Tag: Henry VIII

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Elsyng Palace, Enfield Society Excavations

Elsynge Palace

I was interested in this site because it was one of the many palaces owned by Henry VIII, and it began as a moated manor house before a transition into a small red brick courtyarded Palace, as seen above. Henry had, if my memory serves me well, approximately 57 Palaces and Manor Houses. 16 in the London area and 11 along the River Thames

But what I really liked when I visited the website was the charm of this lovely video by the Enfield Archaeology Society. Now those who know the wonderful TV Sitcom called the ‘Detectorists’ starring Toby Jones, Mackenzie Crook, Diana Rigg and others, will recognise the styling of the amateur archaeologists – all looking like rumpled would be Indiana Jones’s! Very English.

https://www.enfarchsoc.org/elsyng/

The good news is that the show is having an extended Christmas Special outing this year.

I have revised and republished the following Almanac of the Past posts.

Night Fowling November 19th
Feast of St Edmund of East Anglia November 20th
Beginning of the Month of Frimaire November 21st
Martinmas Old Style – Pack-Rag Day November 22nd
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The London of Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell. The City of Wolf Hall Virtual Walk

Sunday 29th February 2021

The Walk creates a portrait of London in the early 16th Century. It has a particular emphasis on the life and times of Thomas Cromwell and Thomas More who feature in Wolf Hall, the novel by Hilary Mantel.

Listen to the Tour Podcast (6 min 55)

The Virtual Tour will start with a boat tour from Hampton Court, via Chelsea to the City, and then a Walk around the City.

More and Cromwell had much in common, both lawyers, commoners, who rose to be Lord Chancellor to Henry VIII and they both ended their career on the block at Tower Hill. But they found themselves on the other side of the gulf that suddenly opened with the religious ferment that accompanied Henry’s obsession with Anne Bolyen.

The Walk will include visits to the sites of More’s and Cromwell’s town houses and then walk through the market streets of Tudor London, to Cheapside and the Guildhall, St Pauls and outside the Walls to Smithfield where most of the religious executions took place. We visit Charter House where More took a break from the stress of public office, and whose Prior, Cromwell had hanged, drawn and quartered. We exit via the plaque pits, and finish off with a walk around the City Walls until we come to Tower Hill where both men ended their lives on the scaffold.

Saint or Sinner? What better place to ponder that question that the streets of Wolf Hall London?

To buy Tickets click here: