Dr Ian Friel

And also the hall at Harlow New Town, William Charles, Salvation Army Architects Department, 1962

Very much enjoyed my visit to the Nautical Archaeology Society's Heritage Open Days event at Gosport, about studying the remains of MMS 113, a wooden WW2 minesweeper. The vessel was taken apart for its upper timbers (1950s?), but what is left is good for training students in surveying wrecksites.

Nah, that side of the Downs closed their museum 😞. (I'm really missing the museum at Beachy, too). Maybe exotic birds will fly our way! We have lots of downland to roost, too!

Woodcut of a skeleton with arms at its sides, palms upwards, head slightly tilted back. The words 'Sic Transit' 'Gloria Mundi' are printed at the top of the page.

Printer George Horton could take some tips from John Johnson on 'appropriate ghost story woodcuts' 👇

Read about Prof Chris Loveluck’s latest work on #ancient #pollution in @antiquity.ac.uk today! 🏺🧪 #archaeology

A mural depicting the excavation of a human skull and Bronze Age artefacts from a trench on the South Downs overlooking Brighton and the sea, featuring two workmen, a golfing family, three archaeologists (one with sieve, one sketching and one holding a skull) a grammar school boy holding a Bronze Age dagger, a school master with umbrella and a military man on a motorbike

The talented Louis Ginnett painted this mural for Brighton + Hove Grammar School Sussex in 1937

Entitled *Hollingbury Camp: Full Circle* it depicts the excavation of a Bronze Age burial

The motorcyclist is TE Lawrence, who died in 1935

Did he really visit a dig in Brighton? 🤔

#HillfortsWednesday

Historic map showing waterways and buildings in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, and Buckinghamshire counties in England.

Join us in Bedfordshire on 11 October for a one-day conference, in partnership with Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire local history associations, exploring coaching inns, canals, airships, archaeology and buses!

Find out more: ow.ly/ag1M50WqnQi

#WeAreLocalHistory #LocalHistoryForAll

Images of the coast of Cadiz, by Braun Georg & Hogenberg Frans. 1623

The depiction of #fishweirs in art from every period reflects their role in the physical and cultural landscape, as well as their economic value in the real world. They serve as both a tangible and abstract representation of human interaction with the ocean. #coastalhistory #fishing
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Update on the museum theft: www.devonlive.com/news/devon-n...

The Old Wellington Inn in Manchester, being jacked up on stilts to the new street level during redevelopment. It definitely looks like it's about to waddle out of the picture.

Despite easily being the most British fighting vehicle ever developed, the mock-Tudor AT-AT programme was sadly cancelled due to budgetary concerns

We still have some spaces available! It really is a special course with a great student community. Students join because they're interested in our topics and enjoy discussing them, and some end up producing publishable work that they didn't know they could do!

A black and white aerial photograph of a broad, low, hill in a large expanse of otherwise quite flat farmland. Parts of the ridge/summit are marked with tracks from its use by the military.

Maiden Castle promontory fort, Bickerton Hill, #Cheshire, 1946. You can see the impact of its use as a military training area, including on the double ramparts themselves (in the centre of the shot). The #SandstoneTrail passes through it now. #HillfortsWednesday (HE EAW000840)

“A gripping tale of all the unsung female industrialists and workers who are missing from conventional economic histories”. A huge thank you to the brilliant @dianecoyle1859.bsky.social‬⁩ for her kind words about my new book #Economica: A Global History of Women, Wealth & Power ⁦- out now.

Terra Nova: Captain Scott’s polar ship filmed on the sea floor The Terra Nova carried Captain Scott and his men on their doomed expedition to the South Pole.

Footage of the wreck of Capt Scott's former Antarctic expedition ship 'Terra Nova'. Back in the 1990s I played Captain Oates in an amateur production of Ted Tally's powerful play 'Terra Nova', about the expedition, & the story of the expedition never fails to move me.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

‘Running riot through graves’: King Charles urged to protect Goodwin Sands from dredging Crown estate owns seabed of treacherous sandbank off Kent that has entombed more than 2,000 shipwrecks

Goodwin Sands constitute one of the most important maritime archaeological zones in the world. The true total of wrecks could well exceed with 2,000+ quoted below, with an unknown number of potentially well-preserved prehistoric, Roman & medieval wrecksites.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

A very good interview on the reading crisis in the UK. Heartily endorse bringing back sure start or some version of it.

Image of University of London with the text: RHS Centenary Fellowships, for PhD completion, 2025-26. Closing date for applications: 31 May 2025

Applications now invited for the Society's two Centenary Fellowships, 2025-26 to support PhD students complete a doctorate in #history.

The Fellowships are held in conjunction with @ihr.bsky.social and are for £8500 over 6 months. Applications, by 31 May, are via the IHR bit.ly/4mybVDV #Skystorians

Screenshot of the Wayback Machine capture of the old entry for BL MS Add 49598

OMG PEOPLE! I have the BL hack of all BL hacks. Why didn't this occur to me before? It turns out the Wayback Machine has snapshots of MS metadata from the old Digitised Manuscripts site. I tried it for the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold, in honor of his day, and lo! web.archive.org/web/20140305...

Today I start my research trip sailing down the River Seine from Paris to Honfleur (via a few stops) in a reconstruction of the Klåstad cargo ship built in 998. It’s the penultimate stage in the ship’s journey from Rome to London throughout the summer. I’ll post updates as we go #Saga25 #MedievalSky

I'm thrilled to share that I've received a £1,000 grant from the V&A/Bunnett-Muir Musical Theatre Archive Trust to write a new article: ‘From Fo’c’sle to Footlights: Maritime Imaginaries in British Musical Theatre’. Can’t wait to dive into the archives! ⚓ #VandA #TheatreStudies #CulturalHistory

Sailor duck

Nelson duck

Captain Smith from Titanic duck

Pirate duck

In exciting news I’m being promoted to Professor of Maritime History @plymuni.bsky.social on 1 August. Some maritime rubber ducks seemed best suited to here

The stunningly intricately painted nave ceiling of Peterborough Cathedral dates to the 13th century 😍🤩
It is constructed of wooden boards nailed directly onto the structure above and is the only one of its type in Britain.

More info: peterborougharchaeology.org/peterborough...

A back garden and furniture in heavy rain, photographed through glass. The fuzzy patches on the image are caused by rain on the glass.

Absolute cloudburst in Chichester at the moment! Still, the plants will like it...

One thing that occurs to me, as a former museum curator, is how one ensures that finds are properly conserved, stored & displayed. It can be a real conundrum with shipwrecks- well-preserved wrecks can contain thousands of items & not every wreck collection can become an @maryrosemuseum.bsky.social!

Very informative, and a salutary contrast to the ‘gave up its secrets’ paradigm of coverage. Explaining that research is a process, not a thing, and that it often takes extended time (as well as money) matters, especially now.

Amongst other things, I'm currently working on a #househistory in E Sussex. Most of the key sources are at the wonderful 'The Keep' at Falmer, home of the E Sussex Record Office. Rail journey involves a change at Brighton, & I never fail to be impressed by the station's magnificent 1882 canopy!

In a world worried about job security, worth restating it will be a very long time before traditional building conservation skills can be done by a robot. Meanwhile, brilliant schemes happening across UK are bringing life back to unique buildings & creating new opportunities for young people. 👇