the combatants, they gave up the fight and settled for peace, which was guaranteed by Alyattes’ daughter marrying Cyaxares’ son. Remarkably, Herodotus reports that Thales of Miletus had predicted the event, which we now know took place on 28 May 585 BC – the first recorded prediction of a solar eclipse. The eclipse passed right through southern Europe and across modern Turkey into Iraq. Fear of the dark A Persian army made hay when the sun vanished in 557 BC A mere 28 years after an eclipse brought an end to the Lydia–Media war, the course of ancient history was once again shaped by a celestial phenomenon. Our source for this is Xenophon, a Greek philosopher-historian, who in 401 BC accompanied the army of Cyrus the Younger on an expedition to take the Persian throne from his brother Artaxerxes. En route they came across a deserted city called Larissa on the banks of the river Tigris, somewhere in modern Iraq. Xenophon explains that Larissa had once been a well-fortified stronghold, its 100ft-high clay brick walls sitting on a 20ft-stone base with a six-mile perimeter. It had certainly proved too formidable for a Persian army 200 years earlier. Back then the Persians had repeatedly tried – and failed – to break the Larissans’ resistance. But then the heavens had intervened. Xenophon reports that “a cloud covered up the sun and hid it from sight”. This had so unsettled the Larissans that they promptly abandoned their city, some taking refuge on a pyramid nearby, and leaving Larissa defenceless before the Persians. 10 astronomers you’ve (probably) never heard of 6 of history’s strangest ever theories about outer space The track of the total eclipse of 19 May 557 BC passed right through southern Syria and Iraq. This must have been the event that so spooked the Larissans that they were prepared to give up a city that had for so long stood fast against their enemies. The gospel truth? An eclipse may offer us a clue as to the date of Jesus’s death One of the most important events in Christian tradition is the crucifixion of Jesus. But the New Testament is frustratingly short on historical detail. The crucifixion took place during the reign of the Roman emperor Tiberius (AD 14–37). But when exactly? The Gospel of St Luke tells us that John the Baptist began his teaching in the 15th year of Tiberius, which must be c29 AD. Later, Luke tells us that, at the time of the crucifixion, “there was a darkness over all the Earth” which lasted from the sixth to the ninth hour, also mentioned in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. Luke goes on to specify that “the sun was darkened”. That sounds like an eclipse – and there was one. It took place on 24 November AD 29 and passed through Syria and Iraq. It wasn’t total in Judaea, but it would have been very nearly so. Coincidence? Perhaps. It certainly complicates the chronology, because if Luke was referring to the eclipse of November AD 29 when describing the crucifixion, he was leaving less than a year for John to complete his teaching and Jesus to perform his ministry. Perhaps Matthew, Mark and Luke were using their memory of the eclipse of AD 29 to add symbolism to their accounts. Halley’s conquest A comet in 1066 spelled doom for the English (at least that’s what the Normans would have us believe) The trouble with treating a celestial phenomenon as an omen is the question of who the omen is meant for, and whether it is a good or bad one. The most reliable answers generally come afterwards. Halley’s Comet returns every 75–76 years. But it wasn’t until 1705 that the English astronomer Edmond Halley realised that, since a comet had been regularly reported at that interval, it must be the same one. One of those occasions was in 1066, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle announcing that, around Easter time, “a portent such as men had never seen was seen in the heavens”. Visible for a week, it was described by some as the “long-haired star”. According to the Bayeux Tapestry, this long-haired star spelled bad news for poor Harold II. As his compatriots look up at the comet with wonder, the English king is portrayed being warned by a figure, presumably an astrologer, that the comet is an omen of doom. William I, on the other hand, regarded it as a positive portent – though that, of course, was in retrospect. A few scenes later, the future Conqueror is shown building his armada, buoyed up with celestially inspired confidence. Drowning in bad luck An eclipse in 1133 took the blame for a string of calamities to strike 12th-century England Henry I’s death on 1 December 1135 was a challenging time for England. His son William had been drowned in the White Ship disaster of 1120. His first wife was already dead, and his second, Adeliza, whom he had married in 1121, had borne him no children. Henry was left only with his daughter Matilda, the Holy Roman Empress. Surely she could bring the royal family a little luck? Well, no, actually. The baronry and the church were appalled by the prospect of a woman ruling England in her own right, and their disaffection