How did it all begin? — How did my interest in History begin? We have to go back some time (oh, puns as well!). In the United Kingdom children transfer from junior to senior school at the age of eleven. …

Fiction writer, history lover, map junkie — Hi! I’m Linda Acaster and thanks for stopping by my Profile. We are all busy so I’ll keep this short. I’m a Brit from the English county of Yorkshire, situated halfway up the country. My close family currently lives a short walk from the chilly North Sea, which proved a…

Come visit the people who built Stonehenge — Two miles north-east of Stonehenge stands Durrington Walls. It is a henge of gigantic proportions — a diameter of 470 metres (1500 feet) with an earth and chalk bank in some places still standing to the height of 3 metres (18ft). To walk it you would cover just under a…

Skara Brae’s blueprint for Neolithic furnishings. — Following on from the Stonehenge Overview, we travel 680 miles north. Ten miles off the UK’s Scottish mainland lies Orkney, an archipelago of 70 islands which cosset some of the most spectacular Neolithic remains in Europe. From nearly 3,000 Neolithic sites, a handful have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage…

Six Word Photo Story: Freestyle — Artworks make passers-by turn and smile. A few years ago the north promenade of my Yorkshire seaside town had a makeover, but the south promenade was left to its own devices. Seawalls feature prominently along this stretch of coast. The land mostly consists of boulder clay deposited during the last Ice Age, and the sea can…

One piece in History’s gigantic jigsaw puzzle — Standing close to an arterial road in Wiltshire, England, Stonehenge is the most iconic historical monument within the group of islands encompassing Britain and its western neighbour, Ireland. It is found mentioned in documents from the Medieval period, and has been studied by antiquarians since at least the 17th century…

Six Word Photo Story: Freestyle — Food waste? Not in this house! It’s that time of year again — harvesting fallen apples, currently aided by annoyingly high winds. I do my rounds early every morning. Why do the birds always prefer the big ones? Some are delivered to neighbours without apple trees, eaters are sliced on top of our breakfasts, the rest…

September Six Word Photo Story Challenge: “Shadows” — “Yellow, lift your head.” “I can’t!” Growing in the shadow of a dark fence and over-bearing trees is no joke for sunflowers. The clue is in the name: they need the sunshine, especially this far north in England. In our garden, we grow ours for the colour and — if we’re lucky — seed heads to…

The care of a farmer changes not a jot down the centuries — One Pope’s over-enthusiasm for the protection of Christian shrines caused the raising of the Knights Templar military-religious order. Another Pope’s timidity caused its bloody demise. In the intervening 193 years the “Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon” revitalised production of food and ancillaries across much of Europe…