And Did Those Feet

The Castle Baynard Ward Walk We began with an introduction to the City of London and its 'democratic' (not) system.  Castle Baynard has an ex Lord Mayor as its Alderman (but that must be true of at least 50% of them).  He is public school educated but not Oxbridge and is a Tax expert who began with Arthur Anderson. We discussed the weird change in the area of the Ward in the reforms of 2003.  It was roughly from St Paul's south to the River until 2003 when they added an enormous (more than doubled the size of the ward) area outside the Wall in the Fleet Street area.  It is almost cut in half by an inroad of Farringdon Within Ward.  The shape is called the Tuning Fork. The explanation I don't know but the reform must have been based on equalising the wards in terms of 'population' or 'electors' or amenities and facilities. This is my sketch map.  The yellow is the new boundary, the blue/green is the historic one. You will see that Queenhithe has tak...

Attended LAMAS lecture on the excavations at the Curtain Theatre. Very interesting lecture which was very well presented. But, I had a lot of questions at the end of it. I asked the question, 'if you did not know this was the Curtain, what would make you think it was a Theatre.' There is a lot of documentary evidence to say the Curtain is here abouts but the archaeology seemed to me to be less than totally convincing. For example, the speaker talked about the stage, the galleries and showed a very schematic image of the rectangular theatre, with post-holes showing where the gallery is. But we were shown no archaeological photos which demonstrated these 'facts' they seemed to be self-evident. The two side gallery was evidenced by what looked like one post-hole. The stage was said to be a stage but didn't hear any evidence to show what it is identified as a stage. One range of foundations seemed to continue beyond the building outlines in the schematics a...

I have just come back from a meeting with the Actors rehearsing for Peter Whelan's 'The Herbal Bed' a play about the accusation of adultery laid against Susanna Hall, daughter of William Shakespeare and wife of physician John Hall. I gave them an introduction to medical care at the beginning of the 17th Century.  I have been working on a book about this subject. The very first draft is available for less than £4 from the wonderful feedaread.  Its called 'The Four Humours of Shakespeare' and it gives not only an introduction medicine in Shakespeare's time but also how Shakespeare used medicine in his writing.   http://www.feedaread.com/books/The-Four-Humours-of-Shakespeare-9781785102134.aspx The Herbal Bed - Peter Whelan - 2016 - Productions - English Touring Theatre