As a part-Belgian this makes me swell with pride, I must say - really leaning into the quirky bits of the nation's heritage. (The Tintin kit from a few years ago is a belter, too.)

Lovely bit of social history, here. View from the Royal Festival Hall, 1950. This beautiful image was produced by SR Badmin for a set of contemporary postcards celebrating the Festival of Britain. And best of all … (1/2)

A recent book, recommended: "London Bridge and its houses: c.1209-1761", Dorian Gerhold. The Corporation of London records allow a surprising amount of reconstruction of the size of houses, who lived there and the trades they followed. Always been fascinated by this little town above the water. 1/2

Any Eimear McBride fans in Suffolk or north Essex? The author of 'A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing', 'The Lesser Bohemians' and other books will be in conversation at the University of Suffolk, Ipswich on Thursday 11th June. All welcome. More information: www.suffolkbookleague.org/events-1/eim...

One of those bits of iconography that help read the landscape, on St Clement Colegate in Norwich a few days ago. St Clement, an early pope, was martyred by being thrown into the sea tied to an anchor (as related by @pontifactspod.bsky.social): here on the clock are a papal crown and two anchors.

Good article by Giovanni Colavizza & Lise Jaillant on preparing archives for AI, at doi.org/10.1080/2325.... "AI should be adopted in archives not as a generic technology in search of applications, but as a set of tools explicitly designed around archival requirements": yes, & not just in archives!

Good post on how the skills of a historian (for which also read archivist, of course) in interrogating partial or biased sources are exactly what one needs when dealing with the apparent authority of AI-generated text. Who are you, what are your prior assumptions, what are you missing out?

Call out for volunteers:

Fascinating story here from @annamariabarry.bsky.social, with an all-star cast: www.royalparks.org.uk/read-watch-l.... (And a cameo role from George Lansbury, Labour party leader most associated with Poplar but born just up the road from the Red House, in Halesworth.)

Dedham Residents Free Entry 2026🐴 🎨 We are running FREE entry for Dedham Residents from Wednesday 3rd to Sunday 28th June 2026 Dedham residents are welcome to visit the museum during advertised opening times without charge for the month of June.

We had a visit from Simon Stephens a few weeks ago, talking to us for a Museums Journal article which has just come out: www.museumsassociation.org/museums-jour.... A nice summary of what we're about!

In 1788, James Hutton sailed past Siccar Point, and discovered a gap in the rock record spanning around 60 million years. It was here that the study of geology took off. Today is Hutton's 300th birthday, and in his honour BGS baker Steve has baked an unconformi-cake. Happy birthday, James 🎂

It's #VolunteersWeek! To celebrate we're sharing what our amazing volunteers like Jordan do here at Suffolk Archives. From an interaction at a university volunteering fayre to volunteering with us for more than two years, Jordan has truly left his mark. Visit https://orlo.uk/xfj2p#VolunteersWeekto join him.

Deep time: James Hutton, Scottish Enlightenment naturalist, founder of modern geology, born #OTD 1726; pioneer of uniformitarianism, his landmark work Theory of the Earth recognised importance of gradual natural processes in formation of earth’s crust.300th Portrait by Raeburn 1776 ALT N.G. Scotland

Painted Lady butterflies around in number in the Red House garden this morning; they're definitely having one of their big years.

If you’re interested in how scientific advances build on each other, watch one of my favorite series of all time. James Burke’s “Connections” had a huge influence on me when it originally aired.

On this day in 1983, a trip out to the Great Western Railway Centre in Didcot. Of course as I was 20 steam was a very distant childhood memory; now I realise people in 1983 the age I am now would have felt that the 15 years since the end of steam was the blink of an eye.

I've been ignoring the "AI summary" bit at the top of the Google search results for some time, but the prospect of their whole search experience being based on semi-plausible waffle was the last straw, and I swapped over to DuckDuckGo as my default earlier this week. (Can we have AltaVista back?)

A varied day to wrap up the week: morning, meeting of the EGAD development team to discuss the RiC-O ontology (and my first GitHub pull request for 8 years). Afternoon, rationalising and weeding to make space in the stacks, and booking a trip to the tip to get rid of all the cardboard. #ArchiveLife

Nice to been part of this Thoroughly Good podcast on Aldeburgh and the Festival: the entire thing needs a paid subscription to hear, but there's a free preview bit featuring archive chat. open.substack.com/pub/thorough...

