Category Archives: History

Plant of the Month: September

Posted on 26/09/2015 by carolinemmurray

Decisions, decisions: the autumn equinox is producing such wonderful sights that I’m spoiled for choice for September’s plant of the month. Sedums, rudbeckias, penstemons, cyclamen, colchicums, and of course Michaelmas daisies – which I’m alarmed to see are undergoing a … Continue reading →

Posted in Botany, Cambridge, Gardens, History, Museums and Galleries | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Object of the Month: September

Posted on 21/09/2015 by carolinemmurray

I’m not yet done with Venice (how could one ever be?), and this month’s highlighted object can currently be seen there, in the wonderful Ca’ Rezzonico (left), which, after a chequered history, is now the museum of eighteenth-century Venice. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, History, Museums and Galleries | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

We Close in Venice (Part 3: Why Venice AGAIN?)

Posted on 14/09/2015 by carolinemmurray

As our holiday draws to an end, and we contemplate our return – to autumn, to cleansing of the liver, to new challenges, and to a totally pissed-off Max the Cat, who started getting antsy when we brought out the … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Gardens, History, Museums and Galleries | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

How Not to Go to the Venice Biennale

Posted on 13/09/2015 by carolinemmurray

Unless you really go for the sort of art for which you need an A4-sized explanatory label containing phrases such as ‘multiple discourses’, ‘time and transience’, ‘viscerally visual’, ‘expressive dynamism’, ‘atemporal incongruence’ or ‘axis of displacements’, ‘sonorous light of introspective … Continue reading →

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We Close in Venice (Part 2: Mantua me genuit)

Posted on 10/09/2015 by carolinemmurray

I would assert that there is unlikely to be any greater, more playful or more evocative epitaph in any language than the one (dubiously) ascribed to Virgil: Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc Parthenope; cecini pascua, rura, duces, with … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Gardens, History, Museums and Galleries | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

We Close in Venice (Part 1)

Posted on 08/09/2015 by carolinemmurray

Unlike Cole Porter’s troupe of strolling players, we did not open in Venice: we go there last, having spent two very hot days in Ferrara, and having arrived in Mantua, to the twin delights of wifi and a terrific thunderstorm … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, History, Museums and Galleries | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Sister of the More Famous Maria

Posted on 02/09/2015 by carolinemmurray

You could have knocked me down with something between a feather and a dumbbell, when, while mooching round Mill Road Cemetery in Cambridge, I came across the grave of Lucy, wife of the Rev. John Robinson, of the Armagh Observatory, … Continue reading →

Posted in Archaeology, Cambridge, History, Literature | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Billy Ruffian

Posted on 28/08/2015 by carolinemmurray

Frindsbury is a small town in Kent, opposite Rochester on the Medway, and from time to time regarded as part of that cathedral city, which Dickens used as the model for Cloisterham in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, his last, … Continue reading →

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Object of the Month: August

Posted on 24/08/2015 by carolinemmurray

This month’s object is a painting from the Museum of Cambridge: it depicts the famous carrier Thomas Hobson, whose method of business brought the expression ‘Hobson’s Choice’ into the language, and who was a great benefactor of the town of … Continue reading →

Posted in Cambridge, History, Literature, London, Museums and Galleries | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

1876: Annus Normalis?

Posted on 20/08/2015 by carolinemmurray

Him Indoors is trying to persuade me that what we really need to make us happy in our declining years is the expenditure of large amounts of money in order to recondition his piano, made by the great firm of … Continue reading →

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