My recent ‘Odd Socs’ column on the Ancient Tree Forum (CA 436) proved to be unexpectedly topical when, on 18 June, it was announced that Sherwood Forest’s 1,200-year-old Major Oak had died. The expressions of sadness that followed showed that many people loved this tree and considered it an important part of our national heritage.Â
A study of human remains from two cemeteries in Bulgaria, all buried with distinctively ‘Gothic’ jewellery, brooches, and belt buckles, suggests that the ancient Goths were ethnically diverse and not a single homogeneous community.
Does ‘balti’, the Birmingham-created curry named after the steel bowl in which the dish is cooked and served, count as part of the UK’s intangible heritage?
Abydos was not only the earliest brewery and the forerunner of the great royal cemeteries… it was also the birthplace of the funeral wake and possibly too of the mass hangover.
Banksy has made himself very rich with witty examples of the genre, and both Historic England and the National Trust now conserve and celebrate historic graffiti.
Economics cannot be used to measure the emotional, educational, psychological, spiritual, health, and social benefits of heritage – all the things that make life worth living.
At a time of food scarcity, obesity became a desirable condition… the Venus figurines represented an ideal body type.
To gasps of genuine astonishment from the audience, he showed slides of objects so pristine in their gold and garnet glory…
As every archaeologist knows, listed buildings and scheduled monuments represent the tip of the heritage iceberg.
Today, 757 synagogues are deemed to be at risk, which illustrates the scale of the task facing the FJH in its mission to ‘celebrate and honour Europe’s lost Jewish communities’ and rescue these emblematic buildings as ‘powerful places of education’ offering ‘valuable insights into Jewish life and its impact on wider society’.
Christopher Catling employs joined-up thinking in his regular column on the eccentricities of the heritage world
No doubt those early Christians would say it was relatively mild revenge for the sufferings of the martyrs.
Christopher Catling highlights threats to Fab Four-related buildings in their home city of Liverpool
‘Context is all’: as the culture wars heat up, Christopher Catling looks at the problems of our contested heritage
Christopher Catling examines new evidence of the ancient links between Celtic Britain and the eastern Mediterranean
Many of us have developed a stronger appreciation of the natural and cultural heritage in our own back yards.
The Cloister Cafe at London’s St Bartholomew the Great (used as a location for Four Weddings and a Funeral, Shakespeare in Love, Sherlock Holmes, and Muppets: Most Wanted) is described as ‘an extraordinary cafe for an extraordinary church.
Dressing up as a ghost or ghoul seems a relatively harmless activity by contrast with the inflammatory implications of burning a religious fanatic, especially to children bought up on a diet of Harry Potter and TV vampires.
Though the Trust owns the childhood homes of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and last year said it would consider buying the Abbey Road studios if EMI put up for sale, it seems not to be interested in Starr’s home. Standing unloved and boarded up, it will share the same fate as a number of other Victorian two-up-two down terraces in the area known as ‘the Welsh Streets’.