How to make a Dish of Snow & Ice Houses, November 29th

Photo Zdenek Machacek -unsplash

There is a 0% chance of snow, in London and 20% in Glen Shee, Scotland, according to the Snow Risk Forecast. And here is an appropriate medieval recipe:

To make a dish of Snowe

Take a potte of sweete thicke creme and the white of eight egges and beate them altogether with a spoone then putte them into your creame with a dish full of Rose Water and a dishfull of Sugar withall then take a sticke and make it cleane and then cutt it in the ende fowre square and therewith beate all the aforesayd thinges together and ever as it ariseth take it of and putte it into a Cullander thys done take a platter and set an aple in the middest of it and sticke a thicke bush of Rosemarye in the apple then cast your snowe upon the rosemarye and fill your platter therewith and if you have wafers cast some withall and thus serve them forth

From Medieval Manuscripts, British Library. Blog. https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/medieval-history/page/2/

BF – Before Fridges

Before fridges, snow gave the chance for ice cream and other cold desserts. The problem was keeping it for longer than the cold spell. So many Stately Homes had ice-houses. The V&A had an ice-house just outside their glorious, Henry Cole commissioned restaurant. There is an ice house preserved at the Canal Museum, in Kings Cross. It was set up by Carlo Gatti in 1857 to store ice shipped in from Norway. Another one, in Holland Park, dates from 1770 and served the infamous Fox family (PM Charles James Fox etc).

The first ice house was in Mesopotamian, but in the UK they were introduced by James 1 at his palaces in, first, Greenwich Park, and then Hampton Court. An ice house generally consists of a pit in the ground, brick lined, which tapered to a point. Above was a circular, often domed building. The ice was protected by insulation such as straw, and this structure would allow ice to be available all through the summer.

Ice House Dillington, Somerset
Ice House Dillington, Somerset

My great-grandmother hung a basket outside the window in winter to keep things cold. On my fridge-less narrow boat, I have been known to keep milk and butter outside the door, and to suspend and submerge wine in a plastic bag in the canal in high summer. Butteries and Pantry’s were typically cut into the ground to make them cooler. A Roman Warehouse in Southwark, of which the wooden floor still survived, had a ramp down to the floor which was cut into the ground surface. The ramp suggests it was used for storing barrels where they were kept cool.

Sketch of Roman Warehouse found in Southwark.

For more on Icehouses (and an Icehouse in York) and the history of ice cream, see my post from August.

Written November 28th 2022, revised and republished 2023, 2024

St Cecilia’s Day, Henry Wood and the BBC Proms, 17th November

St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, Musician’s Chapel, St Cecilia window. 17 August 2022, Andy Scott

November 17th is St Cecilia’s Day She is the patron saint of musicians and was martyred in Rome in the Second or Third Century AD. The story goes that she was married to a non-believer, and during her marriage ceremony she sang to God in her heart (hence her affiliation with musicians). She then told her husband, that she was a professed Virgin, and that if he violated her, he would be punished by God. Ceclia told him she was being protected by an Angel of the Lord who was watching over her. Valerian, her husband, asked to see the Angel. ‘Go to the Third Milestone along the Appian Way’ he was told where he would be baptised by Pope Urban 1. Only then would he see the Angel. He followed her advice, was converted and he and his wife were, later on, martyred.

The Church in Rome, Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, is said to be built on the site of her house, and has 5th Century origins. My friend, Derek Gadd, recently visited and let me use these photographs:

St Cecilia in London

There is a window dedicated to her in the Holy Sepulchre Church-without-Newgate, In London, opposite the site of the infamous Newgate Prison.  Henry Wood, one of our most famous conductors and the founder of the Promenade Concerts, played organ here when he was 14. In 1944, his ashes were placed beneath the window dedicated to St Cecilia and, later, the Church became the National Musician’s Church.

This window is dedicated to the memory of
Sir Henry Wood, C.H.,
Founder and for fifty years Conductor of
THE PROMENADE CONCERTS
1895-1944.
He opened the door to a new world
Of sense and feeling to millions of
his fellows. He gave life to Music
and he brought Music to the People.
His ashes rest beneath.

The Concerts are now called the BBC Proms and continue an 18th and 19th Century tradition of, originally, outdoor concerts, and then indoor promenade concerts. At the end of the 19th Century, the inexpensive Promenade Concerts were put on to help broaden the interest in classical music. Henry Wood was the sole conductor.

