Wall Paintings c1560s
I took this video earlier today for you all, of these stunning Elizabethan wall paintings dating to the 1560's, at an early 16th Century house in Ledbury, Herefordshire.
They were only rediscovered in 1989, and had been covered over for centuries, hence their vivid colours.
The writing are passages from the Bible but, interestingly, in English.
This was the house of the Market Sergeant who would have overseen disputes in the market nearby.
Although the painting looks as if it is only on the plaster panels it would, in fact, have covered the wooden beams as well. Giving the impression of hanging tapestries.
You will not find such a complete set of wall paintings in such good condition any where else in the country, according to our guide.
Whittington England
I created this video with the YouTube Slideshow Creator (
Hereford Stills, 1900's - Film 47018
Hereford stills
02.08ss:-The Old Curiosity Shop?
03ss:-The River Wye site of Jordan’s Boatyard looking towards the Railway Bridge
10ss:-The River Wye looking towards the Old Bridge with Family Group posing.
16ss:- Looking along River Wye towards the Victoria Bridge with Cathedral in background.
23ss:- Paddling in the Wye.
26ss- 37ss:- J.Fossett (The Peoples Photographer) pitched outside the Old House during May Fair.
38ss:- Cub Scouts at the Coconut Shy. Propietor was later fined for filling his coconuts with lead and thus defeating the chances of his customers of a tasty win.
45ss- 56ss:- A side show drawing attention in Broad St. Hereford.
57ss- 1m.04ss:- A large lady and entertainers apparently singing to attract attention to the Ghost Train.
1m07ss – 1m.19ss:- Another view of the Coconut Shy with distinctive man with badges on his hat.
1m20ss - 1m31ss:- Queueing for a popular side show
1m32ss- 1m. 42ss:-Crowds walking along High Town with Coconut Shy on right of picture.
Turnpikes in the City most were established in 1663 and abolished in 1870:-
1m43ss: St.Owen.s Turnpike and Toll Gate.
1m49ss:- St.Martin’s Turnpike and Toll Gate
1m56ss:- Whitecross Road Turnpike and Toll Gate looking out of town.
2m03ss:- Widemarsh Turnpike and Toll Gate. Building on left is the Essex Arms in the background on the right hand side is Symonds Hospital for 4 persons.
2m07ss:- The Bowling Green Vaults, Bewell St. circa 1912 before its demolition. In 1935 the pub was finally re-built set back from the roadline with room for the largest lorries. The Tea and Coffee rooms with accommodation for cyclists were adjacent to the original Inn. The sign above advertises that they have “well aired beds”
2m13ss- 2mm20ss:- The Cenotaph in 1922 after the new stone memorial was unveiled in St.Peter’s Square with a service of Remembrance for the fallen in WW1.
2m22ss:- St.Aubrey’s Alms Houses in Berrington St.
2m28ss:- King St. with Dr Lane in his carriage turning into Broad St.
2m33ss:- Overview of Hereford showing the Shirehall in centre with the Town Hall to the right and St.Peter’s Church to the left with Aylestone Hill in the distance.
2m41ss:- Broad St. looking towards All Saints Church.
2m45ss:- King St. After a fire in 1935 the houses in the centre of the photo were demolished in 1937.
2m56ss:- View of Commercial Road.
3m03ss:- High Town before pedestrianisation. Note Market Hall and clock on left . The Hut for cabby drivers is in the centre of the picture.
3m08ss:- W.Lapthorn, Tailor on corner of King St. and Palace Yard early 1900s.Spread Eagle on extreme right.
3m14ss:- Broad St. looking towards All Saint’s church with Cabby’s Hut in middle of road. Library on the left.
3m19ss:- Half Moon Inn in Broad St. with Hand Painted sign declaring J.Bannister as landlord with the patrons spilling out on to the pavement to admire the photographer and his novel equipment. Circa 1867.
3m26ss:- High Town again, not very busy.
3m27ss:- Right hand side looking towards St.Peter’s Church steeple in centre with the Old House extreme left.
3m28ss:- Broad St. with library on left and All Saints distant right. Note Policeman in foreground with his truncheon.
3m29ss:- Broad St. with Cabby’s Rest Room on wheels in centre.
3m30ss:- Another view of the Half Moon Inn L/H side showing the adjacent Dining Rooms.
3m32s:-4m short extract of WW1 soldiers, trenches and no-mans land.
9. Assia Wevill: The Oven Suicides, Part 2
In 1969, Assia Wevill–hailed as a great beauty and advertising talent–bizarrely committed suicide in the same manner as her paramour’s wife six years earlier. To add to the tragedy, she killed her 4-year-old daughter, Shura. This is the story of a woman tormented by the dead poet Sylvia Plath, the refusal of Sylvia’s husband Ted to commit to her even after he fathered her child, and the memory of her narrow escape from Hitler and the Holocaust.
All images are publicly accessible through Google.com and are included here through Fair Use.
Please subscribe here and on iTunes/Apple Podcasts. And if you like the show, please consider supporting it at and receive goods and benefits in exchange for your patronage.
Please, respectful commentary only.
