#Sunrise, #Solstice - and a Return to the #Light!

Stop! I know what you’re thinking! You need that final stocking filler for a history-loving loved one! Something under £15, small, perfectly shaped for wrapping, easily & quickly available from (all good) high street shops or online! I’ve got your back… #Echolands - A Journey in Search of Boudica

Castel Nuovo, also known as Maschio Angioino, stands proudly in front of Piazza Municipio and Naples’ city hall. Built 1279, I took this photo this October. #Naples #Napoli #CastelNuovo #Italy #MedievalArchitecture #TravelPhotography #MedievalSky #QueenOfLostCastles

#Beautiful #winter #sky this #evening!

Just led a brilliant Walk & Talk at #CaergwrleCastle with the Cambrian Archaeological Association! 🏰✨ We explored what’s known – and still debated – about this rare hybrid of Welsh siting & Edwardian-strength masonry, perched above the River Alyn. 1/3 #MedievalCastles #WelshHistory #MedievalSky

To book your place, contact me on [email protected]

Enjoying attending the Thirteenth Century Conference online today. Currently following the first Bjorn Weiler Memorial Lecture,by Daniel Power on Eleanor of Castile's inheritance in Ponthieu and Aumale. #medieval #medievalsky

🏰✨ Free Walk & Talk! ✨🏰 📅 Sat 13 Sept 2025 | ⏰ 2–4 pm 📍 Caergwrle Castle, Flintshire 📩 Reserve your spot: [email protected] #SwallowtailArchaeology #QueenOfLostCastles #ResearchWritingReviewReach #CaergwrleCastle #WelshHistory #CastlesOfWales #LegendLadyLandscape #medievalsky

Acorns on sun-burnt August grass 🌱☀️ In medieval Britain, the oak was power itself — boundary marker, court tree, symbol of endurance and lordship. 🌳👑 #Oak #Acorns #BritishCountryside #MedievalHistory #Folklore #queenoflostcastles #medievalsky

St. Mary’s, #Beverley, #Yorkshire - founded AD 1120. Though the #Lincoln #Imp is famous, the Beverley Imp is arguably more frightening—yet perhaps also endearing?! Its grotesque face vividly shows how #medieval carvers mixed #myth and #morality into #sacred spaces. #medievalsky

The melting of late #summer #skies

#Nature in the #Wild #Garden

One of two stones discovered on the moors around Whitby and given to the Yorkshire Philosophical Society by antiquarian Canon Raines in 1895. One disappeared, but this fantastic bit of #rockart can still be seen at York Museum Gardens. 📸 my own, yesterday.

One of the staircases leading from the front lawns up to Marbury Hall, #Cheshire (pic my own), & an aerial image from before the hall was demolished in 1969 (pic via the Friends of Anderton & Marbury). The site has been a country park since the late 1970s - a local treasure. #StaircaseSaturday

Some very lovely people very kindly made my #dream come true a year ago today! Another Big One off my Big #Birthday #BucketList! Just loved it! 😊 #tractor

Alltwen Moon.

Glastonbury Tor this evening.

New book just arrived for review! Exciting #medievalsky

'O luminous late day! The air's enchanted. The white stork flying by is half asleep and the swallows cross one another—wings sharp-stretched to the gold air— and away' -Antonio Machado @signemaene.com welcomes you to a Spanish #BookWormSat. 🎨Kerry Buck

Rosamund's Tower, #Pickering Castle. Early C14 as part of a broader upgrade of the outer curtain, from timber palisade to stone wall. William I began the castle in the years after Hastings, as part of his 'harrying' of the North. #WallsOnWednesday #NorthYorkshire #Castles 📷 My own

Thank you for sharing, @suegreaney.bsky.social !

Today is publication day for the long-awaited PAPERBACK edition of ‘Magic in Merlin’s Realm’, my book about the political significance of magic in Britain from the Middle Ages to modern times 📚🧙‍♂️🔮 @universitypress.cambridge.org www.cambridge.org/gb/universit...

Worn holloways, whispering sunken lanes. A #castle nestled in the folds of its landscape. No sound but #nature. Time and Peace hold their breath. 😊 #MedievalWales #Castles #LandscapeDreaming #SunkenLanes #medievalsky #queenoflostcastles #legendladylandscape

Anyone still unsure of the difference between a publisher and a vanity press? Here it is. Publishers make money from selling books to the public. Vanity presses make money from selling publishing services to authors. In one model, the author gets paid. In the other, the author gets charged. Simple.

Obligatory castle pic from medievalist on holiday - who will be the first to guess *which* castle?

Arguing about Castles - 2 medieval Mulgrave Castles and a hypothesis, presented this morning in Leeds. Might make a good talk for the winter programme @whitbynats.bsky.social @whitbymuseum.bsky.social or a summer outing in 2026.