crystallised in the figure of Henry’s nephew Stephen of Blois who, following Henry’s death in 1135, seized the English throne. What followed was 19 years of civil war, a period of turbulence that’s now remembered as the Anarchy. So what was the cause of this ill fortune? According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, you needed to look no further than the celestial event that, it says, occurred four months earlier, on 2 August 1135, when “the light of the day was eclipsed” as Henry sailed to France. There was indeed an eclipse on 2 August, passing over northern Britain and central Europe – but in 1133! Perhaps the 1133 eclipse was just too good a story for the Chronicle to miss. Or maybe, by the time the Chronicle was written down, the two events had been unconsciously conflated. England cowers before the apocalypse As the sun disappeared over England in 1652, during the volatile political climate after the Civil War, people feared the end of the world In 1652 England was still coming to terms with Oliver Cromwell’s victory over the royalists in the Civil War. On 8 April, by our reckoning, Monday 29 March by theirs (England still being on the Julian calendar, then behind the corrected Gregorian date by about 10 days), a total solar eclipse passed through the north-east Atlantic. It crossed Ireland, Wales, north-western England and Scotland, just scraping the north-west coast of Scandinavia. It’s rare for Britain to be virtually the only land crossed by an eclipse. In London, almost the whole solar disc was obscured. The eclipse had been “much threatened by astrologers”, according to the diarist John Evelyn. Apocalyptic tracts were circulated ominously, warning of the impending “Black Monday”, which would be “the precursor of great calamities and mischiefs”. These same tracts likened the probable fallout to the “horrid calamities” that befell the Jews after the crucifixion, when another eclipse was said to have occurred. Fifth Monarchists – a group of violent Puritans who would seek to overthrow the government – believed the Second Coming of the Messiah was imminent. Despite efforts to reassure congregations, the state of national agitation was so great that the country ground to a standstill that day. “Hardly any would work,” noted Evelyn, and many hid in their houses all day. Arabs strike from the shadows Lawrence of Arabia used a lunar eclipse to devastating effect in the war with the Ottomans Lunar eclipses, when the Earth casts its shadow across the full moon, have a whole different level of potency to their solar equivalents. More frequent and more widely visible, the sight of a blood-red moon in the dead of night can have a powerful effect. In July 1917, during the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman empire, Lawrence of Arabia was making his way across the desert towards the Turkish stronghold of Aqaba with his Arab army. He had to fight his way past two outpost defences first. On 4 July they came to the first outpost, called Kethira. The Arabs were fearful, believing the full moon would compromise their chances of a night attack. Lawrence, armed with his diary, reassured them “for a while there should be no moon”. He was right. Lawrence knew that a lunar eclipse was due, and when it appeared on cue (on the night of 4/5 July 1917), it terrified and distracted the Turks, who were now “firing rifles and clanging copper pots to rescue the threatened satellite”. Kethira duly fell, and Lawrence’s celebrated attack on Aqaba followed on 6 July. Guy de la Bédoyère is a historian and writer. His books include Praetorian: The Rise and Fall of Rome’s Imperial Bodyguard (Yale, 2017) and The Real Lives of Roman Britain (Yale, 2016). Read the September issue of BBC Sky at Night Magazine, which features advice on how to get great eclipse photos. Visit skyatnightmagazine.com This article was first published in the September 2017 issue of BBC History Magazine
Ellie Cawthorne pays a visit to the village of Oberammergau where, once every decade, the locals stage a massive theatrical production, the result of a holy pledge made almost 400 years ago
If you happen to visit the small Bavarian town of Oberammergau in 2020, you will soon notice that the local men are unusually hirsute. Wandering through the streets, beards and long hair will be everywhere you look. But this town-wide grooming regime isn’t the result of any fashion trend – it’s all in the name of tradition, God and theatre. Once a decade, on Ash Wednesday, Oberammergauers stop shaving as part of the preparations for the town’s Passion Play, a theatrical tradition that has been an integral part of life here for almost 400 years. Ever since the play telling the story of Christ’s trial, death and resurrection was first performed in 1634, the production has grown beyond recognition. It now attracts audiences from across the globe. For the Passion Play’s latest incarnation this year, almost half a million people will descend on the town over the course of 104 performances stretching from May until October. And it’s not just the