January Miscellany

Upcoming Events

Hidden Charms 3, April 18th 2020, Chester

James Wright of Triskele Heritage has several upcoming talks listed on his event page. James is available for lecturing/teaching, consultancy work including built heritage, stonework analysis and buildings archaeology.

Items of Interest

Video of protective marks on a timber beam. Unfortunately no location details.

Medieval paintings found in West Bergholt Church. In Colchester ‘Daily Gazette’.

App for information about church keyholders.

From Twitter

Sailor on a slate floor of a Welsh cottage.

Graffiti in Rome.

You can follow the Vernacular Architecture Group on Twitter

Some Random Photos of Interest

Above: Linda’s latest craze for drawing on slate with sharp pointy things. She now owns way too many of these sharp things to be safe in a public place. We might have some of these slates as wall hangings available for sale at Hidden Charms 3. After all, who doesn’t need a protected house, shed etc! Linda’s slate pile comes from two countries and all suitably pre-loved! We hope also have a display of antique tools and spare slate for you to play with if you;d care to try your hand at this.
Above: From a superb demonstration of taper burn marks at the Vernacular Architecture Group winter conference from a two part talk starting with John Dean on ‘Burn-marks in buildings: Experimental archaeology and case studies, followed by Nick Hill on ‘Evidence and interpretation – a burning question.’ The talk was brilliant, and it’s a miracle a bunch of middle-aged ladies, us included, didn’t get arrested for burning down the very nice loos with wooden doors.  It was very tempting……
Very interesting shot from the British Museum showing the Chi Rho symbol flanked by what must be the Alpha and Omega symbols, but note the angular crossed W, here presumably standing for Omega. As ever, the plot on W or conjoined Vs thickens yet again!
What’s a Greek urn? Ten drachmas a week! Boom, Boom! Yes, we know that joke was old when Basil Brush was a young fox, but it still makes us laugh. This is a wheel on an Attic vessel. Interesting resemblance to some things we see in graffiti, probably proving nothing more than some shapes are universal because they’re pleasing. But there might be connections we don’t know yet, so getting the photo out there is no bad thing!

If you have any photos or info you’d like us to include in Miscellany, drop a line to either of us and we’ll do what we can to get this publicised. If sending in photos, please make sure they are your own or that you have permission to use them. For web or twitter pieces, a link would be helpful. Go on, indulge in some shameless self-publicity!