The Portland Museum occupies two early 17th century cottages forming an "L" shape at at a road junction in the Wakeham area of Portland. It is of course built from Portland Stone quarried within a few 100-metres.

The cottage pictured below was used as the home of the character Avice the heroine of Thomas Hardy's 1897 novel "The Wellbeloved". The ( Read more... )

Although in many respects similar to warships of the French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Danish, Dutch and Neapolitan navies, HMS Victory was the ultimate fighting ship of its time in both fire-power and marine technology. It remained the most potent weapon system afloat until the introduction of stream propulsion and shell-firing guns in the 1850' ( Read more... )

Each side of the "forecastle" (pronounced "fo'c's'le") - the small elevated deck area at the bow of the ship, HMS Victory has a short-barrelled weapon knows as "carronades", these massive guns had a range of 1,280 yards (= 1170m).


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Whilst on holiday recently I visited H.M.S. Victory at Portsmouth Dockyard. My parents took me there many, many years ago, I took my son there perhaps 20 years ago. It is a fascinating historic venue, very accessible and with lots of information that members of the public can understand (i.e. not too much "naval/technical jargon")


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I remember being taken to visit the famous HMS Victory at Portsmouth dockyard when I was a child. I returned to the now rebranded "Portsmouth Historic Dockyard" in September 2013 to visit the newly opened "Mary Rose" exhibition - King Henry 8th's largest naval ship, which was sunk by the French in the Solent July 1545 and was recovered from the ( Read more... )

One of the museums I used to manage - "The Old House Museum" - in Hereford's city centre is the only surviving part of "Butcher's Row". The buildings had shop/retail space on ground level and accommodation for their owners and household on the upper floors. "The Old House", build in 1621, is the only survivor of "Butcher's Row" and until 1929 was ( Read more... )

Previously I posted images of a commemorative bronze medal (4th April, 2016) and a friend wrote that it is probably for locomotive ЭР-200 built in 1973. There is a Wikipedia entry about it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ER200.


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Previously I posted images of a commemorative bronze medal (4th April, 2016) and a friend wrote that it is probably for locomotive ЭР-200 built in 1973. There is a Wikipedia entry about it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ER200Read more... )

During 2004 - 2005 I worked in the museum's Entomology Department curatating the important "Dale Collection" of insects ( Read more... )

Once again, back into the amazing world of beetles.

During June 2001 I was in the Wuyi Shan, Fujian Province P.R.China on a self-funded expedition to collect beetles (as well as any other insects - apart from butterflies and moths) that came my way.

From a track-side shrub I collected a number of the "Leaf Beetle" (family Chrysomelidae) ( Read more... )