audiences that are huge, the cast is equally formidable. Of the town’s population of around 5,500 people, more than 2,300 locals appear on stage, or perform in the orchestra and choir. Every role, from Jesus and the apostles right down to each Roman footsoldier is filled by an Oberammergau resident. Anyone who has lived in the town for 20 years has the right to partake, and many come from families in which roles have been passed down from generation to generation. Perhaps as astounding as the scale of the spectacle itself is the fact that this mammoth undertaking originated from a holy pledge that Oberammergau’s people made in a desperate moment almost 400 years ago. Divine intervention Around 90km south of Munich, close to the Austrian border, Oberammergau sits at the edge of the Ettaler Forest, under the distinctive white peak of the Kofel mountain. Situated on a medieval trading route from Venice to Augsburg, the town was renowned for the exceptional skill of its wood carvers and painters. Today, wooden alpine cabins are painted with fairytale murals and trompe-l’oeil optical illusions, while small souvenir shops overflow with Christmas decorations (sold all year round), cuckoo clocks and handmade wooden figurines. Surrounded by rolling meadows and snow-capped mountain peaks, with beer-brewing monasteries and the fairytale castles of Ludwig II nearby, it’s a picture-postcard image of Bavaria. In the 17th century, this sleepy town looked far less peaceful. The Thirty Years’ War saw the region ravaged by marauding troops living off the land, and Oberammergau was forced to isolate itself as surrounding towns succumbed to plague. In 1632, with war still raging, disaster struck. According to local legend, the careful precautions the townsfolk had taken to avoid contamination failed when a plague-stricken man slipped unnoticed into the village during a church festival. A devastating wave of infections spread. Desperate to escape death’s clutches, the residents struck a deal with the almighty. They pledged that if they were spared from contamination, they would, every 10 years for posterity, stage a magnificent production honouring Christ’s sacrifice. According to Pastor Joseph Daisenberger’s chronicle of Oberammergau’s history, “From this day forward, not a single person perished, even though a great number of them still showed signs of the plague.” In response to this miraculous deliverance, the town duly staged its first Play of the Suffering, Death and Resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ in 1634, on a stage erected above the recently dug graves of the plague victims. Just as the villagers had promised, this would be the first of countless such productions. As the centuries progressed, the scale of the show grew decade on decade. By the 19th century, visitor numbers exceeded 100,000. In 1830, a new open-air theatre was erected to hold the ever-increasing crowds. The play also became a draw for some of history’s leading figures, from Franz Liszt and Gustave Eiffel to the future King Edward VII and the US president Dwight Eisenhower. In 1934, Adolf Hitler attended a jubilee performance for the play’s 300th anniversary. His warmongering would ensure that the following decade was one of only two in which the play was not performed – the other being the 1770s, when Elector Maximilian III placed a blanket ban on all Passion Plays as an improper way of expressing religious devotion. Modernising streak You can discover the history of the Passion Play at Oberammergau’s small but carefully curated museum. Among cabinets brimming with wooden dolls and toy soldiers is a stained-glass window given to the town as a token of appreciation from the adoring audience member King Ludwig II. The collection also holds some of the oldest surviving costumes, including a sequinned headdress dating from the 1760s. Under the weight of almost four centuries of tradition, it’s easy to see how the Passion Play could have become stuck in the past. The fact that it has escaped this fate is largely down to the efforts of one man. First appointed as the show’s director in 1990, when he was just 27 years old, Christian Stückl is an Oberammergau local from a long Passion Play lineage. He remembers listening to his grandfather, who sometimes learned his lines as Herod while sitting on the toilet. Despite this theatrical inheritance, Stückl has spent the last 30 years tirelessly fighting to keep the play looking forward. He overhauled the ossifying production, working with Jewish groups to remove anti-Semitism from the outdated script and casting a married woman as Mary (a role previously reserved for young and unmarried virgins). Stückl’s battle to open casting up to all women (including those who were married or over 35) ended up at Munich’s Higher Regional Court, and in 2000 he finally managed to introduce the right for actors of any religion to take on leading roles. Pay a visit to Oberammergau during Passion Play season and it quickly becomes clear that this is still a town very much shaped by history and tradition. But while the Last Supper table that appears on stage is the same one that has been used since 1870, the people that sit around it are more diverse, and the story they are telling more inclusive. Tradition is important here, but that tradition is kept alive through being continually reshaped and updated. This article was first published in the April 2020 edition of BBC History Magazine
