Category Archives: London

The Stepney Meeting

Posted on 07/06/2019 by carolinemmurray

A stone’s throw away from the back of Stepney’s enormous churchyard, where the parakeets and pigeons own the sky, and even closer to Lady Mico’s almshouses, is a much smaller cemetery, its gravestones broken, eroded or obscured by the black, … Continue reading →

Posted in Biography, Gardens, History, London | Tagged Matthew Mead, non-conformism, St Dunstan's, Stepney City Farm, Stepney Meeting | 2 Comments

In Deepest Limehouse

Posted on 26/05/2019 by carolinemmurray

I imagine that ‘Play it again, Sam’ is the most famous line from a film which was not actually spoken in the film, but ‘We don’t like strangers in these parts, Mr ‘Olmes’ may run it close among aficionados of … Continue reading →

Posted in Gardens, History, London, Natural history | Tagged Docklands, Limehouse, St Anne's church, Thames | 5 Comments

The Loss of the ‘Royal George’

Posted on 09/05/2019 by carolinemmurray

Was Proust the first or merely the best to describe the extraordinary moment when a completely forgotten incident in your life rises fully formed in your memory? In my most recent incident, it was a phone call at work about … Continue reading →

Posted in Biography, Exploration, France, History, London, Museums and Galleries, Printing and Publishing | Tagged diving, H.M.S. Royal George, H.M.S. Victory, Nelson's Column, Portsmouth, salvage, shipwreck, William Cowper | 16 Comments

Allegorical Tombs

Posted on 06/05/2019 by carolinemmurray

… are apparently a Thing, and one which I have come across twice in as many days in Venice, though they seem to owe their origin to one Owen Swiny (MacSwiny, McSweeny, MacSwiney, McSwiny, and other variants), of Enniscorthy in … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Biography, Cambridge, History, Italy, London, Museums and Galleries, Venice | Tagged Allegorical tombs, Canaletto, Owen Siny, Palazzo Ducale, Sebastiano Ricci | 2 Comments

The Charterhouse

Posted on 28/03/2019 by carolinemmurray

Another real bargain in London … Last week I took a tour of the Charterhouse. In my case it was organised by the Friends of Strawberry Hill, but you can book online yourself. I was escorted there by kind relatives … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Biography, Gardens, History, London, Museums and Galleries, Music | Tagged Caravaggio, Charterhouse Square, Clerkenwell, Knights of Malta, Smithfield, St John Ambulance Brigadee, St John's Gatehouse, The Charterhouse, William Hogarth | 4 Comments

The Vernal Equinox

Posted on 20/03/2019 by carolinemmurray

‘The vernal equinox has come too soon’ is, Him Indoors assures me, the opening line of a welcome ode written to celebrate the visit of Her Majesty The Queen to his school at some point in the 1960s. I have … Continue reading →

Posted in Botany, Cambridge, London, Museums and Galleries, Natural history | Tagged Cambridge, flowering plants, London, spring, Tate Britain, vernal equinox | 2 Comments

Object of the Month: March 2019

Posted on 20/03/2019 by carolinemmurray

May I strongly recommend the new exhibition in the Fan Gallery at the Fitzwilliam Museum (it’s on until January 2020, so you have plenty of time)? It is a selection of the fan collection of the Hon. Christopher Lennox-Boyd, given … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Botany, Cambridge, France, History, London, Museums and Galleries, Natural history, Printing and Publishing | Tagged botanical fan, Erasmus Darwin, Fan Museum, fans, Fitzwilliam Museum, Sarah Ashton | 4 Comments

Ruskin at Two Hundred

Posted on 05/03/2019 by carolinemmurray

To London last week for a few days of Culture. I decided to go down the night before my first assignation, rather than turn up at Two Temple Place (which does not have cloakroom facilities) with two stuffed gorillas and … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Biography, Botany, History, Italy, London, Museums and Galleries, Natural history, Printing and Publishing, Venice | Tagged architecture, botanical drawing, Charles Fairfax Murray, George Allen, H.R. Newman, J.M.W. Turner, John Bunney, John Ruskin, Octavia Hill, Old Master copies, Ruskin at Walkley, Samuel Prout, Two Temple Place, Venice | 4 Comments

Object of the Month: February 2019

Posted on 20/02/2019 by carolinemmurray

I first came across William de Morgan in the second-hand bookshop in the stables at Wimpole Hall, an alarming number of years ago. His novel, Alice-for-Short (published 1907), was available for 50p, and I availed myself, drawn mostly by the … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Biography, Cambridge, Literature, London, Museums and Galleries | Tagged Arts and Crafts, ceramics, Fitzwilliam Museum, lustre wares, Merton Abbey, novels, William de Morgan | 1 Comment

Object of the Month: January 2019

Posted on 19/01/2019 by carolinemmurray

I have mentioned before how the heroic toilers of the Fitzwilliam Museum rotate the displays, especially in the ceramics galleries, on a regular basis, so that one has to keep one’s eye peeled for novelty as one moves through. Last … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Cambridge, History, London, Museums and Galleries | Tagged Bernard Rackham, ceramics, Fitzwilliam Museum, Glaisher bequest, John Wilkes, red stoneware, Victoria & Albert Museum | 1 Comment