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Gribble, gribble, the pier was a mess
We've just been down to the Isle of Wight for a few days. The first day was rather 'stay near the tea shop' weather, but we went to Yarmouth and saw its Gribble sculpture. This was installed by the...
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Chalybeate
It's rather neat that when you know a location intimately, even by historical records, small details acquire significance. such as a stream of grubby water in the gutter.Clare and I pottered around...
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Locked in the bastion
View Larger MapI had a short wander around Gosport town centre on Tuesday, including a visit to the Number 1 Bastion (also called, locally, Trinity Bastion or Vicar's Bank), part of Gosport's...
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Newport: research visit and Little London
On Wednesday I went to the Isle of Wight Record Office, partly to deposit a copy of A Wren-like Note, partly to check out a few topographical oddments for ongoing articles. I was particularly...
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Wild at Heart
A repost of a story, Wild at Heart, that might be of interest; a few years back this was a non-winning entry to the Kenneth Grahame Society's Wind in the Willows short story competition, whose brief...
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Secret Topsham
I'm still occasionally rather slow about realising the possibilities of the Internet; the Internet Archive often makes it possible to retrieve online material lost through site updates and domain...
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Tisbury Starred Agate
Last week, passing through Tisbury jogged my memory to look up "Tisbury Starred Agate". I've had this nice specimen for decades - I can't remember where I got it - but never bothered to look up its...
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Things that go bump in the night
The Temptation of St. Anthony,Matthias Grünewald (detail)From Ghoolies and Ghoosties,long-leggety Beasties, and Thingsthat go Bump in the Night,Good Lord, deliver us.Following up a query I saw...
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The Eyes! The Eyes! and other ads
It goes without saying that ads for scammy products are nothing new, especially in the days before the Advertising Standards Authority, but these (among many) caught my eye while I was browsing the...
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Bliss - Brixham again
Looking across Torbay from Berry HeadWe were hoping this week would bring good weather - and it delivered. Today, now that the coastal railway's running again, we made the planned return visit to...
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Bones beneath Brixham
A minor detour from yesterday's walk to Berry Head leads to the topic of Brixham's subterranea, and the history of its "bone caverns".Limestone leads pretty inevitably to 'karst' features, so it's not...
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Topsham: roads not taken
A bright afternoon, so I took myself for a walk and a quick glance at the Museum, newly-opened for the 2014 season, where I spotted some pictures of of historical 'roads not taken'.Topsham Museum never...
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Sandrock Spring: quaffing the lymph
Further to The Sandrock Chalybeate Spring, I just found these excessively erudite verse testimonials to its medicinal properties, courtesy Isle of Wight County Press Archive. THE OLD CHALYBEATE SPRING...
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Angry birds
It was a quiet afternoon on Topsham Underway: until the resident geese and a swan took exception to each other.It didn't come to an actual fight, but there was a lot of noisy squaring-off. Geese win on...
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A Wren-like Note: IWCP piece
I'm very pleased to see that the Isle of Wight County Press, after a few months' delay, just ran a piece on A Wren-like Note: "Secret life of a Victorian novelist" (Richard Wright, IWCP, 11 Apr 2014,...
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Building the Devonport Column
Wikimedia CommonsI've not yet visited the Devonport Column, which has now been open to the public for nearly a year. But last year I had a look at John Foulston's The public buildings erected in the...
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Imaginary prison and an elephant portfolio: more on Foulston
Another highlight from John Foulston's 1838 The public buildings erected in the West of England as designed by John Foulston F.R.I.B.A.: his rejected design for Bristol Gaol. He was sore about the...
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"While I live I'll crow"
I just checked out the reference to the architect John Foulston "emulating the renowned Romeo Coates in the singularity of the vehicle which served him as a gig" in George Wightwick's 1857 Bentley's...
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Mrs Aberdein's Papyruseum
Pursuing the trail of enigmatic references... RS Kirby's 1820 piece on Robert Coates mentions that "Mrs. Aberdeen exhibits his curricle in her Papyrueism, and her rooms are crowded almost to...
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DWWW: part 1
JSBlog has had a bit of a DWM (Dead White Males) bias lately, so here's a compendium of DWWWs (Dead White Women Writers) from The Picture Magazine, Vol 3, 1894. Published by George Newnes from January...
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