Conservation charity’s supporters give more than £865,000 despite pandemic closing majority of sites
The National Trust has reported a 383% increase in online donations during the pandemic year when most of the charity’s venues were “put into hibernation”.
Figures from the charity showed that online donationswere more than £865,000, an increase of 383% from 2019/20.
Continue reading...Prized collection smuggled across Europe by Jewish owners in 1930s expected to fetch more than $2m
A collection of prized Meissen porcelain smuggled across Europe after its Jewish owners were forced to flee the Nazis and later procured for Hitler before being uncovered in a salt mine by the “Monuments Men”, is to be auctioned in New York next month.
The extraordinary journey that the 18th-century artworks have undergone, reflecting the turmoil of the second world war years, has been reconstructed by art historians and restitution lawyers before their sale by Sotheby’s, the international auction house.
Continue reading...City aims to reopen parts of Senne but centuries-held view of it as toxic sewer remains surprisingly strong
While Paris’s winding Seine has been an inspiration for some of the greatest works of romantic art and literature, the unloved Senne running through Brussels has been buried away under concrete for the last 150 years, condemned by locals as little more than a sewer and cause of disease and unhappiness.
As a constant flood risk and source of cholera, it was vaulted in, built over and hidden from sight. Now, however, Belgium’s capital is preparing to stage an inauguration ceremony that officials hope will help force a rethink among Bruxellois about their centuries-held prejudices against the waterway.
Continue reading...Famed since Roman times, the Spanish city’s artisans are all but extinct. But a reprieve is at hand from the TV and film industry
Its sturdy presence has threaded through more than 2,000 years of history, fuelled by fans that were said to have ranged from the Carthaginian general Hannibal to Roman legions.
These days, however, the longstanding tradition of swordmaking in the Spanish city of Toledo has dwindled to just two artisan swordmakers – the last living link to a tradition that stretches back millennia.
Continue reading...Change in papal law in 1336 to allow twice-weekly consumption caused problems at Muchelney Abbey
It may have seemed a good day for medieval monks when a papal decree allowed them to start eating meat including mutton, beef, pork and venison. It was not so good for their bowels.
Research by English Heritage sheds light on the day-to-day lives and digestive troubles of monks at Muchelney Abbey in Somerset – in particular the consequence of a change in papal law, in 1336, which permitted the twice-weekly consumption of meat from four-legged animals.
Continue reading...Council scraps four-week trial of alternative to existing shuttlebus after swift and fierce opposition
For centuries, pilgrims have walked in the footsteps of monks who once inhabited Lindisfarne, connected by a tidal causeway to the ancient kingdom of Northumbria.
They have marvelled at the birthplace of the Lindisfarne gospels, one of the most celebrated illuminated manuscripts in the world, admired the castle that towers over crashing waves and the ruins of the ancient priory, and watched thousands of grey seals basking on the sand banks.
Continue reading...‘Incredible’ discoveries at submerged ancient city off coast of Egypt have lain untouched
Wicker baskets filled with fruit that have survived from the 4th century BC and hundreds of ancient ceramic artefacts and bronze treasures have been discovered in the submerged ruins of the near-legendary city of Thonis-Heracleion off the coast of Egypt.
They have lain untouched since the city disappeared beneath the waves in the second century BC, then sunk further in the eight century AD, following cataclysmic natural disasters, including an earthquake and tidal waves.
Continue reading...Britain is eroding global reputation for conserving its historic assets, culture bodies are warning
The UK is eroding its global reputation for conserving its “unparalleled” historic assets, culture bodies have warned, with Stonehenge expected to be next in line to lose its coveted World Heritage status after Liverpool.
Related: Unesco strips Liverpool of its world heritage status
Continue reading...Find could prove there were human settlements in area centuries before city was founded
The discovery of the remains of a Roman road and dock submerged in the Venice lagoon could prove there were permanent human settlements in the area centuries before Venice was founded, researchers say.
Scuba divers discovered what appeared to be paving stones beneath the lagoon in the 1980s, but only after more recent research were the relics confirmed to have formed part of a road system.
Continue reading...UN body says years of development have caused ‘irreversible loss’ to historic value of Victorian docks
Liverpool has been stripped of its coveted world heritage status after Unesco blamed years of development for an “irreversible loss” to the historic value of its Victorian docks.
The UN’s heritage body concluded at a meeting in China on Wednesday that the “outstanding universal value” of Liverpool’s waterfront had been destroyed by new buildings, including Everton football club’s new £500m stadium.
Continue reading...With Croatia set to go on to the green list, we pick quiet islands and beaches for a post-lockdown escape
Last summer, visitors who managed to make it to Croatia had a taste of what the country was like before the days of mass tourism. And it tasted good. But while honeypots such as Dubrovnik were unrecognisably quiet, there have always been parts of the country where you don’t have to wade through crowds.
