Best wishes for the holidays from Curious Travellers 2! curioustravellers.ac.uk/newyddion-ne...

A conference report for our exhilarating 'Curious Collections' day at the Natural History Museum (@nhm-london.bsky.social) curioustravellers.ac.uk/conference-r...

Yn falch ein bod wedi cydweithio gydag artistiaid yn yr arddangosfa hon, sy'n agor yn swyddogol heddiw yn Aberystwyth! / Very glad to have collaborated with artists in this exhibition, which officially opens today in Aberystwyth!

I had no chance to post about Friday’s fantastic Curious Collections conference for @curioustravellers.bsky.social, but suffice to say these chairs were full as we welcomed nearly 60 guests to @nhm-london.bsky.social for a packed programme on Thomas Pennant and the work (and future🤞) of the project.

The importance of the owl in Welsh tradition @mxfrankduffy.bsky.social

For our first talk today, Alex Deans from @uofglasgow.bsky.social tells us about Thomas Pennants rather disappointed reaction to Caithness in 1769 - an "immense morass", though at least with "a few rows of tolerable trees" (!)

A conference in London on 7 November explores the scientific legacy of Thomas Pennant (1726–1798) from Holywell, Flintshire - an internationally renowned naturalist whose specimens form a core part of the Natural History Museum’s collections. Read more here: www.uwtsd.ac.uk/news/confere...

We're looking forward to our conference at the Natural History Museum (@nhm-london.bsky.social) on Friday - read our press release to find out more!

"Pennant’s great auk reflects...a paradigm shift precipitated by the realisation that a species could vanish; and therefore that a ‘resource’ could in fact become exhausted and disappear altogether" Artist Sean Harris on extinction and animation for our blog curioustravellers.ac.uk/curating-the...

Too busy having fun to post - and @gillianobrien.bsky.social took better pics in any case - but great to catch up with @curioustravellers.bsky.social and other colleagues in North Wales last week #plasnewydd #llangollen #wales #research #ladiesofllangollen #HolyheadRoad

Come join us at @nhm-london.bsky.social on November 7th for a day conference on the connections between natural history collections and enlightenment travel writing. For more information, programme and registration details, follow the link! curioustravellers.ac.uk/curious-coll...

Back to history today and a lecture for the Oxford History Faculty Environmental Humanities group on @curioustravellers.bsky.social and our Curious Minds: Thomas Pennant and Gilbert White exhibition. #HistoricalResearch #DigitalHumanities #ThomasPennanr #GilbertWhite @ox.ac.uk

Thoroughly enjoyed attending @curioustravellers.bsky.social ECR Day yesterday. Enjoyed listening to some amazing and thought provoking papers and presenting on Maria Graham’s South American travel writing

Two members of the Curious Travellers team will be launching books including Thomas Pennant at the Gorwelion Conference this week!

Very excited and grateful to have been given the chance to present at the ‘Journeys of Curiosity’ symposium, where I’ll be chatting a bit about curiosity, the sublime, and imperial anxieties in Romantic travel accounts of the Himalayas. Really looking forward to hearing all the other papers as well!

Curious Travellers are delighted to be partnering with the long-running Liverpool Travel Seminar to host an Early Career Symposium dedicated to ‘Journeys of Curiosity’ Bluecoat, Liverpool, 25/09. Free (including lunch), registration by September 19th curioustravellers.ac.uk/journeys-of-...

Thomas Pennant's writings shed light on Welsh aspects of this "workhouse-plantation nexus" - in the Greenfield Valley in north east Wales, Pennant gives a whitewashed account of the conditions of child labourers, sent from distant parishes to work in the plantation-supplied cotton mills of Holywell

Had a wonderful visit to @nhm-london.bsky.social Tring last week to examine some of the bird collection compiled by the naturalist Thomas Pennant (1726-98) - a very rare surviving 18th century ornithological collection. @curioustravellers.bsky.social

In a new entry on our research blog, Glasgow's Alex Deans reflects on how Thomas Pennant's tours of Scotland are haunted by absent, ancient trees - and the possibility of enlightened reforestation curioustravellers.ac.uk/thomas-penna...

Read our Principal Investigator Mary-Ann Constantine's blogpost 'Black Country Blues: A Welsh Bard Walking', on bardic radical Iolo Morganwg's (rather testy) encounter with the Industrial Revolution at Ironbridge writingindustry.leeds.ac.uk/essays/black...

Join some of our Curious Travellers team at the FREE Early Career symposium "Journeys of Curiosity", in Liverpool on 25th September 2025. Propose your papers by 15th August!

And just like that our exhibition Curious Minds: Thomas Pennant and Gilbert White is over 🥲. I’ve loved the whole process of exhibition design, installation, and events, and I’m so proud of what we created for @curioustravellers.bsky.social

Tune in tomorrow to hear more about our work on Skye!

Two Curious Travellers events coming up on the Isle of Skye! First, on June 19th, an afternoon of discussion and song @sabhalmorostaig.bsky.social, reflecting on Thomas Pennant's 1772 visit to Skye and his interactions with Gaelic culture

Still time to register to see this talk by @edwinrose.bsky.social! Either online or in person at the National Library of Wales (@librarywales.bsky.social) www.library.wales/visit/things...

