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.


Monday, 12 January 2026

Roman military whetstones from Weardale


An article in Popular Science reports on the excavation at a site on the banks of the Wear, not far from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, of more than eight hundred discarded whetstones, made from local stone and intended for sharpening military equipment. They can be scientifically dated to the beginning of the second and first third of the third centuries, either side of the construction of Hadrian’s Wall.


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