Travels Through Time

Emma J Wells: Heaven on Earth (1220)

Walking around a cathedral today can be a solemn and an awe-inspiring experience, but what if we could stand inside the same building and travel back 800 years or so? In this episode we do exactly that.
Our guide is Dr Emma J. Wells, a historian, broadcaster and author of Heaven on Earth: The Lives and Legacies of the World’s Greatest Cathedrals.
In this beautifully illustrated book, Emma visits sixteen world-renowned cathedrals ranging from Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, to the “northern powerhouse” of York Minster. She describes their origins, the striking and unusual stories attached to them and the people central to their history. 
In this episode, Emma takes me to the high medieval period, when European architecture was falling in love with the gothic style and cathedral-building was at its height. 
Dr Emma J. Wells’s new book Heaven on Earth is out now from Head of Zeus. 
Show notes
Scene One: Canterbury cathedral, trinity chapel, the scene of St Thomas Becket’s elevation and translation into his new shrine.
Scene Two: Salisbury, the ceremonial laying of the first five foundation stones of the new cathedral after its move from Old Sarum.  
Scene Three: Chartres, France, William de Breton described the growing cathedral’s vaults as bringing to ‘look like the shell of a tortoise’ referring to the higher vaults and a longer and wider nave than any other in Christendom.
Memento: To restore the “super-shrine” of St Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral.
People/Social
Presenter: Artemis Irvine
Guest: Dr Emma J. Wells
Production: Maria Nolan
Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours
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Revolutionary Russia: Orlando Figes (1917)

In the final sentence of A People’s Tragedy, his multi-award winning study of the Russian Revolution, Orlando Figes wrote ominously that, ‘the ghosts of 1917 have not been laid to rest.’
This year, as Russia’s brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has played out, we have been able to glimpse some of these ghosts: fear, paranoia, grievance. All these emotions have arisen out of a long, complicated and contested history that Figes has attempted to explain for a Western readership in his illuminating new book: The Story of Russia.
In this episode we talk about Vladimir Putin’s use and misuse of history today and we look back to a particularly significant year in Russia’s past. 1917 brought revolution to Russia. ‘It is hard to think of an event, or series of events, that has affected the history of the past one hundred years more profoundly’, Figes writes.
The Russian Revolution is an event that began in Petrograd (St Petersburg) in Feburary 1917 and thereafter was driven forward by Vladimir Lenin's singular character. We scruitinise this event, as ever, in three telling scenes.
Orlando Figes’s The Story of Russia is out now from Bloomsbury.
Show notes
Scene One: March 1917. Tauride Palace in Petrograd (St Petersburg).
Scene Two: 3-4 July 1917. Kshesinskaya Mansion in Petrograd.
Scene Three: 25 October 1917. Smolnyi Institute in Petrograd.
Memento: Grand Duke Michael's abdication manifesto
People/Social
Presenter: Peter Moore
Guest: Orlando Figes
Production: Maria Nolan
Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours
Theme music: ‘Love Token’ from the album ‘This Is Us’ By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan
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Lucy Wooding: Tudor England (1558)

Having watched the second Elizabethan era draw to a close in recent weeks, it is fitting that in this episode we are going back to the beginning of the first Elizabethan era – the moment when Mary Tudor died leaving the throne to her younger half-sister.
These two queens, the first women to rule England in their own right, were divided by their faith. The greatest challenge facing Elizabeth on her accession was to unite a country which was polarised by religion, having passed from hard-line Protestantism under Edward VI back to Catholicism with Mary.
Our learned guide on this journey is Dr Lucy Wooding whose masterful new book, Tudor England, gives a rich, detailed vision of the period. Wooding's book is not simply limited to the big political moments but takes the reader right into the lives of ordinary people as well.
Dr Lucy Wooding is Langford Fellow and Tutor in History at Lincoln College, Oxford. She is an expert on Reformation England, its politics, religion and culture, and the author of Henry VIII.
Tudor England by Lucy Wooding is out now.
Show notes
Scene One: 17 November 1558, London. In the early morning, Mary I lies dying at St James's Palace. By evening, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Reginald Pole, has also died – a momentous day for Catholicism in England.
Scene Two: November 1558, a few days earlier. Princess Elizabeth is at a dinner party at Brocket Hall, with the Count of Feria who has been sent by Philip II (Mary’s husband) to sound out the heir to the throne. He concludes that she is, ‘'She is a very vain and clever woman’, who is, ‘determined to be governed by no one'.
Scene Three: Late 1557, The Works of Sir Thomas More, sometime Lord Chauncellor, wrytten by him in the Englysh tonge are published by the printer William Rastell, who was also More’s nephew.
Memento: The reliquary known as the ‘Tablet de Bourbon’, made by one of the great Parisian goldsmiths and acquired as part of a ransom during the Hundred Years War. Worn by Mary I in the portrait by Hans Eworth.
People/Social
Presenter: Violet Moller
Guest: Dr Lucy Wooding
Production: Maria Nolan
Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours
Theme music: ‘Love Token’ from the album ‘This Is Us’ By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan
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Damian Dibben: Venice and ‘The Colour Storm’ (1510)

