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Kevin Wilbraham @kpw1453.bsky.social · 1d

A Saxon doorway from the south side of the tower of All Saints’ Church at Brixworth in Northamptonshire. Using recycled Roman tiles, the doorway was originally internal and led to a now demolished cell. 📸 My own. #AdoorableThursday #Brixworth #Northamptonshire

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Richard Osgood @richardosgood.bsky.social · 2d

#inktober2025 7) Starfish. Starfish sites were decoy installations built across the UK in WW2 to confuse bombers. lit at night to replicate failed street blackoutsHow effective they were is open to debate. There is a good one in the Mendips for Bristol & this one at Doncaster. #heritage #archaeology

A sketch of a brick built structure with sloping concrete central opening and lintel. a tree to the left

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Save Redland Library @saveredlandlibr.bsky.social · 3d

Shared for #MotteMonday

Peter Dunn’s reconstruction of a motte and bailey castle near Cropton in North Yorkshire

#MedievalMonday

Andrew Burn @apburn44.bsky.social · 5d

Ive been scribbling my thoughts about the landscape around Cropton and had to share this lovely Peter Dunn reconstruction of the Motte and Bailey Castle just outside the modern village.

(Found on the Woodland Trust Interpretation Panel for the site)

Fantastic Peter Dunn reconstruction painting of the medieval village of Cropton with crofts reaching. Ack to a stone and wood motte and bailey castle on the edge of a green wooded ridge.

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Christopher LONG @calong.bsky.social · 3d

How unusual to see this gem in a non-ecclesiastical setting (apparently)…

Kate North @curatorkate.bsky.social · 3d

Stamford, Lincolnshire, is full of excellent historic buildings - but it also has this fabulous Norman arch and enticing cobbled passageway 😍

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Christopher LONG @calong.bsky.social · 3d

This house once belonged to my Priestman cousins. It has been a disgracefully neglected, misused and abandoned house for a long time. The Priestman family moved to nearby Slaley Hall until the early 1980s when this lovely house was also gutted and massacred - this time to create a golfing hotel…

The Victorian Society @thevicsoc.bsky.social · 3d

Shotley Park, a Grade II listed house in Consett, has been on fire overnight. County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service have been working to put out the blaze last night and during today. There was an application in 2024 to turn it into a hotel🧵

historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-...

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Christopher LONG @calong.bsky.social · 5d

Excellent story!

Friends of Friendless Churches @friendlesschurches.bsky.social · 5d

At first glance, the exterior of St Helen’s, Skeffling is rustic and rather unassuming. However, the rounded glacial cobblestones from which the church is built aren’t just any local pebbles.

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morrismummer @morrismummer.bsky.social · May 28

Interior view of the Saxon window in the tower of St Andrew's, Bywell, Northumberland. #WindowsOnWednesday

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morrismummer @morrismummer.bsky.social · Jul 6

St John the Baptist, Edlingham, Northumberland. The barrel-vaulted south porch protects an eroded 12th century doorway, with a slightly offset, smaller 17th century door.

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Christopher LONG @calong.bsky.social · 6d

This work is SO important… not just to capture the imaginations of us all, but because by researching and creating, a large number of questions, problems and answers emerge that move the story forward. Brilliant work - especially the interior model.

Bob Marshall @bobmarshall.co.uk · Jul 8

Happy #PortfolioDay!

I'm an Architectural Illustrator and 3D Reconstruction Artist from Edinburgh. I enjoy a bit of time travel!

My work involves many months of meticulous research, guided by archaeology, measured survey data, and close collaboration with historians.

Website: bobmarshall.co.uk

Digital reconstruction of the medieval Great Chamber at Belsay Castle in Northumberland, showing how it might have looked towards the end of the fifteenth century. The Middleton family occupied Belsay Castle for more than six centuries until Sir Charles Monck built Belsay Hall close to it in the early nineteenth century. There is fragmentary evidence that this interior was elaborately decorated with geometric patterns below a dado, and above it, a mock tapestry depicted trees set against a dark-coloured background. Their lopped branches support several heraldic shields associated with the Middleton family. There is an instance of a wildman or woodsman commonly referred to as ‘Wild Man of Belsay’. This was a figure that the Middleton family began using in their heraldry in the latter half of the fifteenth century. Above the window opening on the upper part of the south wall, there are paintings that have been identified as carracks, a typical three-masted sailing vessel used in the fifteenth century for trading and warfare. The depiction of the painted timber ceiling in the reconstruction is speculative and is inspired by other surviving ceilings that were fashionable in this period. Artist: Bob Marshall. Copyright: English Heritage / Historic England 2023.

