Dr Anna Clark

Stamford, Lincolnshire, is full of excellent historic buildings - but it also has this fabulous Norman arch and enticing cobbled passageway 😍

One of the most painful and interesting things about writing is just how much you need to read, see and consider, that you will not include in the end. But you cannot write what you are writing unless you have thought about it.

I enjoyed this blog post on Japanese colours from the Heian period a lot. I didn't know what "kasane" is and it's so well explained here:

Trinity College Admissions Book: some entries from 1827, including that of Lord Alfred Tennyson, who matriculated at the age of 18.

Detail from the Admissions Book entry of Lord Alfred Tennyson.

Personal Details of Lord Alfred Tennyson.

One of Trinity’s longest traditions is the annual signing of the Admissions Book. Today, 266 new students will inscribe their names in College history by signing the book themselves. ✍🏾 The images show poet Lord Alfred Tennyson’s entry from 1827, along with personal details written in his own hand.

The Basilisk: don't look into its eyes! 😳😱

"'Basilisk'...is the king of the snakes...it also kills a human if it looks at one...However, the basilisk may be overcome by weasels."
'Etymologies' Bk XII.iv.6 by Isidore of Seville

BL Royal MS 12 C XIX; Bestiary; c 1200-c 1210 CE; England; f.63r

Goldfinch in flight #birds

#ManuscriptMonday from a flying visit to Words on the Wave @nmireland.bsky.social 📚

An exquisite show with wonderful archaeological objects, but always a joy to see books at the heart of an exhibition.

#NationalMuseumofIreland #IrishManuscripts #FaddenMorePsalter #KinaleBookShrine

Hogarth masterpieces restored at Barts Hospital open to public The restoration of the north wing has 'recaptured its beauty and dignity', the project teams says.

The Grade 1 listed North Wing of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London reopens after £9.5 million restoration with 2 William Hogarth masterpiece murals available for the public to see for the first time. 👇
BBC News - Hospital's Hogarth opens to public for first time
www.bbc.com/news/article...

Good news here for a cracking collection that really deserves exposure.

26 new Biosphere Reserves: UNESCO’s continues unprecedented expansion UNESCO designates 26 new biosphere reserves across 21 countries – the highest number in 20 years. The World Network of Biosphere Reserves now includes 784 sites in 142 countries, with an additional

UNESCO designates 26 new biosphere reserves across 21 countries – the highest number in 20 years. The World Network of Biosphere Reserves now includes 784 sites in 142 countries, with an additional one million km² of natural areas brought under protection since 2018.
www.unesco.org/en/articles/...

A close up detail of a long velvet evening coat. This photograph shows the blue velvet background with hand embroidered florals covering the surface, including the high velvet collar

Full length view of the back of the long blue velvet evening coat embroidered all over with pale sweet cicely flowers and lace inserts around the bottom half

This will be forever one of my favourite garments in the V&A. It is a late #1890s coat from Marshall & Snelgrove, featuring hand embroidered sweet cicely flowers with white felt petals that float on top of blue velvet, V&A #FashionHistory 🗃️🪡

The image features a striking, yellow wooden house set against a dramatic mountainous backdrop under a cloudy sky. The house has white trim around the windows and roofline, providing a stark contrast to the golden yellow of the wood. It sits near a body of water, with a small dock and railing extending from its side. The mountains in the background are imposing and rugged, with their peaks disappearing into the ominous clouds. The overall mood of the photograph is somewhat somber, with the dark clouds and craggy landscape contrasting with the bright color of the house.

It was a very miserable day, but it made my picture a bit more dramatic!
Lofoten, Norway

#Stunday #EastCoastKin
#photography 📷
#Lofoten

“Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
the sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.”

With dawn comes hope.

“Une maison est une machine à habiter.”
Le Corbusier, Swiss-French pioneer of modern architecture, born #OTD 1887.
Villa Savoye à Poissy 1931

”…that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
Ulysses 1833, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate, died #OTD 1892.
Trinity College Cambridge Chapel
@trincolllibcam.bsky.social

And here it is. Considered Giovanni Bellini’s masterpiece

The very colourful rood screen at the Church of All Saints in Earls Barton, Northamptonshire, has some unusual decoration…it was re-painted in 1935 by Henry Bird, who happened to be a lepidopterist and incorporated hundreds of butterflies into his design!