This week we are off to see some of the Renaissance masters at work with the acclaimed novelist Damian Dibben.
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In the early years of the sixteenth century Venice was not only a place of great power it was a site of huge cultural splendour. In particular a new generation of artists were animating the buildings like never before. And unlike many of the other Renaissance painters, the Venetians were not solely obsessed by line and form; they were equally interested in the allure and possibility of colour. 
In this episode (with a short detour to the Sistine Chapel) we set our gaze on a place that is still affectionately known as the Queen of the Adriatic. In doing so we look at two of its great artists as they work with their cobalts and ultramarines. One of them, Titian, is well known to us. The other, Giorgione, or ‘Big George’, is a more elusive character.
Only a small number of Giorgione’s paintings survive today, but they convey his strange and brilliant originality. Art historians have spent centuries trying to make sense of his enigmatic depictions, which are suffused with a misty light that seems to have drifted straight off the lagoon.
Damian Dibben’s novels have been translated into twenty-seven languages and published in over forty countries. His series The History Keepers was an international publishing phenomenon. His new book is The Colour Storm.
Show notes
Scene One: 1510. Titian, the 22 year old Venetian painter paints his 'Man with a Quilted Sleeve.
Scene Two: 1510. Michelangelo paints the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. This was an incredible feat of artistic brilliance and physical endurance, achieved by a someone who was a true genius but personally difficult and far from pleasant.
Scene Three: October 1510. The death of Giorgione. One of the greatest painters, a vital link in the history of art who would have produced stunning masterpieces had he not died at 33, probably of plague.
Memento: Giorgione’s painting of a knight and his squire, or groom, c.1507
People/Social
Presenter: Violet Moller
Guest: Damian Dibben
Production: Maria Nolan
Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours
Theme music: ‘Love Token’ from the album ‘This Is Us’ By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan
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Robert Harris: Act of Oblivion (1660)

We start our sixth season with Robert Harris, one of Britain's great contemporary novelists. He takes us back to a tremendously important year in English (and world) history. 1660.
In England the mid seventeenth century was a dramatic and bloody time. It was a age when important questions about the nature of power were posed and the traditions of monarchy were challenged. In 1649 this led to the execution of King Charles I on a cold January day in Whitehall. Almost a century and a half before the French removed Louis XVI, England pioneered a new form of republican society.
This was not destined to last. Oliver Cromwell’s death in September 1658 left the country with a power vacuum. After various alternatives were tested, the decision was finally taken to invite the dead king’s eldest surviving son, Charles, back from Europe to regain the throne for the Stuart family.
Charles II’s entry into London on his birthday, 29 May 1660, was a emotional occasion. But for all the excitement and all the glamour of the year John Evelyn called an ‘Annus Miribilis’, some knotty questions remained. One of the greatest of these was what should be done with the surviving ‘regicides’ – the scores of people who had signed the death warrant of the new king’s father.
This history forms the background to Robert Harris’s exhilarating new novel. In Act of Oblivion he tells the story of a transatlantic manhunt for two of the regicides: the colonels Edward Whalley and William Goffe.
Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris is available now.
Show notes
Scene One: 29 May 1660. Charles II returns to London after being exiled and is proclaimed lawful monarch.
Scene Two: 29 August 1660. The Act of Oblivion is passed in Parliament.
Scene Three: 27 July 1660. Colonels Edward Whalley and William Goffe, two regicides, arrive in Boston
Memento: Charles I’s death warrant
People/Social
Presenter: Peter Moore
Guest: Robert Harris
Production: Maria Nolan
Theme music: ‘Love Token’ from the album ‘This Is Us’ By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan
Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours
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Hello Everyone: Season Six of TTT

Hello everyone, we're back!
Season Six of Travels Through Time begins with an episode with the Number One Bestselling novelist Robert Harris tomorrow. 
Music: “Love Token” from the album “This Is Us” By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan
 

Suzanne Fagence Cooper: At Home with Jane and William Morris (1862)

This week we meet an extraordinary couple, whose life-long partnership and dual creativity changed the face of Britain’s Arts and Crafts movement. 
If it’s ever been possible to come up with a philosophy for how to live, William Morris came pretty close. He once said that “The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.”
It’s a beautiful sentiment and it’s one that makes even more sense when you learn more about his family and the home he created with his wife, Jane. 
Their marriage was complicated and painful at times, but Jane and William Morris built a life together that valued things that were beautiful and useful, people who were generous and creative.
The story of their relationship is told vividly in my guest today, Suzanne Fagence Cooper’s new book How We Might Live: At Home With Jane and William Morris. Suzanne Fagence Cooper is a writer, lecturer and curator, working on 19th and 20th century British art, design and culture. How We Might Live, is published by Quercus. 
As ever, for more about this episode, head over to our website: www.tttpodcast.com
Show Notes
Scene One: 1862. The birth of May Morris.
Scene Two: 1862. First exhibition for Morris & Co.
Scene Three: 1862. The death of Elizabeth Siddall.
Momento: Gabriel Rossetti's book of poems.
People/Social
Presenter: Artemis Irvine
Guest: Suzanne Fagence Cooper
Production: Maria Nolan
Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours
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[Live] Oskar Jensen: Vagabonds (1815)

