Dr Penny Bradshaw

A Song Thrush sits silhouetted on a bare winter branch, its beak open in full voice. Behind it, a large pale moon glows against a deep blue sky, creating a striking contrast between the bird’s dark outline and the soft lunar light.

Tonight the Cold Moon rises 🌕❄️

Known too as the Long Night Moon or the Moon Before Yule, it lifts into the deepening dark as we head toward the year’s longest nights.

It will be the last supermoon of 2025.

Moonrise: 14:44*

📷 @andrewfusekpeters.bsky.social

This was such a great night! Thank you @drpennybradshaw.bsky.social for the invitation! I had a wonderful time.

A brilliant, erudite and thoroughly enjoyable talk last evening by @dalegothic96.bsky.social
on the treatment and significance of ruined abbeys, priories and castles within 18thC Gothic fiction, plus insights on how such ruins can continue to inspire the creative imagination today 📚

Join me online this Wednesday evening (3rd Dec) at 6pm to find out more about our unique Ambleside-based MA in Literature, Romanticism and the Lake District (full time & part time study options available)🍃📚 tinyurl.com/mwrdtnz3

Lancaster Gateway Building with grass in front and moody sky behind

NEWS: We've been ranked top in the UK for ‘overall postgraduate research student experience’, fourth for ‘research community’ and fifth for ‘research skills development'🎓Read more: news.cumbria.ac.uk/news/univers...

Very special afternoon at Carlisle Cathedral celebrating with my graduating MA students 📚🍃🎓

The next free event in our Cultural Landscapes series will be a talk on Tuesday 2nd December (6.30pm start) by @dalegothic96.bsky.social on 'Gothic Architecture and Gothic Fiction in the Long Eighteenth Century'. See here for further details & to book a place: www.ticketsource.co.uk/cultural-lan...

Beautiful weekend on the Welsh Marches with friends, filled with lovely November walks, laughter and an abundance of rainbows 🍂🌈

Very excited to announce that tickets are now available for the book launch of my new book on Beatrix Potter. Taking place at the University of Cumbria’s Ambleside campus, 2-4pm on Saturday 10 January, further details and booking link can be found here: www.trybooking.com/uk/events/la...

Thanks David - we are indeed very lucky 😊

An extraordinary and very special morning with our MA students in the Jerwood Centre at Wordsworth Grasmere, exploring the manuscript development of ‘The Prelude’ under the expert curatorial guidance of Jeff Cowton. A real highlight of the academic year and our MA experience 📚🍃

Oooohhh!!

Two World War One posters featuring women munitions workers. The poster on the left is an illustration of a woman donning her work overalls and the text reads 'These women are dong their bit - learn to make munitions'. The poster on the right is a photograph of a woman in work overalls, tucking her hair under a cap. She stands in front of a tank and munitions. The text reads 'On her their lives depend - women munition workers ernrol at one'.

On #RemembranceSunday we invite you to use and share our resources on Women, the Great War, and the Vote. These resources consider how the war affected women’s lives and the longer term campaigns for women’s suffrage.

womenshistoryscotland.org/resources/re...

Indeed not - this is a rare exception! 😂

In war time, poems : Cannan, May Wedderburn, 1893-1973 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive 80 p. 20 cm

I think it was by May Wedderburn Cannan. Having sent a copy through to the Fell & Rock Climbing Club in 1916 she subsequently included it in her 1917 poetry collection ‘In War Time’: archive.org/details/inwa...

‘I will go back to the hills again / To the hills I knew of old’. A beautiful and moving Cumbria-inspired poem for Remembrance Sunday 📚🍃

Tomorrow! Join me at our Ambleside campus for this Saturday's Open Day to find out more about our unique MA in Literature, Romanticism and the Lake District 📚🍃

The next free event in our Cultural Landscapes series will be a talk on Tuesday 2nd December (6.30pm start) by @dalegothic96.bsky.social on 'Gothic Architecture and Gothic Fiction in the Long Eighteenth Century'. See here for further details & to book a place: www.ticketsource.co.uk/cultural-lan...

Anyone around Ambleside in early December? @drpennybradshaw.bsky.social www.ticketsource.co.uk/cultural-lan...

A joyous and very special Cultural Landscapes event this evening with the brilliant Dr Sue Allan discussing song, music and dance in the Lake Counties. The talk included archive recordings as well as wonderful performances from Sue herself 🎶🍃📚

Secret Maps at the British Library reconsiders the lines that shape our world Maps have always both granted power and threatened it, depending on who controls the data, the scale and the narrative.

Maps have always both granted power and threatened it, depending on who controls the data, the scale and the narrative.

Join me in Ambleside one week today to find out more about our unique MA in Literature, Romanticism and the Lake District. Visit the link below for further details and to book a place 📚🍃

A Cumbrian poem for Hallowe'en: 'The Vampyre' (1810) by John Stagg, who was born near Carlisle. The poem appeared in his collection 'The Minstrel of the North; or, Cumbrian Legends'
🦇🧛‍♂️🎃🕯️📚 rictornorton.co.uk/gothic/stagg...

Join us in Ambleside one week today for this free talk on ‘Folk song, music and dance in the Lake Counties’. See link below for further details and to book a place 📚🍃🎶

These Cozy Fall Books Feel Like a Hug

Love this idea @nytimes.com
"How many of you practice seasonally driven reading? I doubt any library patron on earth remains unfamiliar with the term “beach read,” but what should we crack open once we see delicata squash & heirloom pears stacked up at the market?"
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/b...

Oh golly - I’d somehow managed to repress memories of this…😳

Glorious autumnal day for a sunny morning leg stretch along the banks of the River Ribble and a visit to the old Roman town of Ribchester 🏛️🍁🍂

An acorn sprouting

Within the damp and clinging earth,
Where darkness spans a world unseen,
An acorn dreamed; and, dreaming, saw blue skies and forests green

Ella Maxwell Haddox

Interested in PG study in the fields of literary, cultural, heritage & environmental studies? Why not come along to our Open Day on Sat 8 Nov to find out more about our MA Literature, Romanticism & the English Lake District, based at our Ambleside campus: www.cumbria.ac.uk/events/open-...

A superb article which showcases the brilliant archival research undertaken by our MA graduate @suewilkinson.bsky.social on the Grasmere Dialect Plays 📚🍃