For 400 years Kent and East Sussex were vividly and visibly associated with the cultivation of hops. Fran and Geoff Doel have evoked this bygone world of hopping by gathering together a wide range of social and literary accounts, poems and songs from the Tudor period to the present day, each with a contextual introduction. The selection illustrates both the 'rose-tinted' image and the harsher reality of a distinctive aspect of rural life in the south east.

First mentioned by William Langland in the late fourteenth century, Robin Hood comes down to us through ballads and folksongs, old chronicles and plays, medieval allusions, folklore and place names. Today Robin Hood folk songs are found in the USA as well as in England and Scotland, and place names and traditions are widely located in England. The earliest stories are centred on Barnsdale in Yorkshire, but later the emphasis shifts to Nottingham and Sherwood Fores...

The Green Man has many facets, many dimensions. He peers through his leaf mask in hundreds of church misericords and stone carvings. His innate link with the changing seasons and fertility is revealed in the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and in summer folk customs such as Jack in the Green, the Castleton Garland and the Burry Man. Perhaps he even lurks in the legendary hero of the Greenwood, Robin Hood.The authors have been running summer schools an...

Canterbury is one of the most delightful cities in England and in addition to its well-known attributes has a wealth of lesser-known and secret sites and histories. There are hints of earlier Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Norman remains, while substantial medieval ecclesiastical remains are more noticeably embedded in the structure of the city, but often their context is little understood. Legends persist about Becket’s murder and two other murdered archbishops, Alphege and Sudbury. Literary asso...

Named one of the Best Books of the Year by NPRA New York Times Book Review Editors Choice SelectionAn erudite romp through the intimate details of life in Tudor England, "Goodman's latest…is a revelation" (New York Times Book Review).On the heels of her triumphant How to Be a Victorian, Ruth Goodman travels even further back in English history to the era closest to her heart, the dramatic period from the cr...

An expanded edition from the most popular British poet of the late 20th century, "perhaps as completely original a writer as has ever existed" ( The Times Literary Supplement ).Come, friendly bombs, and fall on SloughTo get it ready for the plough.The cabbages are coming now;The earth exhales.—from "Slough"When the beloved English poet John Betjeman's Collected Poems first a...

The MysteryWhat is it that brings so many people to this out-of-the-way chapel? Not only is Rosslyn Chapel (or, to give it its official title, the Collegiate Church of St Matthew) a stunning example of late medieval architecture and the stonemason's art, but it contains many clues that it is more than just a place of worship – and even that it was never intended to be simple a Christian church.History of Rosslyn ChapelThe mastermind behind the project was Sir William ...

From the Chief Curator of the Historic Royal Palaces in England, a vivid and captivating portrait of a seventeenth-century nobleman, his household, and the dramatic decades surrounding the English Civil War.William Cavendish embodied the popular image of a cavalier. He was both courageous and cultured. His passions were architecture, horses, and women. And, along with the whole courtly world of King Charles I and his cavaliers, he was doomed to failure.This...

An anthology and miscellany of everything an Englishman should know:From Austen to Wordsworth,Jerusalem to the Scout’s Honour, Kings and Queens of England to Land of Hope and Glory, Savile Row tailors to Jermyn St Shirt Makers, Tying a Windsor knot to making a pot of tea, Victoria sponge to fish pie and the rules of cricket to Gilbert and Sullivan operas

The Delphi Poets Series offers readers the works of literature's finest poets, with superior formatting. This volume presents the complete poetical works of Edward Thomas, with beautiful illustrations, rare texts and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)* Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Thomas' life and works* Concise introduction to the life of Edward Thomas* Excellent formatting of the poems* Special chronological and alphabetical conte...

The quintessential Englishwoman Clarissa Dickson Wright, one of the Two Fat Ladies and author of Spilling the Beans, takes us on a personal journey through the country of her birth.From Cornwall to Cumbria, Norfolk to Northumbria she brings her extraordinary knowledge, huge passion, forthright opinions and inimitable wit to the distinctive history and regional character of every corner of England.In her cornucopia of local knowledge she reveals, for exampl...

In the village of Wreay, near Carlisle, stands the strangest and most magical Victorian church in England. This vivid, original book tells the story of its builder, Sarah Losh, strong-willed, passionate, and unusual in every way.Sarah Losh is a lost Romantic genius—an antiquarian, an architect, and a visionary. Born into an old Cumbrian family, heiress to an industrial fortune, Losh combined a zest for progress with a love of the past. In the church, her masterpiece, she let her ima...