Places where things move at a less hurried pace, where Croatian life can be savoured, where you get a flavour of what the Dalmatians call fjaka – the art of doing nothing. These islands and mainland destinations are what you want in a post-lockdown escape: peace, beauty and the chance to discover why Croatia is such an enticing country.
Continue reading...Painting reclaims former glory as English Heritage rights the wrongs of 19th-century additions
At some point in the last 400 years a painting restorer probably decided the Dutch vegetable seller was far too glum and should be smiling. Now it has been put right and she is once again enigmatic.
English Heritage revealed the results on Friday of a two-year conservation project to reveal the true glory of a mysterious, unsigned painting that has been in its stores for more than 60 years.
Continue reading...St George’s flags featuring surnames of almost every person in England will fly from heritage sites to cheer on team
Harry Kane can trace his surname back to a word for “warrior”. Declan Rice to “impetuous”. Kieran Trippier to “dance”. Kyle Walker will have to make do with “trampler of cloth in a bath of lye” which, to be fair, was once a very important job.
English Heritage is getting in the football spirit by revealing the origins of the names of the England players. It will also fly a St George’s flag featuring the surname of almost every person living in England at its properties to help cheer on the team before Sunday’s Euro 2020 final against Italy.
Continue reading...Endurance22 will launch early next year with aim of locating and surveying wreck in the Weddell Sea
The location of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance has been one of the great maritime mysteries since the ship became trapped in ice and sank in 1915. Finding this symbol of the “heroic age” of polar exploration at the bottom of the Weddell Sea was long thought impossible because of the harshness of the Antarctic environment – “the evil conditions”, as Shackleton described them.
Now a major scientific expedition, announced on Monday, is being planned with a mission to locate, survey and film the wreck.
Continue reading...Hypogeum of 2,000-year-old monument – its ‘backstage’ – restored with walkways for visitors
For the first time, visitors to the Colosseum in Rome can fully explore the underground tunnels and chambers where gladiators and wild animals once prepared for battle.
Spread across 15,000 square metres, the hypogeum of the 2,000-year-old monument is open to the public following the completion of a restoration project funded by the Italian fashion house Tod’s.
Continue reading...A film about the disputed Salvator Mundi blames the National Gallery for its role in giving credibility to the claim that it was the artist’s lost work
The National Gallery is facing controversy over its role in the tangled story of how the world’s most expensive painting emerged from obscurity before being sold for a staggering £320m, only to vanish again from the public eye.
The gallery exhibited the Salvator Mundi in its Leonardo da Vinci exhibition a decade ago when it was an unknown work with doubts about its attribution, restoration and ownership.
Continue reading...Installation of new pathway and lift has been criticised by archaeologists and called ‘a scandal’
When seen through the eyes of Manolis Korres, the architect who has long presided over the restoration of the Parthenon, the Acropolis needs no improvement at all.
In the face of such architectural mastery, he thinks of himself more as a maestro of order, making a monument that has survived explosions, fire, looting and earthquakes more understandable to the public.
Continue reading...‘Internationally significant’ discovery of male with burial chains in Rutland is first of its kind
His ankles secured with heavy, locked iron fetters, the enslaved man appears to have been thrown in a ditch – a final act of indignity in death.
Now the discovery of the shackled male skeleton by workers in Rutland – thought to have been aged in his late 20s or early 30s – has been identified as rare and important evidence of slavery in Roman Britain and “an internationally significant find”.
Continue reading...The great British artist’s home in Mexico has been turned into a wonderful museum, full of her sculptures, books, diaries and unsmoked cigarettes. Our writer, Carrington’s cousin, takes an emotional tour
In October 2010, a few months before her death, I said my last goodbye to my cousin Leonora Carrington. As I left her home in Mexico City, she stood waving on the doorstep. Today, I’m back for the first time – to see Leonora’s house recreated as a visitor attraction. It feels surreal, but the surreal has become the everyday since I set off to find Leonora in 2006, almost 70 years after she checked out of our family and Britain. She travelled first to Paris to be with her lover, the German artist Max Ernst, before moving on to Mexico with a diplomat she met after she and Ernst were separated by the second world war.
This house, 194 Calle Chihuahua, is where she was anchored for more than 60 years. Here, she painted some of her best-known works, including The Juggler, which sold at auction in 2005 for £436,000; And Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur, now at MoMA in New York; and her mural The Magical World of the Mayans, now at the National Anthropological Museum in Mexico City.
Continue reading...Campaigners want urgent action to save neglected and vandalised graves in West Norwood Cemetery
Its beautiful Grade II* listed monuments were erected in memory of leading members of the Greek community in 19th-century London, but the graves in West Norwood cemetery are now in a dire state of neglect – with one decaying casket recently photographed covered in a thick layer of pigeon droppings, with a limb protruding.
Lambeth council, which compulsorily purchased the cemetery more than 50 years ago, recently withdrew security to save money and campaigners are calling for urgent action to protect listed monuments from ruin.
Continue reading...