Tag: history
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The Mausoleum in a Picture Gallery
On a long, leafy road by a prestigious school, death hides in plain sight. It’s actually a slightly more embellished version of a building that once stood elsewhere. The Dulwich Picture Gallery is the world’s first purpose-built exhibition space. It houses paintings by Canaletto, John Constable and Thomas Gainsborough as well as lesser known works…
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Execution: 700 Years of Punishment in London
Death as a form of entertainment is nothing new to the history of London. From the 12th to the 19th centuries, watching someone die was one of the hottest tickets in town. Who knew that the class system informed how you would meet your maker? Beheading was often the preferred method of dispatching the upper…
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Apply Some Pressure
A wonderful testing works on London’s South Bank The imposing art deco Tate Modern and its new-ish extension, coupled with the glass severity that is the Blue Fin Building, tower over a nearby testing facility whose custom-made machine is as enduring a memorial as his own gravestone. The entrance to the building is surmounted with…
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Staring Into The Face of Death
It’s not on display any more, but one of my favourite objects in The British Museum is Napoleon’s death mask. Death masks were often used in an era before photography was widespread and captured likenesses which were used in sculpting busts of the decased post mortem. John Constable’s is on display at the Royal Academy…
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Bother the Men! The Grave of Mrs Howard Paul
A prestigious memorial eroded by time betrays the memory of an iconic Victorian woman. Her fine contralto voice was often used to excellent effect in imitating male tenors of the day and she was a master of comedy performance. But Mrs Howard Paul followed the pattern of women adopting their husbands name professionally. Four years…
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Bones Beneath a Bishop’s Palace
A Victorian dog and his master A pleasant fifteen minute amble from Parsons Green station, Fulham Palace and its gardens is managed by a charitable trust. In continual possession of the Church of England since AD 704 (when Bishop Waldhere acquired the Manor of Fulham) it is a scheduled ancient monument – which gives it…
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Stumbling Stones
My foot scuffed something. I was walking down the Kloveniersburgwal in Amsterdam in 2018 when something slightly tripped me over. I looked down and saw something shiny embedded into the pavement. There were small plaques, which stood slightly proud from the brickwork. They resembled brass beer coasters, so I knelt down for a closer look.…
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Six Olympians From the Past
Despite the setbacks of happening in the middle of a global pandemic, the Tokyo Olympics of 2021 has already seen an impressive haul of medals for Team GB: as of current time of writing we have thirteen golds, sixteen silvers and thirteen bronze medals, placing as sixth overall out of two hundred and six nations.…
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Death in the British Museum: Object in Focus
Being invited by our wonderful Cemetery Club master of ceremonies Sheldon K. Goodman to participate in Death in the British Museum this coming Saturday has given me a little push towards reevaluating what the massive museum collection in Bloomsbury means to me. It has encouraged me to consider the importance of furnereal objects and how…
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The Peregrine of St. Pauls
The Museum of London has a fabulous Peregrine Falcon. It is however, dead. I saw this bird of prey when I visited the Beasts of London exhibition in 2019 and there was something terribly sad about seeing a creature, although long deceased, stuffed, mounted and displayed in a way that does not reflect the nature…
Cemetery Club 