But it’s not one that a Jack Tar would recognise. Instead of oakham, gunpowder smoke, tobacco and rum, I can smell oak polish, high-end perfume, old wood, and new money. It’s a curious blend, like Chanel No.5 dabbed behind the ears of Admiral Nelson. Continue reading The Liberty Timbers
The hills rise behind Abergavenny like a wall built by giants, steep, green, and unyielding. They are the town’s backdrop … Continue reading The Riddle of the Stones
The glass blade of The Shard glitters above me, slicing into a flawless July sky. From street level, its steel ribs and glass facets look impossibly steep, tapering into a vanishing point so sharp it could pierce flesh. I pause beneath its mirrored flank, framed by the leaves of a London plane tree, and feel the familiar Southwark hum: the rattle of trains, the cries from Borough Market, the old bones of the city pressed up against this gleaming newcomer. Continue reading The Shard
Our road to Corton had begun in London, but not in the present day. It stretched back to 1760, when my ancestor, Matthew Blakiston, served as Lord Mayor of London. Continue reading Return to the Wylye Valley
A bell tolls. Its sound rolls across the village: slow, deliberate, resonant, as though each stroke is being rung not … Continue reading St. Mary’s Dymock
The dome of Herefordshire sky above Kilpec is so wide and blue it seems like a theatre backdrop, flecked with … Continue reading Strange Faces
This is a statement in stone, a survivor of centuries, a spine across the river, carrying the memory of hooves and wheels, boots and bare feet. Continue reading The Bridge at Crickhowell
Taking shelter by the standing stonesMiles from all that moves… …feeling spirits never far removed” – Ultravox, Man of Two Worlds … Continue reading The Standing Stones
And everywhere, there’s the sense that this is its own place: not just a neighbourhood of London, but a village that happens to have been swallowed up by the city. Notting Hill doesn’t feel like part of the capital. It feels like a walled garden. A stage set. A place apart. Continue reading The London Village
Deep within the walls of Raglan Castle, I climb the spiral stairs to the top of the keep. My footfalls … Continue reading The Walls of Raglan
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