Guys, we're gonna live forever

Taken a while to listen to this on my commute, but some fascinating stuff on the 90% of the Roman world, and what can be known about them through archaeology and written sources (much more than has been thought). player.fm/series/histo... 1/2

Adults Only Zone: Relaxed Session at the Great Exhibition Road Festival, London, Sunday 7 June 12 noon-1pm, open for those aged 18+ www.greatexhibitionroadfestival.co.uk/event/adults... #autism #AutisminMuseums

Sad to read this. Among many other writings, "Capital" is one of the great novels of London and the layers of its past.

Sure sign of the Aldeburgh Festival getting close: the customary big sign has gone up on the Red House lawn. The Festival design look this year draws on Archive content: the shirt worn by Britten at a party in summer 1976 to celebrate his life peerage, a few months before his death.

Using archive records to reconstruct the lives of neighbourhoods lost to road-building:

Layers of the past, just up the road:

📢Call for papers for our 2026 conference ‘All Mapped Out: Maps, Plans and Charts in the Archives’ on Tuesday 24th November 2026. Abstracts submission deadline 5pm on Wednesday 1st July 2026. For more information: www.britishrecordsassociation.org.uk/news/call-fo...

In May 1962 Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell were sentenced to six months imprisonment for defacing the dust jackets of library books using cut-out illustrations from other library books. I do not condone mutilating library books but I do really like their cover collage for The Secret of Chimneys.

Out exploring (pleasantly cool) churches this afternoon, and stumbled on these pleasing signs on the old post office in Woolpit.

Heavens, if someone had shown me this in a school careers lesson how very different my life could have been.

Thinking of visiting the Scotland's People centre in #Edinburgh? 🗃️ 📚 #FamilyHistory #genealogy #Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 youtu.be/TRpIVSeoIjs?...

I don't remember seeing one of these before: a cockchafer, found in the house and carried outside. My mother, growing up in Central Europe, told of them emerging in spring to buzz and blunder round the school playground (she wasn't a fan).

National Cemeteries Week: World War ll at West Norwood Cemetery. Saturday, June 6 10:30 AM - 12 PM See below for details www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/national-c...

I can vouch for the fact that at the time this just seemed like normal ice-cream aesthetics; the fact that now everything about this screams "knocked up in a garage from illegal ingredients using a junior chemistry set, in order to corrupt your children" was not apparent to a 6-year-old.

111 years ago today On this day (22nd May) in 1915, an accident which remains the worst rail disaster in British history occurred at Quintinshill. It involved troops on their way to board ships for the Gallipoli / Dardanelles campaign. Sadly many people were killed & injured as result. #OnThisDay

Reminded that on this day in 2017, a lovely May day, I walked across London suburbia from Finchley Central to Brent Cross, taking in (inter alia) the weirdly-named road "Crooked Usage" and the odd story of the Pillar of Fire Society. @geograph-gbi.bsky.social www.geograph.org.uk/geotrips/1394

@hotgpod.bsky.social has reached the early 1500s and there's trouble over in Hungary, including the gruesome death of peasant leader Dozsa György; to people my age, of course, his name means the Ujpest football club, and it struck me how many concepts in Eastern European history first came up 1/2

The Archive and Red House at night: when you walk off with the stack keys in your pocket and can't just bring them in next morning because you have the day off, the compensation is some good night-time views...

'Turnpike Roads in England & Wales', an excellent website for researchers and teachers on this important and interesting historical infrastructure. www.turnpikes.org.uk

Reminded that on this day 2 years ago I was exploring the churchyard at Shotley, where many sailors from the naval base are buried under standard, pre-CWGC headstones (including some whose rank is just "Boy"). Across the estuary from the graveyard, the huge cranes of Felixstowe container port.

Register for #TEI before 1 June for Early Bird rates! “Overall, it was a fantastic experience." (TEI participant, 2025) View the programme: tinyurl.com/485evt2k Read a blog post from 2025: tinyurl.com/45bunynv Register: tinyurl.com/yd9f9mjz @uniofcam.bsky.social @matthewholford.bsky.social

A cheering story, at a church I remember from my South London days:

An untold story. www.sciencealert.com/lost-parchme...

In Cambridge ready to talk about Britten and Pears at Great St Mary's....

I wrote about the Catholic-Sufi mausoleum in Mortlake that houses the bodies of Sir Richard Burton and his wife – newly reopened to the public after seventy years. Link in next post.

Get the tips and tricks you need to understand common archival documents from one of our archivists in this workshop. Book https://orlo.uk/OUNXk

A great discussion from @grindrod.bsky.social and @garius.bsky.social on Stevenage, the first of the post-war New Towns and an incarnation of the post-war urge to build back *better*. A lot of this archive relates to the cultural side of that moment, the Arts Council spreading "high" culture 1/2

Happy birthday to Margaret Calvert, designer for much of the UK road signage system. 90 today! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margare...