After the turkey, chocolates and mince pies comes lusciously escapist TV and this year, for country house lovers, the outstanding...

a wall painting at Adlington Hall ...which chronicles our relationship with the Ottoman sultans - not entirely what you expect from a countr

Without Sir Roger and Arbury, Mary Ann Evans might never have become George Eliot at all and I couldn’t be more pleased to discover a close

Loud, energetic, irreverent and, yes, sparkly, London’s new musical Six is just what all of us need on a damp winter’s evening. It might be

Not all early Thomas Cook tours were a success. Perhaps weary travellers returning after cancelled holidays can console themselves with the

Does it matter that they are brought to Rosslyn by a popular novel of dubious literary merit or that at Tintagel visitors care more about ro

Perhaps we can look forward to a day when red squirrels bring their charm once more to every part of the country but it needs the vigilance

It’s Napoleon’s birthday! Light the candles this 15 August. Why is this important? Because, in Britain, we are still just a little bit obses

Things get lost in big houses - put away by one generation and forgotten by the next. Just occasionally, a chest in the attics reveals an ex

Elizabeth I employed eight men to beat her furs all day to make sure they didn’t get chomped. More specifically, in 1598 it took six men fo

Something very special is going on in the real life story of Anne Lister of Halifax in the BBC’s production of Gentleman Jack now on BBC...

Interesting that the University of Cambridge is investigating its links with slavery. Are they hoping to be exonerated by the fact that...

It’s been a week for royal princes, first with the birth of baby Archie to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who is destined to spend much...

The Royal Horticultural Society has declared this Britain’s National Gardening Week from Monday 29 April - Sunday 5 May. Why? It's the...

Interesting how quickly the tone of the reports of the fire at Nôtre Dame cathedral in Paris has changed. The fire took hold about 4.30...

I heard an amusing story this week about the way English Heritage now organise their services. Our house had a chilly morning yesterday,...

I've just visited Kettle’s Yard, a house in Cambridge, once home to the art curator Jim Ede and left by him to the University in 1966....

It’s British Science Week and I have just been sent an image of a microscope that set me thinking. The microscope is at Farringford House...

If you want an icon for International Women's Day in the UK in 2019 you couldn’t do better than Nancy Astor. Born an American, she met...

I’ve been writing about miniatures recently for Historic Houses. Seek out the exhibition ‘Elizabethan Treasures’ at the National Portrait...