A digital reconstruction of Bury St Edmunds Abbey showing work being completed on the Chapter House around 1220. © English Heritage Trust / B Marshall, C Lemos, S Brindle 2022. Contact Historic England Archives for Licensing enquiries.

A speculative reconstruction of the incomplete timber castle at Howden Motte (c.1305-10) near Selkirk (NT 4584 2686). This is the castle of Alexander Baliol of Cavers - one-time Chamberlain of Scotland and the uncle of King John Baliol, r.1292 – 1296. Howden was an oval enclosure on the ridge top, surrounded by a ditch and bank. Excavation in 1957 revealed the post-holes of a wooden palisade around the rim of the mound and a stone floor. Around the edge of the enclosure was a timber palisade, and it is possible that the enclosure was revetted in stone where the gate entrances were. A timber tower may have been provided with an adjacent hall or solar along with stables, kitchens, and accommodation for the garrison of 30 men-at-arms. Personal project © Bob Marshall 2022

This is a large aerial view digital reconstruction depicting the events of the siege of Stirling Castle in 1304. Edward I of England's army demonstrates the power of his mighty war machine, the giant boulder-throwing trebuchet or catapult 'Warwolf'. It was state-of-the-art weaponry for its time and considered to have been the largest trebuchet ever built. Personal project © Bob Marshall 2020.

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Jonathan C Slaght @jonathanslaght.com · 6d

super cool study found human artifacts in Bearded vulture nests, incl. "weaponry like a crossbow bolt and wooden lance, decorated sheep leather, and parts of a slingshot....a shoe made from twigs and grass is ~675-years-old." link to paper: doi.org/10.1002/ecy..... www.popsci.com/environment/... 🧪🌍🦉

Multi-generational vulture nests hold 700 years of human artifacts

Crossbow bolts, sandals, slingshots, and more.

www.popsci.com

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Kate North @curatorkate.bsky.social · 6d

A lovely 14th century ogee arched doorway framing the disused rood stairs in the Church of St. Nicholas, Swineshead, Bedfordshire 😍

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Christopher LONG @calong.bsky.social · 8d

Wonderful - thank you!

Andy Marshall @fotofacade.bsky.social · 8d

A joy of a sight for #ThrowbackThursday - A ghost gable 👻 - caught like a fly in amber at Wirksworth in Derbyshire

Weathered medieval timber frame set into a patchwork wall of brick and stone at Wirksworth, Derbyshire, showing ghostly remnants of a lost building frontage.

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Christopher LONG @calong.bsky.social · 10d

In prep schools like mine the word was always “pax”!

Dr Matt Pope @mattpope.bsky.social · Aug 24

Yesterday Truce Words came up in conversation. True to the map, in our playground it was absolutely Fainites. Do these survive today? Do kids still use these words to surrender to someone twisting their arm, or get out of being in goal?

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Christopher LONG @calong.bsky.social · 11d

We live in Normandy. Last year, on behalf of archaeologists and Conquest historians in Britain, we tried to make contact with specialists at the Mora project in hopes of UK/FR collaboration. No one was interested. Such a lost opportunity… so hardly surprised that a brilliant idea has come unstuck.

Rebecca Tyson @tyguson.bsky.social · 11d

The group building the reconstruction of the Mora, William the Conqueror's flagship, has announced that the project has gone into receivership due to financial difficulties.
I've followed the project closely for several years and visited last month while Saga Farmann was moored outside. What a shame

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John Fielding Aerial Images @john-fielding.bsky.social · 10d

Aerial view: Orford Castle – built by Henry II in the 1160s to secure the coast & assert royal power. Its polygonal keep is one of the best preserved in England. Once guarding a bustling medieval port, it now stands watch over Orford & the River Ore. #Suffolk #Aerial #castle

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Dr Sally Spong @drsalspong.bsky.social · 10d

Dating to 1472 (date on the fireplace), the Maison du Dauphin is one of the oldest house in Troyes. #medievalMonday 📷 my own

The beautifully wonky end-gable wall of a timber-framed house. The rendered walls are washed in an ochre colour, with the window frames and drain pipes in red. In front are cobbles, and to the left is a later building

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Christopher LONG @calong.bsky.social · 11d

We live in Normandy. Last year, on behalf of archaeologists and Conquest historians in Britain, we tried to make contact with specialists at the Mora project in hopes of UK/FR collaboration. No one was interested. Such a lost opportunity… so hardly surprised that a brilliant idea has come unstuck.

