Caroline Shenton

Caroline Shenton

@dustshoveller.bsky.social

Archivist, Historian and Author of The Day Parliament Burned Down and National Treasures. #RCEWA member. Secretary to Council at Girton College, Cambridge. TLDR: PenPusher.

275 Followers 62 Following 15 Posts Joined Nov 2023
2 months ago
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Of all the stone birds and animals I have seen this week, I think this handsome and sacred baboon is my favourite.

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2 months ago

So glad you enjoyed it!

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3 months ago

Just spent a fascinating hour listening to @dustshoveller.bsky.social describe the events of the day Parliament burned down in 1834.

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7 months ago

Tough choice this one. Roman road made of oreos or the little animals peering out atop the summit of Mount Ararat?

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8 months ago
Vase of flowers, red bottle bag, variety of small gifts on a table Bag of scones, plate of brownies, jam, clotted cream and butter on a table

Today is my last day working in the Parliamentary Archives after nearly 25 years! I am v grateful to colleagues for many cards and gifts. I have a shiny new website to support next phase of life www.maritakayanagi.com

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8 months ago
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Very pleased to encounter this very handsome fellow enjoying summer Cambridge.

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9 months ago
Preview
A Westminster Boy Made Good: Charles Barry (1795-1860) - The History of Parliament On the night of 16 October 1834, thirty-nine year old Charles Barry was travelling back to town from business in Brighton. As his stagecoach trundled over the top of the North Downs, and began its des...

Charles Barry, architect of the new Houses of Parliament, was born #OnThisDay 1795, a stone’s throne from the old Palace of Westminster. This guest post from @dustshoveller.bsky.social looks at his background and knowledge of Westminster: historyofparliament.com/2025/05/12/c...

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10 months ago
Image of Ethel Smyth smiling Image of Ethel Smyth's Mass in D manuscript

Major news from our Special Collections and Archives! 📢

Our Head of Music, Prof Lisa Colton @lisacolton.bsky.social, identified that we hold the manuscript of Dame Ethel Smyth's Mass in D, which scholars thought was lost. It is now fully available on the Digital Heritage Lab: tinyurl.com/47ce8hkd

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10 months ago
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And another one @dustshoveller.bsky.social , in the display associated with their excellent London in the Second World War exhibition @thelondonarchives.bsky.social

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10 months ago
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National Treasures by @dustshoveller.bsky.social featured in my local library’s VE display!

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10 months ago
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Just in case you’re at a loose end, my book National Treasures explains how #London protected its national art, museums and archives in WWII, mostly returned to the capital from their hiding places by 1945 #VEDay80 #VEDay2025

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11 months ago
The Devil Casts his Net: The Winter Hill Air Disaster. Steve Morrin, 2005 National Treasures: Saving The Nation’s Art in World War II. Caroline Shenton, John Murray 2021.

Ok #photofriday #histbookchat. @dustshoveller.bsky.social is the fascinating account of how we protected our art treasures from destruction. Morrin’s book is an account of the crash of a Silver City Wayfarer in 1958. Good books.

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10 months ago
JMW Turner’s 1835 painting of the burning of the Houses of Parliament in 1835, in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. On the left, the old House of Commons goes up in flames, as a crowd gathers to watch on Westminster Bridge on the right. Post image

Happy 250th birthday to J M W Turner. Such a titan of British art, I had to give him his own chapter to end my book (focussing on his paintings of the burning of Parliament in 1834). One critic called him ‘the Fire King’, as an insult - but Turner had the last laugh!

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10 months ago

Yay! #VEday80

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1 year ago
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1 year ago
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Devoured this, by the great @dustshoveller.bsky.social over two sittings in the last week. I would highly recommend 🤓
#History #Heritage #Books

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1 year ago

How kind! ; )

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1 year ago
Preview
A House of Their Own Guest Post by Caroline ShentonReview: Necessary Women: The Untold Story of Parliament’s Working Women by Dr Mari Takayanagi and Dr Elizabeth Hallam Smith. Who do you think of when you think of wome…

With perfect timing for the paperback publication of #NecessaryWomen today, why not read this splendid new review by @dustshoveller.bsky.social - herself a great Necessary Woman of Parliament previously of course! londonhistorians.wordpress.com/2025/02/06/a...

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1 year ago

Starts at 23:00 mins in

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1 year ago
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Today in Parliament - 10/01/2025 - BBC Sounds Sean Curran with the news and interviews from Westminster.

ICYMI, here I am on @bbcradio4.bsky.social talking about the St Stephen’s Chapel Westminster project and the new book which came out of it a month or two back www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

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1 year ago
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Fascinating - part of the archive of the great medieval historian Eileen Power (1889-1940). This box is material relating to her ground-breaking book Medieval People (1924). Was delighted to attend the once-a-decade Power Feast @girtoncollege.bsky.social with @dustshoveller.bsky.social a while ago.

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1 year ago

So glad you enjoyed, Will!

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1 year ago

“Caroline is a very bossy little girl”. I was 5. Plus ça change…

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1 year ago

Maybe more a bit disappointed than grumpy but a lovely piece

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1 year ago
A pan with the heated smoking bishop—deep red like mulled wine and slices of bergamot Two glasses of the Bishop.

The cold snap justifies opening a bottle of Smoking Bishop. Amazing what a year can do to the flavour—needed to add a decent amount of extra sugar. I heated it with bergamot for that lovely perfumed aroma, although I did have to pull them quite quickly to stop it overpowering everything!

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1 year ago
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Just recapping a few pictures of the unbelievably wonderful painter monasteries of Southern Bucovina, Romania - this summer with @dustshoveller.bsky.social and @davidatkinson.bsky.social.

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1 year ago
Imogen Holst’s bookplate showing her dancing with a man with Thaxted church in the background

Gladly speaking at Gustav Holst: an archival legacy 20 Nov 1400-16.30 @britishlibrary.bsky.social. Experts from BL, Britten-Pears and Gustav’s birthplace talking about their archives, and performances of his Terzetto + Imogen’s suite for solo viola. Free tickets by emailing music-events@bl.uk

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1 year ago

Nice pic too…the evacuated public records from Chancery Lane in storage at The Oxford Diocesan teacher training college, Culham in WW2!

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1 year ago
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Records at Risk Grants - Archives sector The Records at Risk Grants programme is delivered in collaboration with the British Records Association and the Business Archives Council, to provide support for urgent interventions to save significa...

Do you know of an archive at risk of being lost? The National Archives have grants available.

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1 year ago

A good place to enter my 60th year…

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