An 1875 photograph of a family dressed in finery enjoying a day out at Stonehenge may be the earliest such snap taken at the monument, English Heritage has announced. Wiltshire's world-famous stones have been attracting sightseers for thousands of years. Here, Mike Pitts tells the tourists' story
2500 BC: Stonehenge is the talk of prehistoric Europe Visitors have always been part of Stonehenge, even the stones are foreigners: the small ones from Wales, the large ones probably from the Marlborough Downs, 20 miles to the north. Stonehenge was truly unique in Europe and so, at its height around 2500 BC, it must have been talked about across the continent. Evidence of houses in the area suggests that far more people lived near to the stones than we would normally expect. Drawing labour and representatives from different tribes or groups, Stonehenge must have played a part in alliances that reached across Britain, and perhaps even beyond. 10 facts about Stonehenge Prehistoric religion: a pagan riddle we will never solve Tests on a man buried nearby around 2300 BC have revealed that he grew up in central Europe, was rich, but had a bad knee and a limp. Other men buried in the area originated at least as far away as Wales. Could these have been among Stonehenge’s first tourists? 2500 BC–AD 1500: Did the Romans break up the stones? Stonehenge today is identical to the first accurate survey, drawn in 1740 by John Wood, architect of Georgian Bath. What Wood saw seems to have differed little from the sight that greeted the artists who first attempted a realistic view during the reign of Elizabeth I. Yet between 2500 BC and AD 1500, some 500 tonnes of rock were removed from the site. So where did all the missing stones go? We know they were there, for archaeological excavation and geophysics – and patches of dead grass in dry summers – have shown us where they stood. But who took them away? And why? Much of that stone is still there, in chips below the turf. It’s been suggested that people came to Stonehenge, perhaps as long ago as 2000 BC, to take stone to cure illnesses. Yet it seems unlikely that this can account for so much damage, and yet leave so many pieces. In pictures: Stonehenge tourism Where history happened: Britain’s prehistoric stone circles Another theory is that Roman engineers broke the place up, perhaps as a challenge to native religions. Clearly people came to Stonehenge in Roman times: there are many fragments of Roman pottery – more than from all other eras – and several coins. If the Romans did split the stones, they could have been used for building, though none have yet been found in nearby Roman structures. What we do know for sure is that an Anglo-Saxon man was at the stones between AD 650 and 850: his beheaded remains were found in the 1920s. 1500s: Elizabethan excavators take up their tools The first Stonehenge visitor we can name was Herman Folkerzheimer, a Swiss student who found himself the privileged guest of Bishop Jewel of Salisbury. One summer day in 1562 they “rode into the country with a large retinue,” arriving in the great open expanse of Salisbury Plain. Folkerzheimer was almost dumbstruck, writing to Josias Simmler, a Zurich theologian and friend, to say that if he had not seen Stonehenge for himself, he would never have believed it. 8 of Britain’s most mysterious ruins The battle for Bosworth field: Historians react to decision to build on battlefield where Richard III died It was the work of the Romans, the bishop told him. This was the only logical explanation at the time (if you were to reject the histories that singled out Merlin as creator of Stonehenge, after flying the stones over from Ireland). The oldest surviving detailed representation of the stones is a pen and wash drawing by Lucas de Heere, who seems to have visited Stonehenge with another Flemish refugee in the late 1560s. In the foreground of a 1575 version of the image, two men are depicted excavating an ancient grave. The fascination with the site’s untold past was growing fast. 1600s: Samuel Pepys gives his seal of approval John Aubrey, the great 17th-century scientist, biographer and gossip, visited Stonehenge as a child. In 1663, after Charles II had commanded him to report on Avebury (the bigger but rougher stone circles in the north of the county), Aubrey surveyed Stonehenge. Despite being a rough scribble, his plan did something new: it tried to show what was actually on the ground. It revealed things people had not seen before, including hollows that led to the significant discovery in the 20th century of a ring of ancient pits. Visitors now wanted ever-more detailed information on Stonehenge. And writers were ready to provide