This is absolutely fantastic news: for the building, the legacies of architect Peter Womersley, and designer Bernat Klein, and the Borders area, which has an amazing history of textile production.

The Bernat Klein Studio near Galashiels is going to be auctioned tomorrow, 30 July You can still support heritage organisations in trying to buy this outstanding Modernist building by giving at www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/saving-pet... Keep your fingers crossed that the coalition can get the building!

Modernist gem at risk! 🏛️ The Bernat Klein Studio by Peter Womersley is going to auction on Weds 30 July. A coalition led by @shbt-charity.bsky.social is raising funds to buy and restore the building. Help save it by supporting the crowdfunder now: buff.ly/J4UpTX2

#PostBoxSaturday Summer is the season for the Common Ridings festivals throughout the Scottish Borders. Hawick celebrated last week with this fine #PostBoxTopper #Scotland @undisscot.bsky.social @folkloresociety.bsky.social

Tonight’s wonderful talk on ‘Dorothy Wordsworth and the Poetry of the Seasons’ concludes our Cultural Landscapes lecture series for this academic year. Thank you to all who have attended these events during 2024-25. Our free monthly talks will recommence in the autumn 🍂 📚

Oh yes!

In advance of this event I am very pleased to announce that we are once more able to offer both full time and part time routes of study on our MA for September 2025: www.cumbria.ac.uk/study/course... Come along to this evening talk on Wed 28th May to find out more 📚🍃

LOVE this 1963 video of a visit to the Mayfair Tiki Bar - the food, the drinks, the fashion, the hula dancing!! Anyone who remembers the #Butlins Beachcomber Bars will see the similarities @c20society.bsky.social @drfrond.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSoL...

Book Haul! Fungi ( via @blpublishing.bsky.social ), Ferns ( via @drfrond.bsky.social and others ), Female Hypnotists and Sweet Valley High ♥️ youtu.be/JKsNR9KjqnQ?...

I'm hoping to take my new book on a trip around the coast after it comes out in May. If you know of any festivals, museums or groups that might like me to come and talk about #seaside architecture last century please let me know ☺️🌊

Owl.

Die Historikerin Sarah Whittingham ist eine solche Sammlerin. Nur dass sie nicht Farne, sondern Farnsammlungen sammelt. Ich liebe "Fern Fever" für die Genauigkeit mit der sie die Sammlungsbegeisterten portraitiert. Ob in Herbarien, Namenslisten oder Farnführern, der Versuch, sie alle zu finden, oder

Was definitely still a widespread practice in the 1930s - and much later. Some farmers were still harvesting it to use as animal bedding at the end of the twentieth century.

We’re excited to be nominated in the London Lift-Off film festival for Show Up and Start: The Art and Life of Dorothy Ramsay. You can watch the film and vote for us here (we’re under “Features”): Liftoff.network/london-lift-off-film-festival-2024/ #LiftOffGlobalNetwork #LiftOffFilmFestivals

The elves have been busy! Saturday 4pm-6pm we’ll be hosting our Xmas party for locals and visitors to come and celebrate Braithwaite's community. Come by for a (lowalcohol) mulled wine, homemade mince pie and other goodies #braithwaite #keswick #cumbria #lakedistrict #cyclists #ramblers #photos

My first birthday since my Mum died in August. Strange feelings. Made all the stranger by the fact that somehow the little girl in the photo is now eligible for free prescriptions (but not a bus pass), and can buy a senior rail card. Anyway, greatly looking forward to a meal with friends tonight.

One of my favourite paintings in the excellent #sheilafell exhibition at @tulliecarlisle So many to chose from though, we will be going back many times, I think. On until 16 March 2025.

We were lucky enough to find some baby #dragon #skulls yesterday!

People are flocking to Bluesky so here's an attempt to connect people interested in #Cumbrian #History (not many visible currently) and the landscape and culture of #Cumbria and the #LakeDistrict. Let me know who I've missed, or if you want to be removed (if I can work out how!). go.bsky.app/Tew7cxp

Winter walk.

Woo hoo! Congratulations! Ordered - can’t wait to read it. Sx

Best films ever made.

Those of you enjoying today's #OccupationOfTheDay should also follow @drfrond.bsky.social, who's an expert in this area of #history 👇 bsky.app/profile/drfr...

Good morning from the #bookshop @samreadbookseller.bsky.social I thought I'd be brave, show my face & share my recent & current reads... (with strategic product placement 😉) @londonbessie.bsky.social @katiescribbles.bsky.social

@likewinterblue.bsky.social might be interested in these.

Give the gift of membership this Christmas and support our work. It is the perfect gift for anyone who loves Victorian & Edwardian buildings. On our website select the 'buy as gift' option under order details. www.victoriansociety.org.uk/join/ 📷Burne Jones Glass, Rye Sussex CC BY-NC 2.0 Martin Beek

In 2021 this photo of a rare survival of a once-common feature - a Victorian fern/window case in Bath - in a post in The Other Place, got over 2,000 likes. Somehow, I don't think that will happen again, but it shows the sort of thing featured in my books 'Fern Fever' and 'The Victorian Fern Craze'.

Is bracken (Pteridium aquilinum) the 'World's Worst Weed'? Or one of the most successful plants on the planet, that we should be appreciating, as we did in the past? Its spread may have been exaggerated because of a change in attitude: from a useful resource, to a pest.