About Me and this Blog

29/08/2022 donbrown 0

Welcome, thanks for discovering this blog and taking the time to find out more. It is a pretty random collection of posts of curiosities, museum […]

temple church london wikimedia image

A lot more than the Da Vinci Code: Temple Church

05/05/2025 donbrown 0

At the top end of Strand opposite the Royal Courts of Justice is Devereux Court. Step off the main road along there and you enter […]

cover of echolands by duncan mackay

Book Review: Echolands: A Journey in Search of Boudica

03/05/2025 donbrown 0

This is a wonderful, scholarly and fun read, an exploration of history and of landscape, as author and archeologist Duncan Mackay follows the Boudiccan uprising […]

Shop! Get access to past online talks

03/05/2025 donbrown 0

You can now watch my recent online talks on the Great Fire of London and Roman Londinium by visiting my new ‘shop‘. After paying a […]

red coated guards leaving buckingham palace

Guards! Guards! (And the changing thereof)

21/04/2025 donbrown 0

All you need to know to catch the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace (whether or not you go with Alice).

Exhibition: London in the Second World War

14/04/2025 donbrown 0

To The London Archives in Clerkenwell for the small but (genuinely) perfectly formed ‘London in the Second World War’ exhibition. It runs until the end […]

The Barbican Conservatory: The Hanging Gardens of EC1*

10/03/2025 donbrown 0

To the Barbican on a glorious early spring day when the sky was blue and the sun was warm. Chamberlin, Powell and Bon’s brutalist City […]

grave stone of "giro" dog of german ambassador leopold von hoesch outside 9 carlton house terrace london

The Myth of ‘London’s Nazi Memorial’

02/03/2025 donbrown 0

Eavesdrop on some guides at the top of the Duke of York’s steps and you will hear them talk about the ‘Nazi dog’ that is […]

The Bright Red London Telephone Box

21/02/2025 donbrown 0

A redundant 20th century artefact, repurposed for the tourist economy. But enough about me, let’s talk about phone boxes. Go to Parliament Square and you […]

Getting Medieval: Room 8 at the V+A

20/02/2025 donbrown 0

If asked my favourite London museum I always feel duty bound to say the British Museum, its collection allowing glimpses into civilisations from across the […]

gassed by john singer sargent

‘Gassed’ by John Singer Sargent at the IWM Blavatnik Gallery

09/02/2025 donbrown 0

John Singer Sargent was an American expat artist whose luminous portraits of late Victorian and Edwardian society – the aristocrats and the rich – made […]