
A church member who has a predilection for old quarries was delighted to be shown the old limestone quarry at Thornton in Craven, just a couple of miles from my home, this spring.

A church member who has a predilection for old quarries was delighted to be shown the old limestone quarry at Thornton in Craven, just a couple of miles from my home, this spring.

In York’s Museum Gardens is the remains of castle tower upon which are the usual arrow slits. Though ruinous, it speaks of the city’s violent past. Yet this tower is unusual, for its lower sections go right back to the time of imperial Rome. Called the Multangular Tower, it was once one of eight, but the invading Danes saw for fit to demolish its seven brethren when they conquered the city in 867.

I made a point of calling at Southampton’s Gordon Memorial last month, despite the baking, evening sun. General Gordon was a Victorian, British governor of Sudan whose job was to evacuate civilians and those loyal to Britain in the wake of Muhammad Ahmad and his army, better known as the Mahdi, a false Islamic messiah.

Chichester Guildhall is now a private venue in which, appropriately, civil weddings take place. Prior to this, it was used for civil government but before the Reformation, Franciscan worship. In 1803, it hosted the trial of the poet William Blake for sedition, for having allegedly said: