A Home Counties St George

Hollow Places – An Unusual History of Land and Legend Christopher Hadley, William Collins, £20 Early one 1830s morning, workmen were uprooting an ancient yew near Brent Pelham in Hertfordshire when the tree fell unexpectedly – exposing a huge cavity, and evoking superstitions of ‘Piers Shonks’, who slew a dragon and defied the Devil. So… Continue reading

Solar power

King of the World: The Life of Louis XIV Philip Mansel, London: Allen Lane, 2019, 568 pages, £30 British historian Philip Mansel is fascinated by splendour and eclipse – the firework ascent of cities and courts, their fizzling out and falling to earth. After the Bonapartes, Louis XVIII, and the entire Levant, now it is… Continue reading

Spirit guide

Ghostland, Edward Parnell, London: William Collins; 2019, £16.99 ‘Always the ghosts’, Edward Parnell remembers, looking back over his Lincolnshire childhood. After the daydreaming 1960s, the sudden uncertainty of the 1970s manifested itself in bitter tension and a fascination with all things folkloric and paranormal. Into an unsettling world of candle-lit houses and angry political noises… Continue reading