It’s 3 November. The apples of England have just been picked - a bumper year, but my local @sainsburys is selling apples flown 12,000 miles from New Zealand. How can that make any sense? ‘Net zero by 2035’ @sainsburys?
Anna Keay
3,266 posts
Anna Keay
@AnnaLandmark
Writer & biographer, 'The Restless Republic', Sunday Times History Book of Year, 2022; winner @DuffCooperPrize; shortlisted @BGPrize. Director @LandmarkTrust.
- The oldest English crown predates both Christianity & England. An arched bronze circlet discovered in the 1980s, still on the head of a buried Iron Age king. Whatever yr view abt monarchy today, it’s hard to overstate the antiquity of what’s going to take place tomorrow.
- Holy moly, the roof of #WestminsterHall is a wonder. My friend Dan Miles of the Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory says it’s unparalleled in the world for design, engineering & craftsmanship. It was blt in 1390 & over 600 years later still takes your breath away. #medieval
- I can’t tell you how happy this room makes me. Drawers for estate archives and papers installed in the mid-17th century. I’d like to be left alone in here for a very long time. #hardwickhall
- This gem is known as the Exorcist’s House. Dated 1635 and built against St Nicholas’s churchyard. The Dutch pedimented gable is found all over Lynn; hordes of Dutchmen came over to help drain the Fens at exactly this time - maybe one of them settled here.
- This is what grand town houses were like in the 12th century. London, Norwich etc must have been full of such places. Shops on ground floor, civic rooms on first, lodgings on the top. A rare survival of c1150, St Antonin Noble Val, France.
- I love passing ‘the oldest door in England’ (Westminster Abbey, 1050s). It leads to a tiny office/broom cupboard. Caused huge excitement a decade ago when colleagues at @EnglishHeritage dated it (& swift removal of all the things sellotaped to back of it).
- Endlessly fascinating, and horrifying, ‘before’ and ‘after’ of London in 1666. What on earth must it have been like to walk through those fire-devastated streets? Incredible detail captured by Wenceslaus Hollar (zoom in for a massive spot-the-difference).
- We ran out of time to talk about the coronation spoon! The ONLY item of the medieval regalia to survive. (Huw Edwards said the collection was destroyed by Oliver Cromwell during the Protectorate, which is not true - see #therestlessrepublic)
- What an incredible night! So honoured to win the #DuffCooperPrize. As I said in my speech, Oliver #Cromwell wasn’t a great reader (Bible excepted, obvs) but he would have enjoyed the champagne 🍾🍾🥂#therestlessrepublic
00:03Our winner! Warmest congratulations to Anna Keay @AnnaLandmark @WmCollinsBooks for winning the #DuffCooperPrize for her 'compelling & immensely readable' The Restless Republic: Britain Without a Crown #PolRoger #NewCollege - I’m so happy that my favourite London underground station #CharingCross still has the 1979 mural by David Gentleman of the building of the cross to Queen Eleanor. Brilliantly done in a woodcut style and so particular to this spot. It hasn’t dated a day.
- Three fine medieval jettied houses on Nelson Street, Kings Lynn. Two in great medieval colours. The third had the area under the jettying filled in C18th - as you can just see from the timber detail at the end of Devil’s Alley. Lovely. Like Suffolk only nicer.
- This magnificent rood screen was carved in about 1500. It’s in a tiny church up a single track road in the Black Mountains. What marvels the churches of this country contain.