Wikipedia reports :

Czech conductor Jiří Bělohlávek described the Proms as “the world’s largest and most democratic musical festival”.

The Eight-week Festival is held at the Royal Albert Hall. It moved here during World War 2 after the original venue, the Queen’s Hall, was destroyed in the Blitz in May 1941.

First Published on November 17th 2023 and revised in November 2024

Martinmas – Festival of Winter’s Beginning November 11th

Statue of St Martin at Ligugé

So, this is All Saints Day, Old style, also known as St Martin’s Day, one of the most important Christian festivals of the medieval world.

Father Francis Weiser in the Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs suggests this was the Thanksgiving of Medieval Europe:

It was a holiday in Germany, France, Holland, England and in Central Europe. People first went to Mass and observed the rest of the day with games, dances, parades, and a festive dinner, the main feature of the meal being the traditional roast goose (Martin’s goose). With the goose dinner, they drank “Saint Martin’s wine,” which was the first lot of wine made from the grapes of the recent harvest. Martinmas was the festival commemorating filled barns and stocked larders.

It was celebrated with Bonfires in Germany, and with St Martins Beef and Mumming plays in England, but, following the Reformation, its place in the Calendar has been taken by Bonfire Day and Halloween.

St. Martin of Tours (died AD397) was a soldier in the Roman Army who would not fight because of his Christian beliefs. When he met a beggar, he cut his cloak in half and shared his cloak. He rose in the hierarchy of the Gallic Church and became Bishop of Tours. He is one of the few early saints not to be martyred and is the saint of soldiers, beggars and the oppressed. Furthermore, he stands for holding beliefs steadfastly and helping those in need. According to legend, his barge on the River Loire was accompanied by flowers and birds.

Early 20th Century Image of Trafalgar Sq. St Martin’s is in the top right-hand corner.

There are two famous Churches dedicated to St Martin in Central London with possible early origins. St Martin’s in the Fields, near Trafalgar Square, has been the site of excavations where finds show a very early settlement, with early sarcophagi. It is the one place where a convincing case can be made for continuity between the Roman and the Anglo-Saxon period. It is possible, that the Church was founded soon after St Martin’s death (397AD). A settlement grew up near it, and this expanded to become Lundenwic, the successor settlement to Londinium.

Old Print of London c1540 showing St Pauls, with St Martin's by the wall to the left of the photo
Old Print of London c1540 showing St Pauls, with St Martin’s by the wall to the left of the photo

The other St Martins is St Martins Within, just inside the Roman Gate at Ludgate. Many early churches are found at or indeed above Gates and this one also has legendary links to burial places for King Lud, and for King Cadwallo, or Cadwallon ap Cadfan, one of the last British Kings to have any chance of recovering Britain from the Anglo-Saxons. Geoffrey of Monmouth says that Cadwallo was buried here in a statue of a Bronze Horseman, and thereby to protect London as a ‘Palladium’ (see for more about Palladiums of London. It has been suggested by John Clark, Emeritus Curator at the Museum of London, that Geoffrey of Monmouth might have used the discovery of a Roman Equestrian Statue as an inspiration for the story.

St Martin was also the saint of Travellers, and this might explain the location of the Church near the gate. Although there is nothing but legendary ‘evidence’, it would make sense for an early church to be built near Ludgate, which is the Gate that leads to St Pauls which was founded in 604AD. Although the City might have been mostly empty, the presence of St Pauls means that Ludgate was most likely still in use or at least restored around this period. It also leads, via Fleet Street and Whitehall, almost directly to the other St Martin.

St Martin’s Day was also the time of year when lime plaster was renewed because lime needs to be kept moist when renewed. It takes three to four days to form the calcite crystals that make it waterproof.

(Originally, posted 11 Nov 2021, revised 2022, 2023 and 2024)

Fattening Pigs for Martinmas Slaughter November 9th

November the 10th is Martinmas so the Pigs need to be slaughtered the night before. Gervase Markham (1682) says

‘...feed them for the first week with Barley sodden till it breaks; then feed them with raw malt from the floor; then for a week after give them dry Peas or Beans to harden their flesh. Let their drink be the washings of Ale-barrels and Sweet Whey. This manner of feeding breeds the whitest, fastest, and best flesh that maybe….’