Rebecca Tyson @tyguson.bsky.social · 11d

The group building the reconstruction of the Mora, William the Conqueror's flagship, has announced that the project has gone into receivership due to financial difficulties.
I've followed the project closely for several years and visited last month while Saga Farmann was moored outside. What a shame

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Simon Knott @simoninsuffolk.bsky.social · 11d

2/3 'And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels' (Revelation 12:7)

A boss from the 15th Century Norwich Apocalypse sequence in the cloister vaulting of Norwich Cathedral.

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Andy Marshall @fotofacade.bsky.social · 11d

A bit of photo-serotonin for Monday - the jaw dropping plasticity of Salisbury Cathedral's Chapter House - over 700 years old.

View upward inside Salisbury Cathedral’s chapter house, showing a central clustered column rising to a star-shaped vaulted ceiling, surrounded by stained glass windows glowing with coloured light.

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History and Heritage Yorkshire @handhyorkshire.bsky.social · 11d

St Peter’s Howden began as an Anglo-Saxon foundation, later granted by William the Conqueror to Durham Priory. In 1267 it became a collegiate church, supported by six local parishes. Over the next century it grew into one of Yorkshire’s finest buildings. The west front was finished by 1311, followed

The ruined east end of St Peter's church, looking through the great east window towards the central tower. The roof and upper walls of the choir collapsed in 1696 and were never rebuilt. Howden Minster by habiloid CC BY-SA 2.0

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Christopher LONG @calong.bsky.social · 11d

The leather window strap in the photo… so evocative! I remember them on our little Westerham to Dunton Green branch line in the 1950s… and the feeling of disbelief in 1960/61 (?) when the line was condemned. That was perhaps the very first moment of madness that led to today’s Britain. Sad.

Art UK @artukdotorg.bsky.social · 12d

Today marks the 200th anniversary of the modern railway 🚂

In June 'Train Landscape’ by Eric Ravilious topped the @railway200.bsky.social vote for the UK’s favourite railway artwork!

Read more 👉 artuk.org/discover/sto...

📷 @abdnartmuseums.bsky.social #Railway200

Watercolour of a train interior with hills through the windows

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Ed Henderson @dredhenderson.bsky.social · 13d

Moot Hall staircase, Aldeburgh, Suffolk. Building construction started in 1520. In 1645, the building was the location for the trial of seven alleged witches.
#StaircaseSaturday

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Malcolm Stoneman @malcolmstoneman.bsky.social · 13d

Stockton & Darlington Railway
200th Anniversary #otd

• “Locomotion No.1”
• Former Mason’s Arms. From here the world’s first steam hauled public train departed - 27th September 1825
• Heighington Station - the world’s first railway station. 1826
#HistoricEngland Grade II* Listed Building

The Stockton & Darlington’s first locomotive “Active”, later named “Locomotion No.1”. Little of the original now remains.

The site of the tracks where the world’s first steam hauled public train departed. Wagons had been hauled from Etherley by horses & over two inclines by stationary steam engines.
Here other wagons & a carriage was attached.
The Stockton & Darlington’s first locomotive “Active” then hauled the train.

The Stockton & Darlington’s first locomotive “Active” was placed on the tracks here after being delivered from Robert Stephenson & Co factory in Newcastle.
The station & inn still has some of the cobbles from the first platform.
A Class 156 diesel train passes, itself soon to be history.

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The Victorian Society @thevicsoc.bsky.social · 15d

To mark 200 years of the modern railway DCMS and Historic England have listed at Grade II a number of heritage railway stations and sites. These include those in Weybourne Station & Sheringham Station in Norfolk on the Poppy Line, and Swanage Engine Shed and Turntable. 🧵
bit.ly/3W3jTZp

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Fiona Chartres @chartresfi.bsky.social · 15d

Beautiful herringbone at St Peter's, Southrop for #WallsonWednesday

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