Some excellent @castlestudies.bsky.social action @imc-leeds.bsky.social this afternoon! Organised by @willwyeth.bsky.social, 'Arguing About Castles' featured papers from @swallowtailarch.bsky.social, Christian Clarkson (Simpson & Brown), and Ryan Prescott (Leeds).

Another excellent session and found much food for thought in this paper @swallowtailarch.bsky.social and it's good to continue 'Arguing about Castles' afterwards!

Eleanor was far from the only Eleanor let alone queen who influenced or commissioned castle building as this blog from a few weeks ago by @swallowtailarch.bsky.social on Eleanor of Castile and her impact on Caernarfon: castlestudiestrust.org/blog/2025/05...

Thoroughly enjoyed this paper at #IMC2025 @imc-leeds.bsky.social - and great to meet you, too, @whitbyhistory.bsky.social !

UK bosses to be banned from using NDAs to cover up misconduct at work

Toot toot, it’s castles o’oclock! Come to the first of two castles sessions this fine Monday @imc-leeds.bsky.social at Newlyn GR.07. #LeedsIMC #IMC2025 #LeedsIMC2025 #s134 #s234 #castles

Really enjoyed the Arguing About Castles II session at @imc-leeds.bsky.social today—expertly organised by @willwyeth.bsky.social of #EnglishHeritageTrust. It was great to present alongside Christian Clarkson (Simpson & Brown) and Ryan Prescott (Leeds). Some excellent research out there!

Underwater images of a 9,000-year-old stationary fish weir off the coast of southern #Sweden from a well-preserved #StoneAge site. From fishing settlement was presented in a lagoon environment where Mesolithic humans lived during parts of the year. 1/5

Writing an entirely new module on critical approaches to digital media & AI. I'll post a few links from my prep as I go. This is an excellent eye opening documentary from DW about the exploitation of Kenyan AI annotation workers, who are exposed to horrific material & bear the psychological scars

A Guardian editorial on metal detecting, with no indication of the legal issues involved? Cool, cool

Great opportunity to work with colleagues @ulsteruni.bsky.social www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DNU353/l...

My paper delivery is tomorrow, in the second part of the session, ‘Arguing about Castles’ at #IMC2025, organised by @willwyeth.bsky.social of #EnglishHeritage #MedievalSky #QueenOfLostCastles Excited! 😝

#pickering #pickeringcastle #Yorkshire #pickeringcastleruins #imc #imcleeds2025 #castle #queenoflostcastles #alittlebitofheaven #swallowtailarchaeology #medievalsky

Is Leybourne Castle, Kent, a key castle in the transition from basic twin towered gatehouses to more sophisticated ones seen in Edward I’s castles? We funded Neil Ludlow & @henebtwa.bsky.social to find out, which they did so & more with a surprising discovery: castlestudiestrust.org/blog/2025/07...

The International Medieval Congress is back next week from 7 to 10 July ⚔️    ‪ @imc-leeds.bsky.social, Europe’s largest forum for sharing ideas in medieval studies, will draw medievalists from over 60 countries, and we expect to welcome thousands of attendees 👇  www.imc.leeds.ac.uk   #IMC2025

#HillfortsFriday Why can't every day be a Hillforts 🛖 day? 🤔🧐 Glorious Old Oswestry hillfort, #Shropshire, yesterday, seen on a return transit from north-east Wales during Royal Commission aerial survey. Note 'responsive' fields showing geological cropmarks 📷 Mobile phone from the cockpit

Good morning on a sunny #HillfortsWednesday ☀️🔥 Here is a cracking stretch of original Iron Age gateway walling surviving at Caer Seion hillfort, high on Conwy Mountain in north Wales 🤩 👌 Certainly worth the walk! 📷 My own

Ridgeway Park Cemetery, Bristol, holds stories beneath weathered stones and wide blue skies. Time and Nature lingers gently where the Past still breathes. #BlueSky #CemeteryViews #VictorianRest #BristolHistory #UnderTheSky #QuietPlaces

An epic staircase of water in Wiltshire. Caen Hill Locks is where history, engineering, and nature meet. #CaenHillLocks #KennetAndAvonCanal #Wiltshire #CanalLife #UKHeritage #QueenOfLostCastles

With the @imc-leeds.bsky.social a week away we look at papers on castles there. Many have close ties to us. Papers from trustee @kateweikert.bsky.social & assessor @swallowtailarch.bsky.social & incl papers on projects we have funded. To learn more read here: castlestudiestrust.org/blog/2025/06...

Something lovely for the weekend! 🩵 A stunning 2,000 year old Roman bowl made of translucent blue-green mosaic glass. Looks like it contains the turquoise blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea! 🌊 Landesmuseum Württemberg, Stuttgart 📷 by me #Archaeology