I recently visited the village of Ilam, near Dovedale, central England. Inside the church at Ilam (see photo showing the current porch entrance and, to

I recently visited Dorchester Abbey (see the accompanying photos). It is situated in the village of Dorchester-on-Thames, near Oxford. The present Abbey began building from

One of the oldest civilising establishments in what became the English-speaking world was Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire (photo of the Abbey illustrates this blog). It is

St Augustine of Canterbury arrived from Rome in 597 to lead the first Christian mission to the Anglo Saxon peoples. The Pope who sent him,

Many blogs of lost material with unique perspective have accumulated on this website since I published “The Mustard Seed”. I highlight a few here including

Were the earliest times of what became the English speaking world mainly dark, barbaric and warlike? That tends to be the prevailing view. However, it

What we now call England came into shape during the times of the family of King Alfred the Great of Wessex. Wessex can be thought

In the early days, were Anglo Saxons and Celts at enmity? Yes. And No. As the Anglo Saxons settled in what became England in the

In 655, there was no England. Rather, there were small Anglo Saxon kingdoms, often fighting each other. The longest running and heaviest-weight battle was Mercia

The English speaking world had a truly great Nation Builder in its foundation times. A World Heritage hero. He did much to shape the world

Easter is the chief festival in the Christian calendar. It marks the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There have been different methods for setting

In 731 a monk named Bede published a history book. He called it “The Ecclesiastical History of the English People”. It documented how the many

In the year 356, St Martin of Tours was subjected to sharp testing. In 331, aged 15, Martin had been pressed, against his will, into

Green beer and legends, anyone? The truth about St Patrick exceeds the legends, and is more satisfying than beer. Recovering it was one of the

Compare two figures from our early history, King Arthur and King Oswald. Many people have heard of Arthur. The stuff of legend. Oswald, however, was

An archaeologist knows that truth is discovered beneath what we see on the surface. So they dig beneath the surface, layer by layer. Sometimes we

Here is how western civilisation seems to understand its history. There was a time when we lived in caves. Then a long period of growing

One thing I experience regularly, as a Guide in Canterbury Cathedral in the UK, is a hunger in visitors from the USA to recover the

“The Mustard Seed” recounts a lost transformation: how the pagan and fragmented Anglo Saxon tribes became the Christian and unified English nation. The consequences have

There is a cultural fashion that makes me uneasy. It seems to me that we like to judge our ancestors based on a pleasant sense

How do you feel about our history? Was it all dark? I think some of it was. But then again, I think we do tend

I spent the Lockdown on this book. It became a labour of love. The more I discovered of the lost and hidden history presented in