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, 27 May 2020

Old London Bridge


Country Life last week republished on its website two articles, from 2005 and 2019, about the building of what we now refer to as Old London Bridge and about the shops and houses that lined it until the mid-eighteenth century. Until the construction of Westminster Bridge earlier in that century it was the only roadway across the Thames into the capital and served not only as a shopping street but as a ceremonial entry to the City from the south bank.


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