Regular British Heritage readers are accustomed to following along on the editorial adventures that I customarily pursue in Britain for a fortnight spring and fall. There are always stories to be found and images to capture that make their way to our pages over several issues. Come on along, as I retraced the coast of Wales and got up to the Orkney Islands for the first time this autumn.
WHEN I SNUCK AROUND unfinished Rainham Hall last year, I promised to report back when the National Trust’s latest London property finally opened to the public. It’s taken nearly 70 years and £2.5 million, but it’s been worth the wait. The Hall was built for a wealthy Georgian sea merchant, but it didn’t stay in the family long. Instead, this exquisite gem passed from tenant to tenant with no fixed owner, which was its saving grace in many ways. Over the years it saw only cosmetic changes, unlike many similar houses that underwent massive structural alteration. The house retains its perfect Queen Anne proportions and virtually all of it is now open to the public. It has been conserved, rather than restored, including in some places, some rather strange additions, such as 1980s rag-rolling and fanciful gilding applied by a 1920s art historian. The “shabby chic” interior contrasts beautifully with the picture-perfect dolls-house outside. The house has been lived in by an eccentric cast of more than 50 individuals, including an 18th-century Methodist preacher, a 19th-century cycling enthusiast vicar and a 20th-century Vogue editor. There will be a rolling exhibition about each of them in turn.
Detectorists: The recent discovery of a hoard of more than 5,000 Anglo-Saxon silver coins in a Buckhamshire field is big news. It is the largest trove of Anglo-Saxon coins discovered in modern times. Numismatists and archaeologists will be poring over them for years. The find was made by metal detector enthusiast Paul Coleman, member of the Weekend Wanderers metal detecting club. It’s the second time in recent years that Anglo-Saxon treasure has been discovered. Readers might remember the Staffordshire Hoard, found in a field near Lichfield in 2009—some 3,500 gold and silver artifacts primarily of martial apparel and equipage. That historic find was made by Terry Herbert, another amateur metal detectorist.In fact, metal detecting is big in Britain. Here in the US, we see folk patrolling the beach with detectors in search of lost change and jewelry. The avocation takes on a higher seriousness in Britain, where 80 percent of the landscape is littered with the bits and bobs of human occupation drifting back thousands of years.