Two books coming out this summer from the Curious Travellers team! 1) Yn gyntaf, llyfr newydd Ffion Mair Jones (@ffionmjones.bsky.social) ar gysylltiadau Cymreig Thomas Pennant (Awst 2025, @gwasgprifcymru.bsky.social) www.uwp.co.uk/book/thomas-...

A wonderful, glowing review (by travel writer Julie Brominicks) of our Principal Investigator Mary-Ann Constantine's recent book on Romantic-era Welsh tourism Order it to your libraries!

Calling all artistic sleuths on Bluesky - if you know anything about the missing paintings from the home of Welsh naturalist Thomas Pennant pictured here, please get in touch with @edwinrose.bsky.social!

Mary-Ann Constantine kicks off the first of our two Curious Travellers panels today at Gilbert White's House in Selborne (@gilbertwhites.bsky.social)

"fossil fish, a collection of graptolites, trilobites, a bear jaw..." In our new research blog, @stephholtnh.bsky.social gives us a rare hands-on look at Thomas Pennant's specimens in the British Museum curioustravellers.ac.uk/enlightening...

Come join us! There'll be strong presence from the Curious Travellers team.

Day 2 of #NatSCA2025 @natsca.bsky.social is up and running! I’m speaking later on behalf of @curioustravellers.bsky.social and the @nhm-london.bsky.social Thomas Pennant Collections #HistoryOfNaturalHistory #NaturalHistoryMuseums

For our April research blog, Mary-Ann Constantine takes us on a tour beneath north-east Wales 'The ‘Subterraneous Lottery’; Or; Flintshire Exposed.' curioustravellers.ac.uk/the-subterra...

A great day launching our exhibition on Pennant, Gilbert White, and #C18th Natural History @gilbertwhites.bsky.social! Open to visitors until the summer, and hosting plenty of linked events and a conference in the meantime

We had a wonderful time this evening at the launch of our latest exhibition #CuriousMinds which had been created by the fabulous @curioustravellers.bsky.social team! Explore the relationship between #ThomasPennant and #GilbertWhite told through specimens, books, art, poetry and more!

Opening today! Visit us at Selborne!

Please consider joining us for our exhibition launch in Selborne next Tuesday (April 8th, 5pm-7pm) RSVP to [email protected]

All you #WyrdWednesday people might be interested in this one - how enlightenment scientist Thomas Pennant tricked himself into (re?)introducing a pagan god to modern Wales

📢Submission deadline: 1 April 2025

Our next exhibition begins on the 8th April. ‘Curious Minds’: Thomas Pennant and Gilbert White. Learn more about the relationship between these two 18th Century naturalists. Our exhibition is the product of a collaboration between the @curioustravellers.bsky.social and @nhm-london.bsky.social.

Our exhibition Curious Minds: Thomas Pennant and Gilbert White launches on the 8th April at @gilbertwhites.bsky.social! We’re delighted that the exhibition will feature objects and images loaned by many organisations (see comments!) Book your place at the launch at [email protected]

"The name ‘Cernunnos’, and the concept of a Gaulish horned god, had reappeared in Paris in 1711, when a relief depicting the deity emerged—in suitably dramatic fashion—from beneath the choir of Notre Dame cathedral" like something straight out of folk horror

In our new research blog, @rhyskamjones.bsky.social tells the story of how Thomas Pennant brought Horned Gods to Welsh Hillsides Read on for witchcraft, Reformation martyrdom, and the enlightenment's unintended consequences curioustravellers.ac.uk/horned-gods-...

Reminder that our exhibition Curious Minds: Thomas Pennant and Gilbert White is launching soon! Do come and join us! @bsecs.bsky.social @bshsnews.bsky.social @sochistnathist.bsky.social @gilbertwhite.bsky.social @brycchancarey.bsky.social

With the International Conference on Basking Sharks coming to Ireland, a great time to revisit our research blog on hunting Basking Sharks in the Hebrides, from 1772 to the 20th century bsky.app/profile/curi...

@curioustravellers.bsky.social The Curious Travellers project is pleased to announce a new exhibition at the house of the naturalist Gilbert White of Selborne, Hampshire. Curious Minds: Thomas Pennant & Gilbert White runs from 8 April to 22 June. curioustravellers.ac.uk/news-and-eve...

Describing a Basking Shark hunt on Arran is one of the more disturbing animal encounters in Pennant's Scottish Tours They "permit the near approach of man: will suffer a boat to follow them without accelerating their motion, till it comes almost within contact, when a harpooner strikes his weapon"

Dewch i weld ein harddangosfa newydd ar berthynas Thomas Pennant a Gilbert White, naturiaethwyr pennaf eu hoes, sy'n rhedeg rhwng Ebrill a Mehefin 2025. Lansir yr arddangosfa ar Ebrill 8fed, yn nhŷ Gilbert White yn Selborne!

Please join us at our forthcoming exhibition, 'Curious Minds: Thomas Pennant and Gilbert White', running April-June 2025 Launch event on April 8th at Gilbert White's House and Gardens, Selborne! (@gilbertwhites.bsky.social)