Read our full statement on the future of the Mackintosh Building in Glasgow here: tinyurl.com/79ch8bvn 🧵 Main Entrance Glasgow School of Art, July 2009 no 2. Photo: Jörg Bittner Unna

Seized the chance in passing today to pop into Wenhaston church and revisit the Doom painting there: whitewashed over at the Reformation, rediscovered in the 19th century and saved from destruction by sheer chance, and Exhibit A as to the amazing things that can lurk in humble parish churches.

Yikes: I've known this story ("There Will Come Soft Rains") for years, but never realised today is the day it's set.

Nic (MD ANT)@beegrrrl.bsky.social · 2d ago

A short story, written by Ray Bradbury, set today - 4th August, 2026. short-stories.co/@raybradbury...

Join us on a visit to ‘The Cathedral of Sewage.' Constructed 1859-1865, designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette and Charles Henry Driver. Inc a guided tour, a chance to see the engines ‘in steam’, a ride on the narrow gauge railway. Vintage bus pick-up at Abbey Wood Station on the day tinyurl.com/ze9a57md

Sorting out the past week's photos: on Monday I drove down to London to meet with the Trust administering artist Milein Cosman's legacy and, blimey, Blackheath looks utterly scorched after weeks of heatwave.

The parish church of St Cross South Elmham this afternoon, with the grave of Elizabeth Smart: odd that the author of "By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept" should wash up in this quiet corner.

The 1919 Housing Act - the Addison Act - received the royal assent on this day in 1919. 176,000 council homes were built under its terms and its standard of high quality housing set a benchmark for decades to come. A 1917 photo of Addison and housing from Newcastle, Lancaster and Winchester.

St Mary's church at Wherstead yesterday, featuring a view over sun-scorched stubble down to the Orwell and the A14 bridge. The extremely pre-feminist tomb of Lady Harland identifies her husband and her father's surname, but doesn't give her own name.

Beatrix Potter was born #otd in 1866.

Goodness, this hits home. (And of course that OCR, itself just part of the tiny proportion of archives that are digitised, then might feed into a LLM to be a basis for AI-generated answers...)

New-Cleckit Dominie@ncdominie.bsky.social · last wk.

This is just to say I have OCRed the text thet was in tne arch:ve and whicb yov were prabaldy seamhing for "breahtast" Fargme ms fheg mem debo:w5 sb ?mccf mmb 5c oc1b

Open House festival invites everyone to explore creative studios, royal dwellings, secretive municipal offices, historic archives and even private homes🏡 📅12-20 September Check out the programme⬇️ www.timeout.com/london/news/...

6 iconic London buildings you’ll be able to access for free in Open House 2026

From the BT Tower to Zaha Hadid’s archives.

timeout.com

One of those moments when the past reaches out and connects; a doll that was presumably lavished with love in the way children now connect with their favourite companions. We'll never know who that child was, and what personality they gave their doll, but it will have been like our own experience...

Nina Willburger @drnwillburger.bsky.social · 2w ago

Beloved toy: An over 1800-year-old rag-doll made from linen and stuffed with flexible filling, and dressed in linen garments. The hair is made of human hair. The eyes, eyebrows, and mouth are painted on. The doll is one of the most elaborate of its kind and presumably belonged to a... 🧵1/2

A new programme of free training from The National Archives is available now! Learn more about the training, in collaboration with the Community Archives and Heritage Group, here: www.balh.org.uk/news-free-co... #WeAreLocalHistory #LocalHistoryForAll

Family visit to Harlow, where it's always nice to stumble across one of the original 1950s pre-Worboys road signs.

📣 We're hiring: Conservator (AKII) 2-year fixed-term contract Join the National Library of Ireland to help conserve nationally significant collections, including parchment, manuscripts and early printed works relating to the Normans in Ireland. ⭐ Info + #apply by 31 July: https://ow.ly/X9Op50ZkZKj

A pleasure to have lent one of the artworks from the Red House collection to this exhibition: great to see the Two Roberts recognised again. In Nottingham now, then moving on to Kilmarnock as the Roberts return to Ayrshire at last.

Art UK@artukdotorg.bsky.social · 3w ago

‘Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun: Artists, Lovers, Outsiders’ at Nottingham Castle traces the rise and fall of an extraordinary couple, curated by Damian Barr. Find out more about this exhibition and hundreds of others on Bloomberg Connects 👉 https://www.bloombergconnects.org/

Born on this day in 1888, writer Raymond Chandler: here's Auckland Road, London SE19, and the blue plaque on his childhood home. Down these mean streets, a man must go; for many years, in my case, on the way to the GP or walking my son to school, trying to feel hard-boiled but not really managing.

