Read about my recent, current and planned work: research, talks, articles, books.
Current & Recent Work
2025 Publication of Book on Churches of Salisbury and District – co-authoring this 250 page book currently under development with John Elliott and Roy Bexon on behalf of Sarum Chronicle. 60+ churches included (two very different ones pictured here), as far south as Breamore, east as Borbach Chantry, west as Great Wishford and north as Idmiston, as well as all key city churches including the Cathedral & St Thomas’s. For each church there will be short summaries and photographs, plus a gazetteer section of maps and routes for visits, glossary, bibliography, and a series of accompanying essays on what to find in churches as well as architectural and liturgical histories and a biography of TH Wyatt.
Publication is aimed for late spring 2025.
14 & 16 November 2024 Talk and Follow-Up Visit – History Talk on 14.11.24. to the Royal Wootton Bassett History Society 7-8.45 on Doom Paintings and the Last Judgement, followed by visit to see the Doom at St James the Great, Dauntsey on 16.11.24. 11-12.30. Non members welcome.
November 2024 Journal Article – Wiltshire’s Last Judgements, co-written with Christopher Daniel, in the Sarum Chronicle, comparing the county’s two Doom Paintings, at St Thomas’s in Salisbury and St James the Great in Dauntsey, and identifying common features of Last Judgement Art in England and abroad. Each Doom is contrasted in relation to images of Christ, Saints, Heaven, Judgement of Souls, and Hell.
25 September 2024 Public Talk – now annual lecture on history at St James the Great in Dauntsey, North Wiltshire,. This year’s subject was the English Reformation, focusing on the period between Henry VIII beaconing Head of the Church in England, through the death of Thomas More, the Dissolution, Edward VIII and the Common Prayer Book, Rebellion in the West Country, Mary and the death of Cranmer, and the impact on liturgy, images in churches and other aspects of worship throughout that period and up to 1559.
November 2023 Journal Article – Pugin’s Salisbury Period, in the Sarum Chronicle. a 6500 word article summarising Augustus Pugin’s time in Salisbury in the 1830s when he converted to Roman Catholicism, designed and built his first house, St Marie’s Grange, collaborated with Charles Barry to produce the plans for the new Palace of Westminster, and published his first major book, Contrasts. A more detailed book of my work on Pugin in Salisbury will be published in 2024 by the Pugin Society. See also the blog post on this site summarising this work.
September 2023 Public Talk – The Dauntsey Doom, delivered to sell out audience at St James the Great, Dauntsey, Wiltshire. Focus of talk was The Last Judgement, Roods, Screens, Visual Images, Liturgy and Worship before the Reformation, Cromwell, Edward VI & Mary Tudor, Victorian Restorations, Analysis of Dauntsey Doom & Boards. To be repeated in 2024 with focus on the Reformation.
July 2023 Masters Graduation – received formal award in Lampeter, Wales, of Degree of Master of Arts in Medieval Studies (Distinction) at the University of Wales Trinity St David following four years of study. The Degree included a Dissertation on Augustus Pugin’s time in Wiltshire, and Assignments on Domesday, Lacock Abbey, Medieval Rural life in Wiltshire, the Dauntsey Doom, the Cistercians, Pilgrimages, the Constitutions of Clarendon, Thomas Becket, John of Salisbury, Marjory Kempe, and Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
Potential Other Work
Possible Pugin Society ‘True Principles’ publication of Augustus Pugin’s Salisbury Period, aimed for 2025/26, based upon my Dissertation on the same theme for the MA Medieval Studies at UWTSD, which brought together all previous research on Pugin’s links to and time living in Wiltshire, and will be the first stand-alone publication solely about his work when in Salisbury. Image shown is Pugin’s first designed house, St Marie’s Grange near Alderbury outside of Salisbury;
Possible future book ‘From Edinburgh to Ronnie Scott’s’, describing the Jazz Photography of my father who was for many years the main photographer at Ronnie Scott’s Club, the London Jazz Festival, Pizza Express Jazz in Soho, and the 606 Club in Chelsea, and exhibited at the Royal Albert Hall and in Paris. Image shown is McCoy Tyner at the Jazz Cafe in London by David Sinclair. Book aimed for 2025.
Possible future family history book ‘Cousins Over Land and Sea’, with contributions from several cousins regarding our shared genealogy from Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Some of the Genealogy posts on this site will be included. Book aimed for 2026.
