Thrilled to see Decoding the Jewels ⁦National Museums Scotland⁩ being given such great coverage ⁦The Scotsman today!⁩ 👑💫✨

🔥“Boris Johnson turned away from polling station after forgetting photo ID”

When Boris Johnson brought in the legislation for this, I actually daydreamed about exactly this scenario because I thought it plausible. 😂 independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-n…

Anna Groundwater National Museums Scotland

With big thanks to Royal Collection Trust & National Galleries of Scotland & all for providing images 😊📸

Decoding the Jewels, publication day 🎉 National Museums Scotland Sidestone Press You can read it free online sidestone.com/books/decoding….
With huge thanks to wonderful contributors Geoffrey Munn Kate Anderson Helen Wyld & others Royal Collection Trust they just made today a little shinier ✨💫

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan…

'Oh Death be not proud though some have called you Mighty and Dreadful, for thou art not so.....One short sleep and we wake eternally and Death shall be no more.' Abridged form John Donne's extraordinary 'Death be not Proud'. 1633. The stone commemorates William Pott of Southwold

Models of the famous Indian diamond known as the Koh-I-Noor. (See Wiki) On the right before recutting it weighed 191 cts and on the left, after recutting in 1851, it weighed 105 cts. The model on the left is reproduced by courtesy of Lewis Walduck

Glass model of original cutting of the 191 ct Indian diamond called the Koh-I-Noor or Mountain of light c 1870. The model in the lid, belongs to Lewis Walduck It shows how it looked in 1852 after cutting and weighing 105 cts. A fascinating comparison quite impossible in reality.

In front of St. Paul's Cathedral. The Queen was too old, too blind, and too frail to walk up the steps and stayed seated in her coach so the people could see her. She was 78.

Not an instrument of torture but designed to deter gentlemen from reliving themselves in the corner of St Paul's Cathedral London.

My recent article in The Antiquary published by The Society of Antiquaries.The story of a chance discovery at auction and the research that followed it.

Revelation 20:13. (At the last trump the angel of the apocalypse opens every grave ) 'And the sea gave up the dead that were in it.' The tomb in Southwold is that of John Steele lost at sea in 1771 aged just 27. NB Skull and upturned hour glass to right.

Monument in the yard of Southwold church to David May murdered by pirates in the Bay of Florida 28 June 1819. Against all odds the pirates were caught and hanged. His widow's tragic lament is engraved on the tombstone. For full story see my book Southwold-An Earthly Paradise

St Edmund's, Southwold exactly where JMW Turner stood as he sketched it in 1824. Previously known only as Scenes on the East Coast it was a huge excitement to identify them for the first time. Full story in my book 'Southwold - An Earthly Paradise.'

A 17th c box tomb with sandstone top in the yard of St Edmund's in Southwold. The curvature in the front is the result of the excise men, or indeed any Tom, Dick or Harry, rasping their cutlasses on this convenient stone just outside the porch....noise enough to wake the dead?