Homemade Beer at the Vampire Inn May 13, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary, Modern
Every so often, as your eye is running down the columns of documents past, you run into an unlooked for detail that you just can’t leave alone. It happened to me a week ago when I was checking through the records of bankrupt British businesses from 1869 (as you do). In that year on Hampton […]
The Bull of Brandlesholme (another reason to avoid Lancashire) July 10, 2013
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
A transcendental experience this morning in the wood: came face to face with a cow-sized wild boar that sniffed at me and then went to chew on a neighbour’s cherries. Medium-sized or large creatures in the wild often have a magical quality: foxes and deer are a particular favourite. ‘The Lords of Life’, as Lawrence […]
The Isis Arms: Britain’s oldest pub October 13, 2010
Author: Beach Combing | in : Ancient
Beachcombing is having fun this week looking for off-the-beaten-track places in and around London for Canadian History Student. And this morning he is out on Tooley Street in Southwark seeking London and, indeed, Britain’s oldest pub, the Isis Arms. The pub in question was built in the first generation of Roman London, say, c. 70 […]