Markham’s English Huswife was published in 1615.

The English Huswife: Containing the Inward and Outward Virtues Which Ought to Be in a Complete Woman: as her Phisicke, Cookery, Banqueting-stuffe, Distillation, Perfumes, Wooll, Hemp, Flaxe, Dairies, Brewing, Baking, and all other things belonging to an Houshold.

The English Huswife by Gervasse Markham, frontispiece
The English Huswife by Gervasse Markham, frontispiece

First Published 10th November 2021, republished 2024

Cures for the Bewitched – November 7th

A Witch bottle and Contents on display at Greenwich Tourist information Centre
A Witch bottle and Contents on display at Greenwich Tourist information Centre

This post failed to publish on the 7th November, so here it is:

As we are between Halloween, and Halloween Old Style the chances of bewitchment are high what with all those spirits being out and about on this – the most uncanny of all times. So, you might want to look at ‘Doctor Lilly’s Last Legacy’ of 1683 which gives a cure for those who have been bewitched at Halloween.

Take two horseshoes, beat them red-hot and nail one on the threshold of the door, but Quench the other in the Urine of the party bewitched: then set the urine over the fire in a pot or Pipkin and put the horseshoe into it. Make the urine boil with a little salt put onto it, and three horseshoe nails until it is almost all consumed: what is not boiled away cast into the fire. Keep then your horseshoes and nails in a clean paper or cloth and use the same manner three times. It will be the more effectual if is done at the change or full of the Moon.

Doctor Lilly’s Last Legacy, Online at the Wellcome Collection, although you will need a login to view it. I found it first in my favourite source, Perpetual Almanac of the Year by Charles Kightly.

Doctor Lilly’s Last legacy ‘Being the poor man’s physician, the sick man’s friend, and the country-man’s doctor’.

Items like this make me wonder about the gullibility of the human being, but I guess we are surrounded by examples of the lack of sense of a large proportion of our species. Perhaps I should rephrase this, I think most people make sensible decisions about their day-to-day life, but many do not have the critical thinking skills to evaluate the bigger issues.

For more on keeping witches away, witches’ marks etc. have a look at this post of mine.

Martinmas Eve Halloween Old Style November 10th

Skating on thin ice

St Martin was one of the most important in the Medieval Calendar of Saints. We will have a look at him tomorrow on his Saint’s Day.

But it is also Halloween or it would be if the Calendar had not been change in 1752. So for traditionalists this is the actual Halloween. It gives another chance to look into the future and to celebrate Halloween traditions.

If Martinmas ice will bear a duck
Then look for a winter of slush and muck.

i.e. it will be a mild winter. From my experience, this will only have any validity if used in the North.

Today is also for Kali, Indian destroyer of Evil, and also for the Fate, the Norns, the Furies, the Morrigan and Persephone.

first Published 10th November 2021. revised 2024

Myths, Legends & Halloween Virtual Tour October 31st 2024

Bran's head taken to Tower Hill
King Bran’s head buried at Tower Hill

Virtual Walk: Thurs 31st October 2024 8.00pm

On Thursday, I am doing my first London Walk Virtual Tour of the winter season.

The walk tells the story of London’s myths and legends and the Celtic origins of Halloween.

The walk will tell the story of London’s Myths and Legends, beginning with the tale of London’s legendary origins in the Bronze Age by an exiled Trojan called Brutus. Stories of Bladud, Belinus, Bran and Arthur will be interspersed with how they fit in with archaeological discoveries.

As we around the City, we also look at the origins of Halloween celebrations and how they may have been celebrated in early London


The virtual route starts at Tower Hill, then down to the River Thames at Billingsgate, to London Bridge and Southwark Cathedral, to the Roman Forum at the top of Cornhill, into the valley of the River Walbrook, passed the Temple of Mithras, along Cheapside to the Roman Amphitheatre, and finishing up in the shadow of St Pauls.

To book:

REVIEWS (from London Walks website)
“Kevin, I just wanted to drop you a quick email to thank you ever so much for your archaeological tours of London! I am so thrilled to have stumbled upon your tours! I have wanted to be an archaeologist since 1978 at the ripe old age of 8 years,… I was told for years that I could not be an archaeologist [for any number of reasons, which I now realise are completely ridiculous!], so I ended up on a different course of study. And now at the age of 50, it is my one great regret in life. So, I am thoroughly enjoying living vicariously through you, the digs you’ve been on, and the history you bring to life for us! British archaeology would have been my specific area of study had I pursued it. ?? Thank you SO MUCH for these! I look forward to them more than you can imagine, and honestly, I’ll be sad if you get them down to 1.5 hours! They’re the best 2 hours of my week! 🙂 Best, Sue

Wife-Selling & the bonds of Marriage October 1837

October 1837, Wolverhampton Chronicle.

