On Saturday 6th May 2023
King Charles III was crowned
in Westminster Abbey
by the Archbishop of Canterbury

What did this mean, where did it all come from
and what does it signify?
CLICK HERE for summary of new talk
‘Of Crowns & Coronations’

Russia …
an exploration through history & culture
(two lectures given separately)

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A walk in the country; you come upon the typical village country church. This lecture will help you look at the architecture inside and out, the church furniture, those mysterious nooks and crannies, high and low. How and why did it all come to look this way? This is a fascinating journey through English history unravelled before your eyes. “I can’t make you experts” says Nicholas Henderson, “but I can teach you enough to amaze your friends on that day in the countryside.”

The English Country Church
– a four-part Tetraology
given in individual sections or as a Study Day

CLICK HERE FOR INFORMATION
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Also CLICK below for details of individual sections

         Part one: The Pre-Christian to the Anglo-Saxons

         Part two: The Normans to the Tudors

         Part three: The Tudors to the Commonwealth

         Part four: The Georgians & The Victorians to the present 

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The English Country Church
The Pre-Christian to the present in four parts
CLICK HERE for YouTube presentation
________________________________________________________________ Continue reading How to ‘read’ the English Country Church →

Four lectures delivered
as individual lectures
or as a Study Day

The Powers behind and on the Throne
… ten Tudor Queens

  Elizabeth of York, Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, Catherine Parr, Lady Jane Grey, Mary, Elizabeth. Deadlier than the male, powers behind and on the throne, formative figures in a tumultuous era whose various influences are with us to this day. Click for synopsis below:

Click for individual talks below
(given in chronological order)
1. Fortitude & Fancy – Elizabeth of York, Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn
2. Fulfilment & Farce – Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves
3. Folly & Finale – Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr
4. Whatever happened after Henry VIII? –
Lady Jane Grey, Mary and Elizabeth

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On England’s pleasant pastures seen!
Words: William Blake 1808 Music: Sir Charles Hubert H. Parry 1916

Canute, to William the Conqueror, to the Tudors and everything in between.
The Anglo-Saxons and the Normans – gave us an enduring legacy,
but so did the Danes and  the Church.
An often forgotten and mysterious period in what was to become …
‘English’ history.
The legacy lingers on visibly and even audibly in architecture, linguistics
and society.
An exploration into the great upheavals in society and community that disrupted and formed the cultural feeds into what was to become England and eventually Great Britain.

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Here are just three …

Explaining the inexplicable

Click HERE & BELOW

_{Ghosts … just what are they?
Can you see her on the stairs?
The ‘Brown Lady of Raynham Hall’
aka Lady Dorothy Walpole died 1726}

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ICONOCLASM …
a study in constructive destruction

The destruction of perceived idols in religion, architecture and society is a surprisingly frequent phenomenon in history, which has shaped and formed society – sometimes for the better.