Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Wednesday, 6 April 2016

Windsor Castle


The recent reports about plans to develop visitor facilities and open up more of the Royal Apartments at Windsor Castle included this picture of  the undercroft in the Upper Ward of the castle which dates from the rebuilding of the residential part of the complex in the 1360s. I have seen the point made that, proportionately, King Edward III spent as much on these works as King Louis XIV did at Versailles three centuries later. The surviving portions suggest something of the scale of what the Kingcreated, and which underlie later rebuildings and reconstructions. The present plans envisage turning this into the restaurant for visitors.

The 14th-Century Undercroft at Windsor 

King Edward III's undercroft at Windsor Castle

Image: Mark Fiennes/Royal Collection Trust/ Daily Telegraph 

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