A strange and unwonted exhibition took place in Walsall market on Tuesday last,” the Wolverhampton Chronicle said.

“A man named George Hitchinson brought his wife, Elizabeth Hitchinson, from Burntwood, for sale, a distance of eight or nine miles. They came into the market between ten and eleven o’clock in the morning, the woman being led by a halter, which was fastened round her neck and the middle of her body. “

“In a few minutes after their arrival she was sold to a man of the name of Thomas Snape, a nailer, also from Burntwood. There were not many people in the market at the time. “

“The purchase money was 2s 6d [about 13p today] and all the parties seemed satisfied with the bargain. The husband was glad to get rid of his frail rib, who, it seems, had been living with Snape three years, at any price, erroneously imagining that because he had brought her through a turnpike gate in a halter, and had publicly sold her in the market before witnesses, that he is thereby freed from all responsibility and liability with regard to her future maintenance and support.”

Readers will note the similarity of this to the plot of the Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy, published in 1886. Michael Henchard, gets drunk on spiked Fumity – a mixture of Corn, milk, raisins and currents to which the Furmity Woman at Weydon-Priors Fair adds Rum. Henchard, in a drunken rage, offers his wife for safe, and she is purchased by Richard Newson, a sailor who goes on to have a successful relationship with Henchard’s wife until the sailor is drowned.

While not exactly legal, records show that wife-selling at markets happened occasionally from the 17th Century onwards. As in the case at Walsall Market, it seems to have been a recognised mechanism to end an unsuccessful marriage. In both factual and fictional cases, the wife accepts the sale to rid herself of a difficult husband. The husband is relieved of his lifelong duty to be financially responsible for his wife, and, for a fee, he passes that duty on to the buyer.

The sale seems to a modern onlooker to be a humiliation, while the public nature of it might be rather a public acknowledgement that the marriage has irrevocably broken down, and that another union has superseded the failed marriage. In the Walsall case, the new husband has, in fact, been living with the wife for some years.

At this time, there was no legal way to divorce except by the means of an expensive private Act of Parliament, far beyond the reach of any but the richest. Marriage itself was also a looser institution than we think. Hand-fasting and common-law marriages were very common in pre-Victorian times.

You might like to also see my post on the shaming skimmity ride.

First published in July 2022, revised and reposted October 2024

Hardy’s Henge Given Protected Status

Through the window of Hardy’s Max Gate house, you can see a Prehistoric Sarsen Stone, originally part of a neolithic stone circle or henge. (bottom right window pane, top left corner). Photo: Kevin Flude

Author of ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ Thomas Hardy was an architect and designed his own house. During the work on Max Gate, the builders came across a large block of sandstone of the type called ‘Sarsen’ at Stonehenge. Hardy, who loved history, had it relocated into his garden and called it his ‘druid stone’. One of the most famous scenes in Tess is when she is sleeping on the Altar Stone at Stonehenge as the Police move in to arrest her for murder. Hardy loved history, and how glad he would have been to know his house was in the middle of an important Henge. The Altar Stone, by the way, has very recently been discovered to be from Scotland. A discovery that confirms that Stonehenge was an immensely important site in the Neolithic and Bronze Age.

Hardy’s Henge (aka Flagstones) turns out to be older than Stonehenge. In the 1982, a geophysical survey in advance of the Dorchester Bypass, found evidence of a circular enclosure outside Hardy’s house. But there was an excavation in 1987-8 which discovered a large circular bank, 100m in diameter, from the Neolithic period. The other half of Flagstones, is largely preserved beneath Max Gate, and has now been official listed and therefore protected. The excavations suggested a date of construction of 3,000 BC, about the time of Stonehenge’s first construction. It has just been redated to 3,200BC making older than Stonehenge.