Welcome to a very special live recording of Travels Through Time, made at the Chalke Valley History Festival.
Under the sun of a midsummer day in southern England, Violet Moller sat down for a chat, and a song, with a fascinating young historian. Oskar Jensen took Violet back to the year 1815 and introduced her to several characters from his new book, Vagabonds: Life on the Streets of Nineteenth Century London.
Oskar Jensen completed a doctorate at Christ Church, Oxford before being awarded a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship. He is currently teaching at the University of East Anglia as a Senior Research Associate and is about to take up a NUAcT Fellowship at Newcastle University
Jensen has appeared on BBC1’s Who Do You Think You Are? and regularly contributes to Radio 3 and 4. He is also one of the BBC New Generation Thinkers 2022 and is a co-founder of the Romantic National Song Network.
Vagabonds is his first popular history book.
As ever, for more about this episode, head over to our website: www.tttpodcast.com
Show notes
Scene One: Kennington in South London, as 22-year-old servant Mary Bailey, who has just been fired, hears an execution ballad about Eliza Fenning.
Scene Two: Torbay harbour, as a certain Corsican gentleman sets off total mania and hysteria in Britons across the land, inspiring a number of songs in the process.
Scene Three: Tower Hill, as Joseph Johnson tries to come to terms with alienation, disappointment, and disability - partly through appropriating songs of both hope and protest.
Memento: Napoleon’s tricorn
People/Social
Presenter: Violet Moller
Guest: Oskar Jensen
Production: Maria Nolan
Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours
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With thanks to everyone at the wonderful Chalke Valley History Festival.

Michael Wood: Alfred the Great and the Vikings (878)

This week we are travelling back to the ninth century to witness one of the major turning points in English history.
Winston Churchill regularly tops ‘the greatest Briton of all time’ charts, but his own vote for this accolade apparently went to the man we are going to discuss today.
Alfred 'the Great' is the only English monarch to enjoy such an admiring epithet. Æthelred, the later monarch, is remembered as ‘the Unready’ (although this meant poorly advised rather than unprepared), William I is either ‘the conqueror’ or ‘the bastard’ depending on your point of view – no other monarch’s reputation has survived with a rosy glow.
Our time travel today in the company of the world-renowned historian Michael Wood reveals exactly why Alfred is so well thought of. He takes us back to 878, a pivotal year in our history when, against all the odds, the Viking invaders were defeated, pushed out of Alfred’s kingdom of Wessex and the geopolitics were set for the following centuries.
Michael Wood’s In Search of the Dark Ages: a History of Anglo-Saxon England 40th anniversary edition, is newly published by BBC Books.
As ever, for more about this episode, head over to our website: www.tttpodcast.com
Show notes
Scene One: March 23rd Easter at Athelney, after Alfred’s desperate guerrilla war in the Somerset marshes.
Scene Two: 9th May, the Battle of Edington, Alfred defeats the Viking forces against all odds.
Scene Three: 26th June Treaty at Wedmore which changed the course of the Viking wars and resulted in their leader, Guthrum converting to Christianity with Alfred as his godfather.
Memento: Alfred’s little commonplace book that he carried around with him, and perhaps had with him in the marshes.
People/Social
Presenter: Violet Moller
Guest: Michael Wood
Production: Maria Nolan
Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours
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Ronan McGreevy: The Assassination of Sir Henry Wilson MP (1922)

Almost exactly a century ago, on 22 June 1922, a series of gunshots rang out in Belgravia, London. Out of this polite neighbourhood, home to powerful politicians and wealthy financiers, a shocking news story quickly spread. Field Marshall Sir Henry Wilson, MP, one of the great heroes of the Great War had been assassinated.
Who was responsible, why it mattered, and what happened next is the subject of an incisive, absorbing new book called Great Hatred, by the Irish Times journalist Ronan McGreevy. As McGreevy explains in this episode of Travels Through Time, the bullets that were fired that day in Belgravia did not just cause one death. They led very soon afterwards to an equally significant other.
Ronan McGreevy’s Great Hatred: the Assassination of Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, MP, is newly issued in hardback by Faber.
As ever, for more about this episode, head over to our website: www.tttpodcast.com
Show notes
Scene One: Liverpool Street Station at 12.50pm on June 22nd, 1922: Henry Wilson unveils a war memorial.
Scene Two: 36 Eaton Place at 2.30pm on June 22nd 1922:  Henry Wilson is murdered on his own doorstep.
Scene Three: Béal na Bláth (the Mouth of the Flowers), Co Cork August 22nd, 1922: Michael Collins is shot dead by anti-Treaty forces in an ambush.
Momento: Henry Wilson’s sword.
People/Social
Presenter: Peter Moore
Guest: Ronan McGreevy
Production: Maria Nolan
Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours
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