the answers, even if they had to make them up, as many did. In 1654, diarist John Evelyn visited relatives on the way to see the stones. Fellow diarist Samuel Pepys made it there in 1668. “Worth going this journey to see,” was his verdict. Pepys left Salisbury early in the morning with a local guide and horses, and a book about Stonehenge he had bought in Oxford on the way. 1800s: The spotlight falls on the burial mounds With local help, visitors approached Stonehenge over unmapped open downland, travelling through some of Europe’s most impressive groups of barrows – prehistoric burial mounds then thought to cover the remains of Stonehenge’s builders. By 1800 local landowners were subjecting the barrows to some of the world’s first scientific excavations. fortunate guests would not only enjoy a guided tour of the stones, but be shown curious artefacts unearthed in the excavations. 1800s: Victorian tour guides lurk among the stones In the early 19th century, some of Britain’s greatest artists – including John Constable and William Turner – committed Stonehenge to canvas. Yet they didn’t do so from a turf track, as their predecessors would have done, but from a road. A turnpike, a maintained route paid for by users, had been built near to the monument in the 1760s. It came from the east and, ultimately, London. Now just about anyone could check out a map, hire a room, make the short trip and, from as early as 1822, find a guide lurking among the stones and sheep. The historian Thomas Carlyle, for example, took his American friend and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson to Stonehenge in 1848. They reached Amesbury from London by train and horse carriage, and walked out to the “primeval temple”. Sheltering among the stones while Carlyle lit a cigar, they surveyed the larks, the flowers and the “marks of the mineralogist’s hammer and chisel on almost every stone”, debating the mystery of it all. They were not alone: tourists were now visiting Stonehenge in droves. 1900s: Parties and picnics come to an end Many people today claim that they can remember seeing Stonehenge as a child. You just parked on the grass, they say, and walked into the stones. In reality, however, the monument was fenced-in with “nearly a mile of barbed wire” in 1901, and a shilling entrance charge was imposed – about £5 in today’s money. The idea of recent free access is one of the most enduring Stonehenge myths. By the end of the 19th century Stonehenge was a mess. Not only were casual visitors leaving food waste, scratching names on the stones and sometimes becoming drunk and rowdy, but the site was popular for large gatherings. In one case, a group of travelling London musicians performed among the stones, possibly with a piano, to a huge crowd, who arrived in carts, by bicycle and on foot. A critic writing for the newspaper, Sketch, was horrified. Stonehenge was no place for picnics or cyclists. “The popping of corks and the cracking of 19th-century jests,” he wrote, “ought to be put down by law.” The impetus to enclose Stonehenge had been the fall of two large stones at the end of the 19th century. Someone had to take control. A bitter debate ensued, with opposing parties claiming the right to eternal free access, and the absolute rights of the private owner, Sir Edmund Antrobus. Tourism grew relentlessly. Soldiers from the Salisbury Plain military training area passed by in their thousands. Midsummer dawn drew 700 white-robed druids in 1905. It was all too much for the owner. Stonehenge was auctioned in 1915, and the buyer presented it to the nation. The fences were there to stay. A brief history of London tourism since 1800 The 'Poldark effect' and 7 other historical TV shows that have tourists flocking to Britain 1970s and 80s: The bitter battle of the Beanfield It seemed whatever was done to accommodate stonehenge’s visitors – passing 800,000 a year in the 1970s – people complained. Thanks to ingenious colour photography, many anticipated a silent ruin under spectacular skies. The stones symbolised ancient mystery and simpler times. No one wanted to see an overflowing car park and a concrete underpass. Visitor unease was exacerbated in 1985, when police enforced a midsummer exclusion zone. This prevented even small groups of people approaching stonehenge within four miles. How had it come to this, when students on a field trip could be arrested? A small, annual midsummer gathering in the early 70s had, by the mid-80s, grown into a massive June-long event. Crowds of 50,000 camped and parked their mobile homes on the downland turf for the biggest free festival in British history, complete with live music and the open use of illegal drugs. Stonehenge itself was surrounded by razor wire and policed by guard dogs. Eventually, the National Trust (who own the land) and English Heritage (who manage the stones) banned it. An unfortunate result was the battle of the Beanfield, which erupted when police stopped a travellers’ convoy heading to Stonehenge. The national council for civil liberties investigated the incident (both sides accused the other of unprovoked violence) but there has been no full inquiry. It took years of debate and new management schemes to overcome the legacy of ill-feeling bequeathed by the festival’s enforced closure. Its existence, however, was incompatible with what most visitors expected of Stonehenge. As time passed, a resolution of the conflict allowed an entirely new infrastructure to be created. next summer, we will be able to see if it works. 