We'll be at the Festival of Nature in Bristol this weekend talking all things Ancient Woodland - we've updated the mapping for the West of England.
Come and see us on Millennium Square.
Coming to you all, histories of dozens of English places from prehistory to the present, sometime early in 2027. #Skystorians #LocalHistory
Here's a #HigherEducationPostcard of @uniofhull.bsky.social
Famously, poet Philip Larkin was the Librarian at the University
I've lots of Hull cards so this will be #HullWeek
If you like this image, I’d really appreciate a repost - remember, BlueSky has #NoAlgorithm
This is the wonderful and little-known chapel at Harswell, a DMV in the East Riding, sometime manorial chapel of the Silvain family, built within the surviving banks and ditches of the manorial precinct. Rebuilt 1871 using original materials. Still has an incumbent!
The church of St James, Nunburnholme (East Riding) may look a bit on the ordinary side but it houses several symbolic mysteries, such as the imagery of its famous Anglo-Scandinavian cross pillar. But VCH East Riding Vol XI (in press) had to deal with another, its eccentric tower arch. 1/5
Its eccentric imagery included an outer hood mould of tormented faces, crested by a keystone of a double horn, and on the southern end, a naked recumbent human figure. The inevitable temptation was therefore to conclude it depicted the General Resurrection and Last Judgement. 3/5
But there is a problem. The resurrected in 12th-century imagery are depicted as sexless, but the single naked figure has a penis. In fact its imagery echoes contemporary vision narratives of Purgatory or Hell with the naked male figure to one side occupying the place of the dreamer. 4/5
And a particular source of inspiration was the local vision of the boy Orm of Howden which raised much curiosity and comment in the East Riding around 1125. he church of Nunburnholme's 12th-century dedication was to All Saints, and is tower arch depicts the dead in purgatory, not resurrected. 5/5
The tower arch is an elaborately-carved mid 12th-century Romanesque creation of several orders, opening now into an early 20th-century tower space. It was once suggested that it was the original chancel arch (a suggestion rightly mocked by Pevsner). Excavation had revealed a 12th-century W. tower
