An intiguing read via BBC History Magazine!

Cross-dressing may often be seen as a modern phenomenon, but it has in fact taken place for centuries - and new research shows that, for people in medieval and early Tudor England, it had an erotic, as well as practical, purpose ( Read more... )

I admit I was not aware balconies had an interesting history - but apparently they do!

[The balcony has] its “origin story” from from 19th-century architect and theorist Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, who, in his Dictionnaire Raisonné de l'architecture Française du XIe au XVIe Siècle, traces the history of the external balcony to an 11th century ( Read more... )

Tonight I have a story about plumbing from Heritage Daily!

NO WAIT. COME BACK. I promise it's interesting.

A unique network of subterranean tunnels, partly dating back to the 14th century, still lies beneath the streets of Exeter, Devon. These once channeled fresh drinking-water from springs outside the town-walls to public fountains at the heart ( Read more... )

An article on the BBC news website tonight.

Today, there's often a perception that Asian children are given a hard time by their parents. But a few hundred years ago northern Europe took a particularly harsh line, sending children away to live and work in someone else's home. Not surprisingly, the children didn't always like it ( Read more... )

Tonight's entry is one I planned to post a while ago, but then realised wasn't very festive for the time of year!

Anyway, I feel it's just about okay now.

Redcross Way, near London Bridge, in south London, is a place of pilgrimage and this is the night of its monthly vigil. On the other side of the gates lies a once-forgotten graveyard for the ( Read more... )

Fascinating article tonight on the 'hypochrondriac disease' that was believed to be sweeping Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth century.

Lots of common and country folk, of both sexes, come to me very frequently seeking advice and cures for murmurings and motions, continual and extraordinary, persuading themselves most stubbornly that they ( Read more... )

Tonight, because I got all my homework finished early, I decided to go googling for upcoming historical television dramas. Here are my findings (all scheduled for 2013), in date order :D

( Read more... )

Tonight, my top ten Puritan baby names - brought to you from the 16th and 17th centuries (and all real). In case you're not familiar with Puritan nomenclature, they were very VERY fond of using words and phrases from Scripture as first names, for example there were a lot of girls called Faith, Hope, Prudence, Temperance, or Charity ( Read more... )

Tonight, a list of five interesting historical songs - interesting because they were either written in response to contemporary events (rather than many years afterwards, like 'Waterloo' by Abba), or because (as in the case of the first one), they reference historical events from an early modern perspective and I just find it fascinating regardless ( Read more... )

In honour of the Wimbledon Men's Final today, some interesting facts about the early form of tennis - known as 'real' or 'royal' tennis - and very different to modern lawn tennis ( Read more... )