Max Gate, Hardy’s House on the outskirts of Dorchester, Dorset. Photo Kevin Flude

In 2022, targeted excavation designed to explore the other half of the circle revealed further dating evidence that proposes it was built 500 years before Stonehenge, earlier than 3,500BC, making it one of the earliest in the South West. It was giving listed protection on the August 19th, 2024. (redated to 3650BC)

The enclosure consists of a single ring of unevenly spaced pits, forming an interrupted ditch system roughly circular, but the dating evidence does not prove that this circuit was built before 3,500 BC, but shows there was a neolithic presence on the site at an early date. Burials were found in the bottom of the pits forming the enclosure and in four of the pits were found markings on the lower pit walls cut by flint forming pictograms of varying forms from curvilinear, to linear. There was little activity in the Late Neolithic and the site seems to have been reused for funerary and ‘other practices’ during the Bronze, Iron Ages and Roman period. These recent finds make Hardy’s Henge an important precursor to Stonehenge.

Flagstones sketchup sketch from original by Jennie Anderson (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cge12yeqv43o)

The site is built on a ridge parallel with the River Frome. Dorchester is another ‘ritual landscape’ like Stonehenge, where there are a cluster of important Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments. In the centre of the Town, a couple of miles from Max Gate, was found evidence of a massive wooden circle. The postholes are found marked on the floor of the town centre car-park as shown below. The Great Henge is 360m in diameter, covering much of the much later Town Centre and built in around 2100 BC.

Neolithic Circle in Dorcester (photo Kevin Flude)

Just outside of Dorchester is a Roman Amphitheatre which began life as another Neolithic circular enclosure with an external bank, and an inner Ditch in which were dug 44 tapering pits, up to 10m in depth. Antler picks, chalk objects, including chalk phalluses, were found.

Maumbury Rings – Neolithic Enclosure, Roman Amphitheatre, place of execution, Civil War defense, and fictional meeting place of the Mayor of Casterbridge and his estranged wife, Susan Newson (or Henchard!)

A few miles away, at the Iron Age Hill Fort of Maiden Castle, is a Neolithic Causewayed Enclosure.

Maiden Castle. Iron Age Hillfort. the East End was originally a Neolithic Causewayed Enclosure

Together, with evidence from Stonehenge, Avebury, Heathrow and elsewhere shows a clustering of ritual places in important landscapes, which suggests, possible evidence of regional organisation. Stonehenge, however, continues to lead the way for evidence of an importance that drew people, or objects from not only England, Scotland and Wales, but also from the continent.

For further details of the Flagstones listing and excavation, here is the official listing document:

https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1489792?section=official-list-entry

Revised 9th March 2025

Partial Eclipse September 18th 2024

Loughcrew Neolithic carvings.

September 17th/18th sees a partial lunar eclipse. In London, the peak of the eclipse will be visible around 3:45 a.m. BST on September 18, while it was on the 17th September in the USA.. And it’s also a supermoon when the moon is at its closest to the Earth.. Sorry, you are unlikely to get this on time!

Could ancient people’s predict eclipses? Well, lunar eclipses are relatively easy to predict, while solar eclipses are difficult. But it is likely that Babylonian and Assyrians astronomers could. Have a look at https://www.queensu.ca/gazette/stories/eclipses-were-once-associated-death-kings-attempting-predict-played-key-role-birth for more details,

There are plenty of people who believe that eclipses can be predicted by Stonehenge. And it certainly can be used that way, but this doesn’t mean it was. A series of stones, and posts in concentric circles with sight lines to innumerable features on the horizon offers many ways of making calculations which combined with observations over a long period COULD predict, predictable celestial phenomena. Doesn’t mean they were. So it is very difficult to say what they were capable of, and only the most obvious alignments can be certainly confirmed.

This Washington Post article below suggests the Loughcrew Cairns near Dublin were built about the time of a total eclipse, and that one of the stones with complicated carvings on may show a lunar eclipse. If you look at the sketch of the stone above, you will see the biggest circle, near the middle, may represent the moon, and it obscures the circle behind it which may represent the sun. Read this for the details: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/08/18/this-5000-year-old-stone-carving-may-be-the-worlds-first-drawing-of-an-eclipse/

What is striking is how can they say it was built around the time of a total eclipse and make that seem significant because there is no way archaeological dating is accurate enough to give any idea whether it was built for a particular day. Also, there are many more circles and objects on the large stone, and to pick two out to prove what you want it to prove, is not proof. We are left with the intriguing possibility, but it is no more than that.