UK History News [2 February 2026]
The 'Bloody Countess' who wasn't, major Roman finds, a secret warehouse of treasures…
Welcome to UK History News. In each fortnightly issue, free subscribers will receive the latest British history-related headlines, along with notable upcoming anniversaries. And below the paywall, paid subscribers will see many more news items, all of them briefly summarised here in one place.
Top headlines
Hidden detail found in Anne Boleyn portrait was ‘witchcraft rebuttal’, say historians [The Guardian]: Scientific analysis of the Hever ‘Rose’ portrait – dated by dendrochronology to about 1583 and revealed through infrared underdrawing – shows the artist altered a standard pattern to prominently display five fingers, likely as a deliberate visual rebuttal to 16th‑century rumors that Anne Boleyn had a sixth finger and to defend her and Elizabeth I’s legitimacy.
Most prolific female serial killer who ‘bathed in blood of 650 women’ was ‘innocent’ [Daily Express]: Long accused of murdering up to 650 women and even bathing in their blood, Elizabeth Bathory – the notorious ‘Bloody Countess’ – is now argued by Cambridge researcher Dr Annouchka Bayley to have been the victim of a political ‘stitch‑up’ who ran a school for dispossessed noble girls and smuggled them and subversive texts out of her castle, a revisionist view contested by many historians.
Henry VIII’s lost castle and the ghost of the Devil’s Post [BBC News]: An 1889 letter recounts how soldiers at Hull’s former Henry VIII Citadel in Drypool were haunted by a nightly spectral young woman who allegedly led them to buried bones and prompted a murder confession, but archivists find no official records and suspect the ‘Drypool ghost’ may be myth or mischief – its Citadel long demolished and the site now home to The Deep aquarium.
Exhibit train marking railway’s 200 years returning to the West [BBC]: Launched at Paddington as part of Railway 200, the ‘Inspiration’ mobile exhibition train – featuring hands-on displays about railway engineering and the future to mark 200 years since the Stockton and Darlington line – has had its popular national tour extended to return to the West of England, stopping at Minehead and Bristol, with free tickets available through its June finale.
Hill could hide Viking grave of Ivarr the Boneless [BBC News]: An archaeologist says a large, secretive mound on the Cumbrian coast known as The King’s Mound may contain the ship burial of 9th-century Viking king Ivarr the Boneless – potentially the UK’s first monumental ship grave – based on nearby finds and plans for ground scans, though even an excavation might not definitively prove who is buried there.
‘Incredible’ Roman mosaic returns home after 200 years [BBC]: Rare Roman mosaic fragments unearthed near Withington in 1811 – including a 2.5m panel of a wild boar chased by a hunting dog and smaller bear and leopard pieces – have been reunited from British Museum storage and are now on display at Corinium Museum alongside the nearby Orpheus mosaic, marking their first public return to Gloucestershire in over 200 years.
Museum seeks £150k to buy Bronze Age treasure [BBC News]: The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent is racing to raise £150,000 by spring (with a £60,000 conditional pledge from Art Fund) to buy a rare 3,000‑year‑old Bronze Age gold dress fastener found in Ellastone – one of only eight recorded in England and Wales and the first in Britain for nearly 30 years – so it can remain locally on display alongside the Staffordshire Hoard and Leekfrith Torcs.
Treasures found on HS2 route stored in secret warehouse [BBC News]: During HS2 construction archaeologists have recovered an unprecedented 450,000 artifacts spanning more than 10,000 years – including a possible Roman gladiator’s tag, a >40,000‑year‑old handaxe and 19th‑century gold dentures – now stored in a secret Yorkshire warehouse for research and potential display even as the high‑speed rail project remains mired in delays, rising costs and controversy over its environmental and heritage impacts.
Bayeux tapestry move ‘at risk’ due to UK potholes [The Independent]: French conservationists have filed a legal challenge to President Macron’s plan to loan the fragile 11th‑century, 70‑metre Bayeux Tapestry to the British Museum, warning that vibrations and road shocks during transport could irreparably damage the wool embroidery – a move criticised by artists including David Hockney and opposed by a petition of over 77,000 signatories despite an £800m insurance cover.
First arrest after high-value museum raid [BBC News]: Avon and Somerset Police have arrested a 41-year-old on suspicion of handling stolen goods after a 25 September raid on Bristol Museum’s archive that took more than 600 culturally significant items – including military memorabilia, jewellery, natural history pieces and carved ivory, bronze and silver figurines from the former British Empire & Commonwealth Museum collection – and have released the suspect under investigation while seeking four other men seen on CCTV.