2013: New visitor centre opens at Stonehenge From 18 December 2013, visitors to Stonehenge can engage with the history of the monument in a brand new visitor centre – part of a £27m Stonehenge Environmental Improvements Programme instituted by English Heritage. One of the centre’s highlights will be a 360-degree virtual experience of Stonehenge, which will allow visitors to ‘stand in the stones’, while some 250 prehistoric artefacts will be on display in the building’s permanent gallery. The objects on show – on loan from the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum, the Wiltshire Museum, and the Duckworth Collection at the University of Cambridge – were all found at the ancient site and many will be on public display for the first time. Among the exhibits will be an antler pick from a red deer, which was used to dig the ditch at stonehenge (see the picture earlier in this feature). It was placed on the floor of the ditch after digging was complete, possibly as a commemoration. the site’s first temporary exhibition, which will examine more than 800 years of ideas and debates about Stonehenge, will open on 18 December. Meanwhile, an outdoor gallery will give visitors the opportunity to explore a group of reconstructed Neolithic huts, built by volunteers from January 2014, and get a feel for how the builders of Stonehenge may have lived. The visitor centre is located at Airman’s Corner, some 1.5 miles from Stonehenge. Shuttle buses will operate between the centre and the ancient site for those who do not wish, or are unable, to walk. Mike Pitts is editor of British Archaeology magazine and has led excavations at Stonehenge. This article was first published in the Christmas 2013 issue of BBC History Magazine
Built on the fortunes of England’s mercantile elite, the Suffolk village of Lavenham is home to an abundance of architectural treasures. Julian Humphrys journeys to the heart of the East Anglian countryside to learn more about this rural idyll
Built on the fortunes of England’s mercantile elite, the Suffolk village of Lavenham is home to an abundance of architectural treasures. Julian Humphrys journeys to the heart of the East Anglian countryside to learn more about this rural idyll Today Lavenham seems like a typical Suffolk rural village. Five hundred years ago, however, it was anything but typical. At that time, it was one of England’s foremost industrial centres, famous for the production of high-quality broadcloth. Indeed, in 1524 Lavenham was the 14th richest town in the kingdom, paying more tax than cities like Lincoln or York. The late 15th and early 16th centuries saw a building boom in Lavenham as its rich clothiers, the multi-millionaire businessmen of their day, spent a fortune on lavish timber-framed houses in which to live and halls in which their guilds could meet. But, based as it was on one single industry, Lavenham’s wealth rested on fragile foundations. When in the 1530s the cloth industry was hit by a recession, Lavenham had no alternative economic activity to fall back on. Within a generation the town had declined from thriving as a hub of industry to stagnating as an economic backwater. This is the reason why so many wonderful medieval timber-framed buildings still survive in Lavenham today – nobody had the money to replace them with anything else. Painting wooden beams to create a black and white pattern on such buildings was never a local tradition in Lavenham. At Lavenham beams were either left to season to a silvery grey colour, given a coat of limewash to weatherproof them and deter insects, or plastered over completely. Many of Lavenham’s walls are painted white but a substantial number are brightly coloured, with russets, pinks and ochres being popular choices. Plasterwork is often decorated by pargetting – patterns or images scratched or moulded while the plaster was still wet. Many buildings are jettied, with upper storeys jutting out above the storeys below them. Some say this was to increase the space in a building without obstructing the street below while others argue it was primarily done for aesthetic reasons and point out that jettying was rare on the backs of buildings where it couldn’t be seen by passers-by. Lavenham’s Guildhall of Corpus Christi is one of England’s finest timber-framed buildings. Cared for by the National Trust, it occupies a prime position in the market square and the exuberant carving of its exterior woodwork is something to be marvelled at. As Lavenham’s fortunes declined it was pressed into a variety of uses – prison, workhouse, almshouse, restaurant and nursery school. The last of