First of the year.

A view of the restored nave at Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Paris, #Paris Clean white stonework, clerestory & nave windows.

Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Paris, #Paris

#alwayslookup #CeilingsOnSunday #SundayStonework

A small frog-shaped amulet carved from dark reddish-brown porphyry, patterned with irregular white spots, shown in a crouching position against a plain light background.

A marvellous #Egyptian #frog amulet, made of porphyry (height 1.2 cm).
Because of their numerous offspring, #frogs were considered a symbol of fertility.

Dating ca. 1295–1185 BC, New Kingdom.

📷Metropolitan Museum

🏺 AncientEgyptBluesky

Composite image of the author drawing with a dip pen & ink, an earthwork illustrated with hachures, an historic shading technique, the author giving a talk to colleagues & a colour cutaway drawing of a medieval house.

An illustrator at work with a dip pen and bottle of ink drawing a plan of an archaeological monument. On the desk are a table lamp and roll of drawing film. In the background another illustrator can be seen at work at a sloping drawing board.

Cutaway drawing of a Royal Observer Corps underground nuclear war monitoring post.

Cutaway drawing of a railway goods station building showing train wagons being unloaded and then despatched by horse drawn carts.

It's the 43rd anniversary of when I joined the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, the start of a career drawing old stuff. Almost 35 years later I 'retired' in 2016 but still drawing old stuff, 'illustrating the evidence for past ways of life'.

#ArchitecturalIllustration

Welsh hills in background with a roadside plethora of oak acorns stretching out ahead

A mast year to be sure. Oak legacy near Crickhowell, Wales

Watercolour showing different tile elements both flat (tegulae) and curved (imbrices) and antifixes and water spouts needed for a Roman roof

Plan of the House of the Faun in watercolour showing the reconstructed rooflines.

Reconstruction of a roofline in plan and section

Full image of the three elements as one watercolour illustration

Surprisingly yet pleasingly complex - the tile elements required to reconstruct a Roman roof over the House of the Faun, #Pompeii. Beautiful watercolour, pencil, and ink illustrations by Pasquale Maria Veneri dating to 1843 on display in the National Archaeological Museum
In Naples.

Tawny owl

Six weeks ago, I picked up a year-old tawny owl with a broken leg off the main road near our home and dropped him off at our nearest vet.

After a few days, I received one of the most bizarre phone calls I’ve ever had, asking “So when are you coming to pick up your owl?” 🧵

Why is it a bumper year for acorns? A warm spring is one of the factors that has led to a so-called

Are you in the UK and have noticed a huge number of acorns and beech nuts on the ground? That's because it's a mast year!
www.bbc.co.uk/weather/arti...

Flat slabs of limestone lying in a grassy field lit by sharp evening sun

#StandingStoneSunday One of my favourite monuments which made a lasting impact on me after visiting..🥰

Stormy sunset over Arbor Low Neolithic henge, Peak District, with all its stones now recumbent. An incredible place

📷 My own, 2020

www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places...

A gold necklace with pendants in the shape of acorns hanging across the whole piece

This striking gold necklace was made over 2,400 years ago. In ancient Greece, acorns were symbols of abundance and fertility, and used as decoration on gold objects.

The necklace was excavated over 150 years ago from the necropolis of Nymphaion in the Crimea, previously an ancient Greek colony.

”Cher Monsieur Germain…
Without you, without the affectionate hand you extended to the small poor child that I was, without your teaching & example none of all this would have happened…”
Albert Camus wrote to his teacher, after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957.
#WorldTeachersDay2025

St Jerome in the Desert, c. 1520, oil on panel, painted by pioneer of landscape genre, Flemish artist Joachim Patinir, died #OTD 1524; friend of Dürer, known for innovative use of colours (brown, green, dark blue, light blue) to suggest recession & atmospheric perspective.
Musée du Louvre