This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – March 2014. Still a hero? A reconstruction of Drake’s Golden Hind, London 2013. People have all sorts of heroes and heroines – actors, musicians, sports stars, even politicians. The late Tony Benn, who sadly died a couple of days ago, was…
This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – March, 2017. A photomosaic of the Fame wrecksite. (C) Bournemouth University The Swash Channel leads to the main entrance of Poole Harbour in Dorset, and this is where the Swash Channel Wreck lies. The original name of the ship has been lost…
This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – February 2017. A Rostock street, January 1987 This is a fragment of personal history about the fringes of the Cold War. I want to post it now because the events happened thirty years ago this year and because they recall people in…
This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – July 2016. Conjectural sketch of a balinger (C) Ian Friel 2015. Balingers were the frigates of medieval sea warfare: relatively fast, relatively small and suitable for a wide range of tasks, short of taking on a major enemy ship singlehanded….
This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – March 2016. Stedham and Iping on the 1st edtion Ordnance Survey Map, 1813. By the 1880s the area called ‘Trotton Common’ was known as Stedham Common, and was the site of the temporary hospital. This piece is a small contribution…
This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – November 2015. The Burial of Private Walker, by Louis Raemakers, 1916 In the wake of the terrible events in Paris on 13th November, and with all the other tragedies in the modern world, it may seem self-indulgent, to say to least,…
This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – October 2015. The site at Bursledon: to the left, the site of the Grace Dieu, to the right, the possible site of the Holy Ghost. ‘But how do we know that?’ is a good question for people to ask of historians and…
This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – September 2014. A minor incident at the weekend started me thinking again about the question of why things happen. I was writing an email to someone about a ship’s bell I’d seen in a museum store the day before. Realising…
This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – September 2014. A young couple photographed at Southsea, Hampshire, probably early 1900s One hundred and seventy-five years ago this year, the invention of photography was announced to the world. In January 1839, William Henry Fox Talbot read a paper…
This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – August 2014. The fireship attack by the English fleet on the Spanish Armada off Calais on the night of 7th/8th August 1588 was the turning-point of the Armada campaign. The attack temporarily dispersed the Armada, drove it into the North…
This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – August 2017. Although this 1956 reconstruction was intended to represent the Pilgrim Fathers’ 120-ton ship Mayflower of 1620, its design was largely based on late 16th century English sources. As such it gives a good idea of the appearance of the privately-owned ships in the…
This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – July 2014. Monument to Edmund Norton, gentleman, who received a pension for ‘his good service by seae in Anno Domini 1588’ (St Bartholemew’s Church, Hyde, Winchester, Hants). Edmund died on 10th July 1600. And on 20th July (see below). BREAKING NEWS!!! 426…
This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – June 2017. The Great Ship of Snargate, late 15th/early 16th century (colour enhanced for greater clarity) Why does a medieval church in a small Romney Marsh village contain a large and very old painting of a warship? The village of Snargate…
This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – May, 2014. Weimar and the Ettersberg, from Conti-Atlas für Kraftfahrer (c 1935). It’s strange what evidence of history you can find in banal, everyday objects. On an impulse, years ago, I bought an old road atlas of Germany in a secondhand…
This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – May 0214. The St Winnow ship carving, late 15th/early 16th centuries The storm is violent, and eternal. Clouds like thick folds of cloth gather over the ship. A demon’s face looks out from one corner of the sky, its bulging…
This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – April 2014. Minsden Chapel in 1973 – a rather out-of-focus photograph taken with my old Instamatic camera. ‘And what is the use of it all, anyway?’ That question must have been posed to most historians at one time or another,…
This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – April 2014. STS Sir Winston Churchill, somewhere in the English Channel, December 1978. OK, I’ve enhanced the photo: it wasn’t this green. I was, though. December, 1978. The Sail Training Schooner Sir Winston Churchill sets out from Cherbourg on a grey morning into Force 8 winds……
This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – March 2014. A thank-offering for a successful voyage, or a fearful prayer before setting sail? A 13th/14th century ship graffito in Rochester Cathedral, Kent. To many people the word ‘graffiti’ conjurs up images of desecrated walls, gang-tags and urban decay. …
This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – February 2014. The site of the Grace Dieu, during fieldwork in the 1980s. The ship was huge, in medieval terms: the archaeologist in the red wetsuit is standing on the end of the keel at the stern – the other end…
This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – February 2014. A different sort of 1914 anniversary: a plaque in Southampton marking the centenary of the death of the composer Charles Dibdin Anniversaries are not easy to escape, at least if you’re trying to interpret history. The current plethora of…
This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – February 2014. Modern-day Climping Beach – once part of the village of Atherington From tales of Atlantis to the Arthurian romance of Lyonesse, there is no shortage of legends about land that has sunk beneath the waves, but inundations of…
This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – January 2014. The remains of the steamship Hoche, 2012 I was nine years old, on holiday in Devon. We were staying in a cottage on the rocky north Devon coast, just south of Hartland Point, and went for a walk along…
This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – January 2014. Wm BUDDEN LAND 6½ INCH BEYOND THIS WALL 1822 This rather odd property marker is in a garden wall on the outskirts of Chichester in West Sussex. The stone faces out, annexing 6½ inches (16.5 cm) of what…
This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – January 2014. The aerial photo used as a header on this blog was chosen because it reflects some of my historical interests – the sea, the development of the landscape and local history. The picture shows the entrance to Chichester…
This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – January 2014. The first day of the New Year seems as good a time as any to start a new blog. The old saying goes ‘out with the old, in with the new’, but it’s not quite appropriate for…
This article was originally published on my WordPress blog – July 2014. Not the ship called Barry, but a small fishing boat near Nerja, Spain, 1984: it carries the sort of apotropaic eyes on the bow that could be seen on ships in the ancient Mediterranean Emotional. Cultural. Spiritual. Political. Legal,…