I never knew it was Catherine Storr who said this about "Crash" (I do recall Ballard chuckling fruitily about it in an interview). Odd that the author of "Marianne Dreams" should treat "Crash" as evidence rather than fiction; though the protagonist being called "Jim Ballard" does muddy the waters.

David Quantick@quantick.bsky.social · 2w ago

My favourite fact about Catherine Storr saying of JG Ballard's Crash "This author is beyond psychiatric help. Do not publish" is that she wrote Marianne Dreams, the scariest novel of all time.

A day's TOIL poking about took us to St Mary Magdalene Withersdale Street, near the Norfolk border: very simple interior with Jacobean pulpit and some repurposed bits of rood screen in the pews, and a Norman font too chunky for the 17th century monument-smashers to have done much to.

I mean, come on, did any of my chums know that when he wasn’t designing unforgettable credits sequences to North by Northwest, Anatomy of a Murder, West Side Story and heaps more, the legend that was Saul Bass was designing all these logos for everything up to and including Kleenex?

Michael Warburton@michaelwarburton.bsky.social · 2w ago

Just some of the iconic corporate logos designed by the legendary SAUL BASS

Job klaxon!

Gwent Archives@gwentarchives.bsky.social · 2w ago

Gwent Archives has an exciting opportunity for an Archives Apprentice to join their team and develop a career in the archives and heritage sector.

I suddenly realise it's Belgium's National Day so here, belatedly, are a couple of national symbols. (I still regret not buying that Snowy t-shirt...) Chips with mayonnaise tonight, I think.

In 1938 Bill Brandt produced a fascinating book of photographs called A Night in London. These days you’d be hard pressed to find a copy for less than £2,000 as most copies were burned in a warehouse fire. Luckily there is a copy which can be viewed online here www.gorillasites.com/BillBrandt_A...

MP for Northampton. Supported by GB Shaw and Basset-Lowke, pictured here outside the Rennie Mackintosh house on Derngate. Remembered still by a statue in town, and a hall of residence at the university.

History Today@historytoday.com · 2w ago

Margaret Bondfield: The Life and Times of Britain’s First Female Cabinet Minister by Nan Sloane illuminates an overlooked trailblazer of the Labour movement. ✍️ Lyndsey Jenkins reviews the recent #history book www.historytoday.com/archive/revi...

Stumbled on a sign of the times on this day 6 years ago: July 19 2020, first trip out to poke round churches for a while, took us to Bruisyard where we met a porch filled with infection-control measures and a large cat, clearly starved of company, that came over shouting and demanding stroking.

Salutary to be reminded that there are things we might take for granted in the English landscape that are actually pretty remarkable.

The English Oak Project@thekentacorn.bsky.social · 3w ago

Distribution map of 3,300 oaks in England with a girth greater than 6 metres The UK has more ancient oaks than all other EU countries combined There are around 170 million oaks with almost 1 million in London alone Map: Justin Moat, GIS Unit, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

In the centre, a familiar scene to anyone who's visited Snape Maltings (though the bridge was replaced c.1960 with a less-arched one, to handle construction traffic for the first Sizewell power station inter alia).

Simon Knott@simonknott.bsky.social · 3w ago

'The Reapers are the Angels' Glass by Mary Lowndes, 1920 at Snape, Suffolk, illustrating the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares. Two angels bring in the Suffolk harvest, separated by Snape Bridge over the River Alde. 1/3 Snape: www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/snape.htm

Sudbury Town Underground Station was opened on this day in 1931. It was the first of Charles Holden’s “Sudbury Boxes”, a brick ticket hall with a concrete roof, a form he would reuse with some of his most famous stations. Read more about the station and its design here buff.ly/63h5x3Z

Strong endorsement: I went down Quanea Drove when I saw it on the map and got curious about what it was like down there (as ever, thanks, Ordnance Survey!), and it's a great location to photograph Ely Cathedral riding its hill over the Fens.

Veronica in the Fens ~ My Heart in Nature@veronicainthefens.bsky.social · 3w ago

July is a great time of year to capture the sunset over Ely, from Quanea Drove in Stuntney. Here with Ely Cathedral the ‘Ship of the Fens’ with a glowing sky. Ely, Cambridgeshire 🧡

Crystal Palace station on this day in 2009: new platforms being built for the Overground service that would start the following year. We're on the old platform 4, which is now closed off: trains to London Bridge are now boarded on the other side, from the new platform under construction here.