ruins | Flickering Lamps

The cemetery serving a submerged parish: St James, Stocks-in-Bowland

Posted on April 29, 2021 by Caroline

As Britain’s population grew throughout the 19th Century and the demand for water in its towns and cities increased, local authorities and water boards looked to rural areas, building dams in remote valleys and creating large reservoirs. The Stocks Reservoir, completed in the 1930s, is one such reservoir, located in Dalehead in the Forest of Bowland in north west England. The reservoir takes its name from the village of Stocks-in-Bowland, most of which now lies beneath the flooded valley. The village church of St James, however, was dismantled and reconstructed on higher ground and the occupants of its churchyard moved to a new burial ground. What intrigued me most about this peaceful little burial ground is that many of its burials have taken place in the years since the Stocks Reservoir was built and the local population displaced. The nearest villages are all a few miles away, with only a few scattered farms in between, but the families of those with links to Dalehead and Stocks-in-Bowland have continued to bury their dead here, nearly a century after the valley was drowned by the reservoir.

Uncovering the story of Roman London’s mysterious Mithraeum

Posted on December 3, 2017 by Caroline

In November 2017 one of London’s most famous Roman sites reopened to the public after spending several years hidden away in storage. The Mithraeum, a subterranean temple dedicated to the god Mithras, has had an eventful afterlife since its celebrated rediscovery in 1954. Moved from its original site to make way for a new office development, it was reconstructed at a new location nearby before the great wheel of redevelopment turned again and offered the chance for the Mithraeum to be reinstated at its original location on the banks of the now-underground river Walbrook. The Mithraeum offers modern Londoners a glimpse into one of the Roman period’s more unusual elements: the secretive cult of Mithras, and the work to restore its ruins to the banks of the Walbrook also gave archaeologists an incredible opportunity to discover more about Roman-era Londinium.

The new entrance to the Mithraeum at 12 Walbrook

A Victorian marvel beneath the streets: Crystal Palace subway

Posted on June 25, 2017 by Caroline

Part of the A212 road runs along one side of Crystal Palace Park, carrying traffic between the suburbs of south east London. However, beneath a section of the road – unbeknownst to those passing above – is a quite astonishing structure, usually hidden from the public. This is a subway, but not of the concrete, graffiti-ed, dubious-smelling variety more commonly seen beneath Britain’s roads: it is something else altogether.

The entrance to the Crystal Palace subway, usually sealed off

The last ruins of Dunwich, Suffolk’s lost medieval town

Posted on June 12, 2016 by Caroline

The tiny village of Dunwich clings to the edge of the Suffolk coast and is in many ways a pretty but unremarkable place, a sleepy settlement a long way from any large towns. There’s a beach, a place to buy ice cream, a little museum, a pleasant old pub that draws visitors from miles around. But in the grounds of its Victorian church, and in a field on the edge of the villages, are ruins that suggest a more propserous past. Two impressive archways welcome the motorist into Dunwich, a sign between them proclaiming that they are a part of Greyfriars, Dunwich’s medieval friary. The ruins of this Franciscan friary are some of the final remaining relics of what was once a thriving and significant port – an ancient settlement that today is sometimes dubbed “Britain’s Atlantis” due to most of its medieval fabric now lying beneath the North Sea.

The ancient rock-cut tombs by the Lancashire coast

Posted on April 30, 2016 by Caroline

Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m especially interested in particularly old and unusual graves, and the subject of today’s post definitely falls into that category. On the windswept Lancashire coast, six graves carved into solid rock have survived for over 1,000 years, remarkable survivors at an ancient site where it is thought that pilgrims came to venerate St Patrick in the Anglo-Saxon period. These are the rock-cut tombs of Heysham, some of the finest relics of early Christianity to be found in the north west of England.

Battersea Arts Centre: a Victorian gem rising from the ashes

Posted on October 24, 2015 by Caroline

When stepping into the grand entrance hall of Battersea Arts Centre, it’s not obvious that only a few months ago a terrible disaster struck the building. On a Saturday afternoon in October, the place is bustling. Families have gathered in one of the rooms for a child’s birthday party; half a dozen buggies are parked on one side of the marble staircase. Other people sip coffee and tuck into snacks at the centre’s cafe bar. It all seems like a normal day – business as usual – except for the group of people donning high-visibility jackets and hard hats. They have come to the centre to see for themselves the devastation left by a fire in the centre’s Grand Hall in March 2015, and to hear about the plans to rebuild the venue that has been at the heart of social and cultural life in Battersea for over a century.

The mysterious and majestic stone circle at Lochbuie

Posted on October 3, 2015 by Caroline

When visiting the Isle of Mull, off the coast of western Scotland, you quickly get used to single-track roads, to landscapes where there are more buzzards than humans, and to strange old places popping up wherever you visit – graveyards, chapels, long-abandoned villages, and even the occasional prehistoric monument. The subject of today’s post falls into that last category. It’s the oldest place yet featured on Flickering Lamps, and probably the most mysterious – a beautiful stone circle in a remote part of Mull.

Chilworth Gunpowder Mills: three centuries of industry in the Surrey Hills

Posted on June 28, 2015 by Caroline

The Surrey Hills – an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty – isn’t the first place that you’d associate with heavy industry. Today, thousands of people are drawn to the picturesque hills and the lush green countryside. However, hidden away in the valley close to the village of Chilworth, near Guildford, are the ruins of an industry that dominated the area for almost 300 years – the manufacturing of gunpowder.

The ruins of Christ Church Greyfriars and the grave of a “she-wolf”

Posted on March 6, 2015 by Caroline

I remember the first time I saw Christ Church Greyfriars – I was on my way to a job interview near the Old Bailey, and as I was walking up Newgate Street from the tube station by St Paul’s I saw the ruins of a church. Intrigued, I went over to the ruin to read the sign explaining what the site was. I’ve always been fascinated by ruins – not just the reasons why a building became a ruin, but also why the ruin itself was preserved. When one considers how valuable every square foot of space is in the City of London, it’s quite something to come across a ruin that’s stood there for over seventy years.

Pennygown: the ruined chapel and medieval effigies of a Hebridean burial ground

Posted on December 5, 2014 by Caroline

I first came across the ruined chapel whilst on a wildlife trek – we had stopped near the little town of Salen to watch harbour porpoises in the Sound of Mull. Intrigued as I was by the ruined chapel and its surrounding burial ground, there wasn’t time to stop and explore and I had to return a few days later to get a good look around the site. My stay on the beautiful Scottish island of Mull had been blessed with warm sunshine, but on the final day of my trip – when I finally had time to visit the chapel and the burial ground surrounding it – the clouds had arrived.

This is Pennygown burial ground, and it is still used by the people of the Mull today.