👀 Coffee time ☕️☕️🌺 - #DownhamMarket #Norfolk Camellia - 📷 18.12.2025 (Today) #elevensestime

A planning application has been submitted to demolish one of the few remaining Glasite Congregational Meeting Houses or "Kail Kirks" in Scotland. The developer of the historic building in Galashiels "said repairs were not financially viable." BBC story here 👇 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

"Church buildings to be sold over costly repairs" The Mure Relief, United Irvine Church and the Mure Relief Mission Centre will be sold after a review by the Church of Scotland. BBC News has the story 👇 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Today's #AdventAngels is swinging their thurible with a completely devil may care attitude at All Saints, Braunston in Rutland. Probably once part of a reredos for a long lost altar, the oval above them contains the instruments of the passion. #ThuribleThursday

#Day18 of our #TimeTravelAdvent and we're on Chapter 18 of #AHistoryOfEnglandIn25Poems: 'Rules and Regulations', written by Lewis Carroll when he was still Charles Dodgson - just 13 years old (1845). What did this poem and its pictures look like in his original home-made 'magazine'? Take a look...

#AdventAngels Wood carving in the choir stalls at St Mary's, Warwick.

Dolphins sculpture (bronze) James Butler - 1987 Fountain for the 50th anniversary of - Dolphin Square, #Pimlico #London #IronworkThursday

#AdventAngels By Wm Wilson in St John’s Kirk of Perth.

#AdventAngels Angels playing instruments, 15th C Norfolk School St Agnes, Cawston, #Norfolk

Louvain presents a history of early lunatic asylums in S Wales. Fascinating work. Strong recommend 👍👍

A Brief History of Lunatic Asylums in South Wales 🧠 youtube.com/watch?v=mcX7... #histmed #Wales

To history of science scholars that may be around: Do you happen to have any good refs on the history of chromosome linkage mapping, map units, the definition of the centiMorgan and so on? #histsci #Histbio #genetics #biology #historyofscience #haldane

Been writing about the National Trust's 1st acquisition of a historic building, Alfriston Clergy House. Its often repeated that in 1879 "the bishop" sanctioned its demolition... but I am struggling to work out who that bishop was. Any non-AI generated help would be appreciated 🙂

...for its transparency, it was considered it to be permanently frozen water. It was also believed to possess healing and protective properties and was also used for magical purposes. The ring was found in a woman's burial in Nijmegen, dating 1st c. AD. On display at Museum Het Valkhof. 🧵2/2

A #Roman rock crystal ring decorated with a crescent and stars inlaid with gold foil - it looks like an emoji 🤩, but for the Romans this wasn’t just decoration. The motif was associated with death: crescent and stars were symbols for eternity and afterlife. Rock crystal was valued...🧵1/2 📷 me 🏺

The country’s 10 richest billionaires have seen their wealth increase by nearly $700 billion since Trump reentered the White House. Meanwhile, fundraising for essential expenses on GoFundMe increased by 20% over the past year. “Golden Age” for who?

#Hildesheim Triptych: Annunciation #FraAngelico c.1440-1445 Seen Fra Angelico /Beato Angelico exhibition, Palazzo Strozzi, #Firenze,#Italy #AdventAngels

Sorry I’ve been absent. Winter blues I think. Hope everyone is well and enjoying the run up to Christmas celebrations! The dark mornings are taking it out on me I fear !

The Dutch sold live eels from ships on the London Thames for 600 years, only leaving in 1938. But by the 1930s they weren't transporting eels in these ships anymore. The ships stayed parked on the Thames as an antiquarian storefront & the Dutch refilled them from modern tankers. 🗃️🧪

On the easel (a request from a friend). Cariad:

Last few hours for these:

You can read more about this historic church on our website here 👇 www.scotlandschurchestrust.org.uk/church/paris...

Day 17 of our 2025 Scottish Churches Advent Calendar opens on to a wintry day at St. Cuthbert's Parish Church, Edinburgh. The church is mostly the work of the fabulously named architect Hippolyte Blanc, who kept the 18th century tower of the predecessor building. (Image: Tod & Taylor Architects)

St Louis of Toulouse, 1480-82, magnificently colored and patterned work by Andrea della Robbia Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Prato. Highly recommended (ticket includes access to cathedral chancel with Lippi frescoes) for the collection and interesting spaces (cloisters etc) #museitaliani

👀 Coffee time ☕️☕️🌺 - #Ely #Cambridgeshire Penstemon with Ely Cathedral as backdrop - 📷 16.12.2025 (Yesterday) #elevensestime

