UK History News [6 January 26]
Bayeux Tapestry, Blenheim Palace, Victorian shoe mystery…
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 10 news stories in brief
Blenheim Palace Restoration Reveals Mysterious, Century-Old Graffiti [ArtNet]: Restoration work at Blenheim Palace has uncovered century-old graffiti scratched into the ceilings of the Great Hall and Saloon, revealing names and notes left by workers dating from the 19th to mid-20th centuries.
Birmingham Museum to display Cluedo memorabilia as game returns home [Birmingham Mail]: Marcia Lewis, daughter of Cluedo creator Anthony Ernest Pratt, has returned original game memorabilia – including an early game box, handwritten 1943 notes, letters and unreleased game ideas – to Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, where the game was first created.
Bayeux tapestry to be insured for £800m for British Museum exhibition [The Guardian]: The 70-metre Bayeux Tapestry, depicting the 1066 Norman invasion, will return to the UK for the first time in more than 900 years and be displayed at the British Museum’s Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery from autumn 2026 until July 2027 while its Normandy home is renovated.
Mystery as hundreds of Victorian shoes wash up on Ogmore beach [BBC]: Volunteers cleaning rock pools at Ogmore-by-Sea in the Vale of Glamorgan have uncovered hundreds of black hobnailed boots, thought to be Victorian and with more than 400 items reported (around 200 found in one small area).
Peterborough’s Katharine of Aragon event attracts top historians [BBC]: Peterborough Cathedral is hosting an expanded festival from 24 January to 1 February featuring eight historians – including the ‘Tudor Trio’ and Alison Weir – to shed new light on Katharine of Aragon, who died in 1536 and is buried at the cathedral.
Thousands of slides catalogued for Cheshire’s new archive centres [BBC]: Staff at Cheshire Archives are cataloguing tens of thousands of images – more than 40,000 glass negatives and 35mm slides – documenting a century of county life as they prepare two new purpose-built history centres in Crewe and Hoole due to open later this year.
Gosfield detectorist finds unusual medieval and Roman seal matrix [BBC]: A metal detectorist in Gosfield, Essex, discovered a medieval silver seal matrix (pictured below) containing a finely carved Roman carnelian gemstone in September, and a coroner has since declared the find to be treasure.
Lucy Worsley: We’ve solved the other Jack the Ripper-era mystery [The Times]: Historian Lucy Worsley says her team has likely identified the Thames Torso Murderer, a Victorian-era serial killer who dismembered women and dumped their bodies in the Thames in the late 1880s.
Gravestone of forgotten Leeds railway pioneer is rediscovered [Yorkshire Post]: A gravestone discovered during renovations at Leeds Industrial Museum has led to the rediscovery of Robert Morrow, a largely forgotten railway pioneer of the Industrial Revolution.
Council under fire for ripping up Victorian lampposts [The Times] Kent county council is facing criticism for removing Canterbury’s Victorian cast iron lampposts and replacing them with modern steel alternatives described by campaigners as ‘clumsy’, ‘crude’ and damaging to the city’s historic character.
Paying subscribers can read longer summaries of these and 15 further news stories below!
Notable anniversaries
10 January: 250 years ago... 1776: American Revolution: Thomas Paine publishes his pamphlet Common Sense.
10 January: 250 years ago… 1776: Birth of George Birkbeck, English physician and academic, who founded Birkbeck, University of London
10 January: 80 years ago... 1946: The first General Assembly of the United Nations assembles in the Methodist Central Hall, Westminster. Fifty-one nations are represented.
