There is a marvellous exhibition at the British Library, Royal Manuscripts:The Genius of Illumination, of illuminated manuscripts collected by kings and queens of England between the ninth and the sixteenth centuries.
We have connected this with Brentford's tradition in vellum making.
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by Linda Ashken on Jan 30
It is the Charles Dickens bicentenary in 2012 (7/2/1812 - 9/6/1872) and there is a build up of things being written about Dickens, including this excellent website Dickens Journal Online with the article of when Dickens visited the Grand Junction Waterworks Company, now the Kew Bridge Steam Museum.
Read MoreWe thought this was an evocative memory of a walk in Brentford in the 1950s, told by Ian Ashton who was then a boy.
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Read all about it! Brentford in
the 19th-century newspapers.
The British Library has completed the digitisation of 19th-century British Newspapers and they now can be accessed by the public through the internet. The service from the British Library website is British Newspapers 1800-1900.
Updated on December 11
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I suppose some of you may have seen the latest series on the Tudors on TV, well I wondered how Brentford was affected by the religious upheavals in that period after Henry VIII created a new Protestant church resulting in years of religious persecution in England.
During Henry VIII's reign, Catholics were hanged on the pretext of high treason, and later when Henry VIII's daughter Queen Mary came to power, Anglicans and Protestants were burned to purge heresy.
I found three events that occurred in Brentford which illustrated the religious persecution in the 16th century. One which challenged catholic rituals bought in a will and two bloody events which occurred in Brentford in those troubled times.
We’ve just stumbled across a wonderful pianist, Kathleen Long, who was born in Brentford and her recordings are still available from the 1940s and 1950s.
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I was reading recently a news item Solar Storm Risks Bring Disaster Plans about the potential for adverse effects that solar storms bring to us. Lloyds of London, this month, is advising companies to "assess and mitigate" before the peak period of solar activity begins, around 2012.
This study of solar activity and astronomy has some historic connection with Brentford.
When we wrote the previous article 'Observing the Heavens from Brentford' we referred to the excellent book "The Sun Kings" by Stuart Clark (2007), (available at Amazon). The book is about the Brentford Brewery owner and father of Solar Astronomy, Richard Carrington and there is an interesting explanation of how sunspots have influenced our weather.
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