It seems that ‘Bytledenu’ mutated into ‘Biddlesden’ and that mutated into the name we know today, ‘Biddlestone’. Its also probable that this earliest iteration of the name for the village came into existence well before these stones were even carved into a cross. 7/7

Thus, it is more likely that these stones were originally part of a village cross in the now lost medieval village of Biddlestone, which was located a further 80 metres to the south. 6/7

However, it would seem that this might be a folk etymology, with the Nottingham University Institute for Name Studies stating that the place name ‘Biddlestone’ is actually derived from the Old English ‘Bytledenu’, meaning ‘Building Valley’. 5/7

A 19th-century source states that the name ‘Biddle stones’ is a corruption of ‘Battle Stones’. Accordingly, it is suggested that these bits of sandstone were once part of a commemorative cross that marked the site of an Anglo-Scottish border skirmish. 4/7

At least one of the ‘Biddle Stones’ was part of a medieval cross, carved to form the socket for the upright section of the cross. 3/7

Located 200 metres south east of the chapel, these bits of sandstone are the ‘Biddle Stones’, which are the supposed etymological root of the place name ‘Biddlestone’. 2/7

On the track leading up to the magnificent Roman Catholic chapel at Biddlestone in Northumberland are some medieval remains that might explain how this remote village got its name. 1/7

A Christmas cartoon from my new book of science cartoons PHYSICS FOR CATS. In good bookshops and online now: www.tomgauld.com/comic-books-v2

Tom Denny's recently installed East window at Tisbury, Wilts. @roaringmeg.bsky.social

#AdventAngels in Sherborne Abbey, Dorset. I loved the experience of visiting this charming little town; somehow more manageable than being overwhelmed in a cathedral city! This window by Powell & Sons, to mark 50th anniversary of founding of Sherborne School for Girls in 1899. Dedicated 1951.

Read more for #WindowsOnWednesday at 👇 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_M... The interior has fine woodwork, for #Woodensday, which had to be restored after devasting fire damage in 1940. The fire also destroyed the costly Brindley and Foster pipe organ. 🧵2/2 📷Church's own.

Architects for #ScottishChurchOfTheWeek, Stobswell Trinity, recommended new, simple stained glass panels for the clerestory windows. In 1892, a magnificent, three light window by the eminent Mayer of Munich, was installed. It depicts Jesus calling all who labour to come and take their rest. 🧵1/2

A #misericord in St Mary's Cathedral in Limerick #woodensday

👀 Church of St Werburgh, Wembury #Devon A beautiful musical angel. #Woodensday #WoodcarvingWednesday #AdventAngels

2/2 More of the early press coverage of the Huskar Pit Disaster. Side by side: damage to the grand house at Wentworth, and the names of the 26 children who died in the coal mine - the youngest aged just 7. The age given as '9 and a half' just simply breaks my heart. #TimeTravelAdvent

#TimeTravelAdvent #Day17. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem 'The Cry of the Children' was written in response to the Huskar Pit Disaster (1838) and the Royal Commission on the Employment of Children & Very Young People which followed. Reading these historical sources & testimonies is harrowing. 1/2

For #AdventAngels today a finely carved musical angel on a 15thC misericord at St Mary's, Tansor. Formerly at Fotheringhay the quality of the carving is fantastic, the way the wings curl over. And yes they are fingering the lute not flipping the bird as I first thought... 🖕🏻 #Woodensday

#Woodensday Poppyhead from St Peter and St Paul, Coleshill, North Warwickshire.

#AdventAngels Detail of the William Morris window, from a pattern in the Burne-Jones book. Malmesbury Abbey, Malmesbury, #Wiltshire

#WednesdayWallpaintings Early 14th C paintings, nativity, Abbaye Saint-Amant-de-Boixe, #Charente

Just 2 weeks until my next online talk: Historic Buildings in the Landscape! I'll be exploring local sources of building materials inc the brick, stone & timber for Tattershall Castle which came from a 20 mile radius: Edlington Moor, Ancaster & Stixwould. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/buildings-...

This print sale at the Guardian ends tomorrow! (after that these three prints will be gone forever.) guardianprintshop.com/pages/tom-ga...

Find out more about this historic place of worship on our website. 👇 www.scotlandschurchestrust.org.uk/church/st-mi...

It's day 16 of our 2025 Scottish Churches Advent Calendar and we're off to Dumfries today to visit St. Michael’s Church. This beautiful church is steeped in history and, in warmer days than the one shown, volunteers provide informative tours of the kirk and its kirkyard. (Image: Church's own)