Wren’s sundial
There are sundials great and small everywhere in Oxford. One of the most impressive adorns the library of All Souls College and is, according to the college’s website, ‘attributed’ to Christopher Wren.
Author: Kit Ward
Animal kingdom
We all know that precept about an Englishman’s home being his castle, but as the quotation from Sir Edward Coke makes clear, a home is meant for repose as well as defence. Within the walls of the castle, the Englishman or Englishwoman’s garden may be a little Eden, a little Sissinghurst, or even a little Versailles.
In love with England
John Drinkwater’s Robinson of England is a very peculiar novel indeed. I don’t mean funny-peculiar, but peculiar in the sense of being curious and unusual. It is, to use a word, that Drinkwater’s contemporaries might have employed in the circumstances, a queer book.
Who put that cross up there?
Nobody knows the age and origin of the Whiteleaf Cross for certain.
On Pomparles Bridge
In my last post, I referred to Pomparles Bridge as ‘legendary’ — and so it is. But while that Pomparles Bridge was in the same location, give or take, as the present-day bridge, they are not the same thing. The visitor, misty-eyed and semi-delirious from the effects of Arthurian tales, nerves tingling with the notion of sighting the Lady of the Lake, will be crushingly disappointed with the reality.
Just another West Country stone circle
It seems you can’t walk anywhere in the West Country without tripping over a stone circle. I came across this one by the A39, when I was walking out of Glastonbury, in the direction of Street.