Glimpse of city’s past as medieval wall uncovered [BBC News]: During utility works on Guildhall Road in Hull, archaeologists uncovered for the first time in over 250 years a section of the late 14th‑century medieval city walls – once among England’s largest brick-built defenses of the Old Town – which they are recording before it is reburied.
London Transport Museum to get £12m makeover ahead of its 50th birthday [ianVisits]: Facing capacity constraints after a strong post‑COVID recovery (435,000 visitors at Covent Garden and nearly 200,000 to off‑site events in the year to March 2025), the London Transport Museum will receive £12 million from TfL to expand and upgrade its Covent Garden site ahead of its 50th anniversary in 2030, with a possible longer‑term rebuild or relocation of its Acton depot under consideration.
Anglo-Saxon monastery dig gets £250k funding [BBC News]: The University of Reading will expand excavations, research and public engagement at the 8th-century Cookham Abbey – an Anglo-Saxon monastery once ruled by Mercian Queen Cynethryth and already yielding finds like a watermill and burials – after receiving a £249,755 National Lottery Heritage Fund grant to support further interpretation, exhibitions, schools outreach, VR experiences and heritage trails.
The mammoth discovery made by chance by a couple walking their dog [BBC News]: Nearly 40 years after a couple walking their dogs found a large bone in a Shropshire quarry in September 1986, archaeologists uncovered more than 400 bones from an adult and several young mammoths – radiocarbon dated to about 14,000 years ago – constituting the most complete mammoth skeleton found in Britain/north‑west Europe and proving mammoths survived in the region longer than previously thought, with experts concluding the adult likely became trapped in a kettle hole.
British crown was world’s largest buyer of enslaved people by 1807, book reveals [The Guardian]: Historian Brooke Newman’s book The Crown’s Silence reveals that the British monarchy and Royal Navy actively expanded, protected and profited from the transatlantic slave trade for centuries – owning thousands of enslaved people (including 13,000 bought for the army by 1807), loaning naval resources to slavers, and coercing liberated Africans into military or apprenticeship service – exposing deep royal complicity that only began to change under pressure from abolitionists.
Fancy buying a home that inspired a Turner painting? It’s yours for £1.5m [BBC News]: Brendan and Celia Wilson are selling Rossett Mill – a Grade II‑listed 1588 watermill that inspired J.M.W. Turner – which they bought derelict for £660,000 about 17 years ago, spent roughly £250,000 restoring into a four‑bedroom family home with a working mill, and have now put on the market for £1.5m so they can move closer to their children.
Ancient Roman burial site could hold more secrets [BBC News]: Archaeologists excavating one of the UK’s largest Roman cemeteries along the A66 near Penrith have found unusually well-preserved artefacts – including complete pottery, glass and metal vessels, jewellery, weapons and a rare Cupid figurine buried with cremated remains – and say further digging could reveal more about ancient funeral practices, with finds to be analysed and likely displayed in a museum.
Museums must reach all parts of UK, says Nandy as £1.5bn of arts funding announced [The Guardian]: Culture secretary Lisa Nandy announced a landmark £1.5bn arts funding package – including £600m for national museums, £160m for local and regional museums, a £425m Creative Foundations Fund, and further sums for heritage and libraries – to repair cultural infrastructure and ‘restore national pride,’ while urging London-based institutions to extend their reach across the country amid criticism the plan focuses on buildings rather than people and as she prepares to respond to recommendations from the Margaret Hodge review.
And finally… Are you a fat cull or fuddlecap? Consult the old book of London slang [Times]: A rare dictionary from 1699 reveals the buzzwords of the capital’s criminal underworld.
Notable anniversaries
2 February
125 years ago...1901: Funeral of Queen Victoria.
3 February
200 years ago...1826: Walter Bagehot, English journalist and businessman, is born (died 1877)
7 February
725 years ago...1301: Edward of Caernarvon (later King Edward II of England) becomes the first English Prince of Wales.
8 February
425 years ago...1601: Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, unsuccessfully rebels against Queen Elizabeth I.
11 February
200 years ago...1826: University College London is founded as University of London.
80 years ago...1946: The New Testament of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, the first significant challenge to the Authorized King James Version, is published.
14 February
150 years ago...1876: Alexander Graham Bell applies for a patent for the telephone, as does Elisha Gray.
80 years ago...1946: The Bank of England is nationalized.
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