these seems rather fitting, for it was while she was staying around the corner in Shilling Street that 23-year old poet Jane Taylor penned the words to one of our best-loved nursery rhymes – ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star’. Lavenham may be famous for its timber-framed buildings but it’s dominated by its huge stone church with its 140-foot tower. Largely rebuilt during the town’s early Tudor heyday, it’s an expression of the piety, power and wealth of its patrons, notably John de Vere, 13th earl of Oxford – a key figure in Henry Tudor’s victory at Bosworth – and Thomas Spring, one of England’s richest entrepreneurs. Just in case there was any doubt over who stumped up the cash, the church’s exterior is bedecked with the boar and star badges of de Vere and the arms and mark of his merchant collaborator. Julian Humphrys is a historian and author specialising in battlefields. His books include Enemies at the Gates (English Heritage, 2007). For more information, head over to: visit-lavenham.co.uk. This article was first published in the November 2019 edition of BBC History Magazine
Daisy Dunn revisits the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and considers the history that was preserved at Pompeii and Herculaneum
Historian and author Daisy Dunn revisits the AD 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius and considers the Roman history that was preserved at Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Off the Northumberland coast rises a lonely islet which over the years has played host to religious renunciates, Viking raids and the birth of priceless artistic treasures. Julian Humphrys makes the pilgrimage
Getting on to Holy Island feels like an adventure. Unless you’re planning to arrive by boat, you can either walk or drive across a long causeway or tramp across the sands, following a line of wooden poles – a route taken by countless visitors and pilgrims over the centuries. Whichever you choose, check the tide tables to see when it’s safe to cross. Both routes are completely submerged at high tide, when the water rushes in at an alarming rate. Although the village can become quite crowded with visitors, the rest of the island still retains the sense of isolation that led St Aidan to establish a monastery here in AD 635 after being invited to Northumbria by King Oswald to convert his subjects to Christianity. His successor, St Cuthbert, served first as prior and later as bishop on Holy Island, but also spent years as a hermit on the nearby Farne Islands, dying there in AD 687. For most of the eighth century, the monastery thrived as a centre of culture, producing among other treasures the sumptuously illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels; a digitised version can be seen in the island’s heritage centre. But all this would change in AD 793, when the Vikings launched the first in a series of destructive raids on the monastery. By AD 875, the monks had had enough. They moved away, taking Cuthbert’s body with them, and eventually settled in Durham. Even so, the links with Lindisfarne were too strong to forget, and in 1120 monks from Durham Cathedral were sent to build a new priory on the island – complete with a shrine to St Cuthbert. Although that priory is now largely ruined, the Romanesque west entrance of its church is an impressive sight, while the survival of the ‘rainbow arch’, a single vault beneath the long-vanished tower, seems miraculous. Note the battlements and crossbow loops – a reminder that living so near to the Scottish border in the Middle Ages had its risks. The high ground overlooking the priory is known as the Heugh. Recent archaeological investigations have revealed the existence of an Anglo-Saxon church there, and it’s an excellent point from which to spot seabirds and seals, and to enjoy views of Bamburgh Castle on the mainland and the Farne Islands out to sea. The much-photographed Lindisfarne Castle isn’t really a castle at all. It started life in the 16th century as a gun fort, built to defend the island’s sheltered harbour. It lost its military importance following the union of the crowns of England and Scotland, and by the reign of Charles I visitors seemed less interested in its military value than in famously enormous nose of the garrison commander, a Captain Rugg. In 1901, Country Life editor Edward Hudson bought the crumbling edifice and commissioned the architect Edwin Lutyens to transform it into a holiday home. It's a steep climb to the castle entrance but worth it for the views alone. The National Trust has recently completed a major restoration of the castle, and its rooms currently house an exhibition telling some of the quirkier stories from its history. Don't miss the nearby walled garden created by Gertrude Jekyll, or the 19th-century lime kilns with their medieval-looking arches. Julian Humphrys is a historian and author specialising in battlefields. His books include Enemies at the Gates (English Heritage, 2007). This article was first published in the August 2019 edition of BBC History Magazine