Sources and recommended reading:
Hughes, Ted. “Ted Hughes Calls Letter about Marriage to Sylvia Plath ‘Libellous.’ The Guardian, 20 Apr 1989.
Koren, Yehuda and Eilat Negev. A Lover of Unreason: The Life and Tragic Death of Assia Wevill. Robson, 2006.
Middlebrook, Diane. Her Husband: Hughes and Plath—A Marriage. Viking, 2003.
Sigmund, Elizabeth. “I Realized Sylvia Knew about Assia’s Pregnancy.” The Guardian, 22 Apr 1999.
Stadlen, Matthew. “Frieda Hughes: ‘I was 14 when I Discovered My Mother Committed Suicide.” The Telegraph, 31 Oct 2015.
Wevill, Assia. “Sea Witch Hair Colour Commercial.” 1965. History of Advertising Trust.
8. Sylvia Plath: The Oven Suicides, Part 1
Some people best know Sylvia Plath for her unusual mode of suicide; others remember her for as one of the first authors to write openly about her own mental illness. But there’s even more to her than that: the early loss of her father, the obsessive desire to be an over-achiever, that time she made national news as a missing person, the desire to find a ‘perfect’ husband, and the wild betrayal she felt when that perfect husband had an affair. But what exactly caused the author of THE BELL JAR to kill herself at age 30?
This is the first episode in the podcast’s second season, “Stranger than Fiction.” Click on our website link for source information. All images are publicly accessible through Google.com and are included here through Fair Use.
Please subscribe here and on iTunes/Apple Podcasts. And if you like the show, please consider supporting it at and receive goods and benefits in exchange for your patronage.
Please, respectful commentary only.
Sources and recommended reading:
Axelrod, Steven Gould. Sylvia Plath: The Wound and the Cure of Words. Johns Hopkins UP, 1990.
“Beautiful Smith Girl Missing at Wellesley.” The Boston Daily Globe. 25 Aug. 1953, pp. 1, 9.
Bolick, Kate. “Who Bought Sylvia Plath’s Stuff?” The New York Times, 21 Apr 2018.
Callahan, Michael. “Sorority on E. 63rd St.” Vanity Fair, Apr. 2010.
Frank, Leonard Roy. “Psychiatry’s Unholy Trinity—Fraud, Fear, and Force: A Personal Account.” The Freeman vol. 52, no. 11. 2002.
Hayman, Ronald. The Death and Life of Sylvia Plath. Heinemann, 1991.
Kean, Danuta. “Unseen Sylvia Plath Letters Claim Domestic Abuse by Ted Hughes.” The Guardian, 11 Apr 2017.
Koren, Yehuda and Eilat Negev. A Lover of Unreason: The Life and Tragic Death of Assia Wevill. Robson Books, 2006.
Malcolm, Janet. The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. Alfred A. Knopf, 1994.
Middlebrook, Diane. Her Husband: Hughes and Plath—A Marriage. Viking, 2003.
“Missing Co-ed Found.” Chicago Daily Tribune. 27 Aug. 1953, p. 5.
Nodelman, Ellen Bartlett and Amanda Golden. “Recollections of Mrs. Hughes’s Student.” Plath Profiles vol. 5 (2012), pp. 125-39.
Plath, Sylvia. “Daddy.” BBC Third Programme. Sep 1962.
—. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath. Knopf Doubleday, 2007.
“Safety Valves for Antique Stoves.” The Antique Stove Communiqué.
Summerscale, Kate. “My Father was Not a Monster, Says Daughter of Ted Hughes.” The Telegraph, 15 Nov 2004.
Wagner-Martin, Linda. Sylvia Plath: A Biography. Simon and Schuster, 1987.
Wilson, Jamie. “Frieda Hughes Attacks BBC for Film on Plath.” The Guardian, 3 Feb 2003.
Winder, Elizabeth. Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953. Harper Collins, 2013.
The Sixty-Fourth A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts: Restoration as Event and Idea: Art in Europ
Audio and Video
The Sixty-Fourth A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts: Restoration as Event and Idea: Art in Europe, 1814‒1820, Part 1: Moscow Burns / The Pope Comes Home, 1812‒1814: David, Gros, and Ingres Test Empire’s Facade
GSD Talks: Tomás de Paor, “previous, next”
“‘I see earth. It is so beautiful.’
“Dawn asks,
‘What does the water surface look like?’
‘Darkish, with faintly gleaming spots.’
‘Do you get the feeling that our planet is round?’”
A selective reading of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s exchanges with ground control during the 108-minute space flight of Vostok I, launched on April 12, 1961, the first human orbit of earth in history. Seven short essays discuss the making of buildings, the making of machines, and that of time pieces under the titles “earth,” “hut,” “yard,” ‘paper,” “scissors,” and “rock.”
Tomás de Paor is founder and principal of a practice based in Dublin, Ireland. Concerned with perception and construction, his work has been extensively published and exhibited. An elected Fellow of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland, de Paor was voted Young Architect of the Year by Building Design/Corus in 2003, and was nominated for the Mies van der Rohe Prize in 2005 and 2007 and the BSI Swiss Architecture Award in 2014. In 2015 he was elected a member of Aosdána, and in 2016 was elected International Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects.