Judges and presenters of English Heritage’s Heritage Angels Awards, with Michael and Andrea Taylor of joint winners St Stephens, Hampstead

  • The Finest Specimen… 20 Jan 12

    Michael Taylor, chairman of St Stephen’s Restoration and Preservation Trust, has a deprecating line in humour. Within minutes of welcoming me into the deconsecrated old church on Rosslyn Hill, NW3... Read More

  • A Legend In His Own Lifetime 18 Nov 11

    ‘George Chinnery,’ begins the publicity blurb for this enticing new show, ‘is one of the British artists most neglected in his native country’. On quality and variety of output alone... Read More

  • Sky Light 4 Nov 11

    Although today we mostly associate fireworks with Guy Fawkes Night, their history stretches back to ancient China, where an explosive powder made of a heady mixture of charcoal, sulphur and... Read More

  • Picasso, The Potteries & Patricia 9 Sep 11

    The link between Picasso's mistresses and a purveyor of bird dirt may not be immediately obvious, but they both feature in two of a number of hundreds of lectures enjoyed each week by thousands of... Read More

  • A Work To Wonder At 27 May 11

    Among the stately homes of England, Stowe should be up there with the Blenheims and the Burghleys. It’s an absolute monster of a mansion, one of the country’s first 18th century neo-classical... Read More

  • Artistic Expression 27 May 11

    Frances Mary Buss, founder and first headmistress of North London Collegiate School, is well-known as a pioneer of women’s education, a woman whose belief that girls should be “trained to match... Read More

  • The Day They Came To Northwood 13 May 11

    Imagine the crowds there would be if the world’s top golfer – Lee Westwood, at the time of writing – was joined by stars such as Luke Donald and Rory McIlroy, plus others from the current top... Read More

  • Full Steam Ahead 1 Apr 11

    James Watt, the first engineer to be honoured with a statue in Westminster Abbey was, to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, a new kind of hero. He wasn’t a Drake, or a Shakespeare... Read More

  • By Endurance We Conquer 18 Mar 11

    On 8 August, 1914, Endurance left Plymouth for the Antarctic. Sir Ernest Shackleton had already taken a team there in 1907, and although they had failed to reach the Pole, they had achieved the... Read More

  • The Victorian Way Of Death 21 Jan 11

    Recently I went back to Kensal Green Cemetery, formerly one of my favourite spots for a meditative weekend stroll. My memories of Kensal Green ’s awe-inspiring collection of graves and mausoleums... Read More

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