The Luccombe Valley below Salisbury Plain and Bratton Camp, just visible in the upper right. In the foreground are two of the four barrows in the valley, with one of the others being the site of the Bloodstone. While wandering on Salisbury plain one day I came across a hidden valley and as I […]
historic sites
As a kid, nothing made a long drive complete like a stop at a historic site. From the battlefields of the Civil War, to time traveling back to early Plymouth at Plimoth Plantation, there’s more to American history than we realize, and it’s all around us. Just ahead at the next exit even.
On the mystery of a white horse carved into the slopes of Bratton Downs … the White Horse of Westbury
Looking down on the White Horse of Westbury from atop Salisbury Plain Nobody really knows when or why a chalk horse was carved onto the side of Bratton Downs, below the iron age Bratton Camp. The current version has evolved over the past two centuries into its rather literal shape today. An 18th century engraving […]
Old Wardour Castle … a splendidly haunted ruin in the British countryside
Top: Old Wardour Castle, Tisbury, Wiltshire “On the south western border of Wiltshire about half between Salisbury and Shaftesbury and in the parish Tisbury stand the ivy crowned remains of the old castle Wardour.” The Antiquary, Volumes 3-4 Front Cover.W. Allen, 1873 Old Wardour Castle was built as an impressive fortified home for Lord Lovell in the late […]
Is it really the House of the Seven Gables? Perhaps, perhaps not. Either way the Turner-Ingersoll mansion in Salem breathes New England history
“Halfway down a by-street of one of our New England towns stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely peaked gables, facing towards various points of the compass, and a huge, clustered chimney in the midst. The street is Pyncheon Street; the house is the old Pyncheon House; and an elm-tree, of wide circumference, rooted […]
Hiking Rockefeller State Park Preserve: Looking for Spook Rock, Hulda the witch and the non-headless horseman origins of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow
At last she came to a little house, and an old woman was peeping out of it, but she had such great teeth that the girl was terrified and about to run away, only the old woman called her back. “What are you afraid of, my dear child? Come and live with me, and if you do […]
Old Westbury Gardens: An English estate on Long Island’s Gold Coast
Above: Westbury House, Old Westbury, New York. In a case of mistaken identity, Roger Thornhill was taken at gunpoint from a posh Manhattan eatery and driven out to a mansion on the north shore of Long Island, and plied with copious amounts of alcohol before escaping in a perilous, intoxicated drive through the winding roads […]
Daily Life of the 19th Century: Patent Medications and Homeopathic cures at Washington Irving’s Sunnyside
Top: Medicine box beside Washington Irving’s deathbed When you’re touring a historic home museum, keep an eye out for the little details which speak volumes about the people who lived there. Sunnyside was the home of American author Washington Irving, who wrote most famously, the short stories The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Rip Van […]
Exploring ancient Greece in Nashville, TN: The Parthenon
Nashville, Tennessee has been called the Athens of the South since the mid 19th century. In a part of the country which at the time, wasn’t renowned for educating its citizens, Nashville could boast not only a public school system, but several colleges and universities as well. By century’s end, Belmont University, Fisk University, Meharry Medical College, […]
Revolutionary War Battlefields: Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts
The Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts, was the site of the first real skirmish of the American Revolution. Earlier on the morning of April 19, 1775, British soldiers opened fire on a company of militia down the road in Lexington, but that hardly qualifies as a skirmish. The colonial militia at Lexington didn’t intend […]
Old Sheldon Church ruins: A quiet retreat in the South Carolina lowcountry
The old Sheldon Church, in northern Beaufort County, South Carolina doesn’t have much luck when it comes war. The proper name for this venerable set of old ruins is Prince William’s Parish Church. With a name like that, one would think it would give faithful service. This seemed not to be the case however, as the British burned […]
Cry Innocent: Salem witch attraction brings the witch hunts and trials to life
Bridget Bishop. I know nothing of it. I am innocent to a Witch. I know not what a Witch is. Examiner: How do you know then that you are not a witch Bridget Bishop: I do not know what you say. Examiner: How can you know, you are no Witch, & yet not know what […]
Piracy in Charleston S.C, The Pirate House
Sometimes it’s not the truth, but the story which makes for a historical attraction. A case-in-point: The Pirate House in Charleston, South Carolina. People have strolled the cobblestones of the French Quarter and down Church Street, past this bermuda stone dwelling since 1704, but when it took on the disinction of the Pirate House is […]
