Louvain Rees ⚰️

PSA 📢 A lot of my research is centred around death, psychiatry, and mental health history. Please be aware that some of my posts may be upsetting or uncomfortable to read. Please keep this in mind when reading my posts ✨️

#31daysofgraves • Tree 🌳 A gorgeous weeping willow 🪦 📍St Edmund's Church • Crickhowell ⛪ #Wales #History

#31daysofgraves • Contrast 🪦 A gravestone being devoured by a tree 🌳 📍St John's Church • Ysbyty Ystwyth ⛪ #Wales #History

#31daysofgraves • Wings 🪽 Gorgeous craftsmanship 😍 📍Llanfihangel y Creuddyn ⛪ #Wales #History

#31daysofgraves • Mourning 🪦 📍St Llonio's Church • Llandinam ⛪ #Wales #History

#31daysofgraves • Air 🫧 A cherub blowing bubbles 🫧 📍York Minster ⛪ #History 

#31daysofgraves • Fire 🔥 A gorgeous relief of a cannon 🔥 📍St John's Church • Ruspidge ⛪ #History

#31DaysOfGraves Day 25 - Tree 🌳: Om nom nom. St Chad's, Kirkby.

Seemingly the grave of William Edward Johnson 1812–1867 at the foot of the Soft-Shield Fern/Hart's-tongue Fern filled chalk pit in Limekiln Wood, Stanmer, Brighton. nothing about this on-line. Is it unusual for people to have grave stones in woods? @hellohistoria.bsky.social @lkremmel.bsky.social

#31DaysOfGraves Day 22: Mourning A mourner for Nancy (d.1796) and Mary Elizabeth Churchill (d.1819), cousins from Plymouth, MA. Signed by one of the sons of carver Ebenezer Soule. Soule had 5 sons; 3 were still alive in 1819 (Asaph, Beza, and Ivory). www.capecodgravestones.com/carvers/soul...

#31DaysOfGraves Day 23: Wings There are many fabulous wings on New England gravestones, so I hardly know what to pick. The fluffy feathers of Miriam Pierce in Hadley, MA? My favorite little boob angel in Providence? Pallbearer imps from Cambridge? Hannah Angier's wings galore (also Cambridge)?

#31DaysOfGraves Day 24: Contrast "Contrast" makes me think of the difference between photographing a gravestone in shadow vs. photographing the same stone in raking light. What a difference! gravestone of Timothy Dwyt, 1692 Granary Burying Ground, Boston

#31DaysOfGraves Day 25: Tree Gravestone of Allen Wardwell, a child who died after a fall from a tree in 1799. An image of the fatal accident is carved on his gravestone (North Bristol, RI). While on the tree The summons came And call'd me to my GOD

#31DaysOfGraves Day 26: Accident Amasa Brainard of East Haddam, CT was killed by a falling weight from the church bell on his way into Sunday service in 1798. Also a spectacularly creepy portrait. photo from @amantiquarian.bsky.social farber.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet...

#31DaysOfGraves Day 26 - Accident: Richard Munday fell from his father's warehouse in 1858, aged 16y. Toxteth Park Cemetery, Liverpool.

THE DEVILS' DANCE FLOOR will be published on 25 February 2027 and pre-orders are open NOW! Come and meet Hezekiah Moscow, Alec Munroe, Henry 'Sugar' Goodson, Jack Wannop, Jack Davenport, Alf Ball, Jem Haines, Jem Smith, and a little bit of Felix Scott... 🥊🔪🦁🐻🤜🏻🤛🏾 linktr.ee/thedevilsdan...

#31daysofgraves • Earth 🪱 'Stay passers by and here behold, How wee do ly inclosed in mould, And hungry worms wee daily wast, and so they shall by you at last, But though our Bodys here do ly, Our souls do dwell with God on high' 🪱 📍Lanteglos-by-Camelford ⛪️ #History

Some of the marks from the bell chamber and ringing room of Tewkesbury Abbey tower. www.apotropaios.co.uk

Paid a return visit to Odda's Chapel in Deerhurst (Glos) today to take another look at the marks on the inserted chimney lintel. There are many deliberate burn marks and a fine daisy-wheel, which I'm informed are present in the adjacent houses too. www.apotropaios.co.uk

This is brilliant! My 4xgreat-grandfather was a police officer in Chester.

A piece on Aberfan by @drstephaniebrown.bsky.social which highlights the tension between acknowledging serious harm and accepting legal and moral culpability following a failure of a large institution. drstephaniebrown.substack.com/p/aberfan-wh...

GOD BLESS KENT AND THE CINQUE PORTS FOR COMING UP WITH THE GOODS

2026 marks the 30th birthday of @jofvictculture.bsky.social!! 🎂 Reflecting this milestone & working with previous editors, we 5 Co-Editors have put together a Virtual Special Issue of the 30 articles felt to best represent the journal's lifetime📄 🌟https://academic.oup.com/jvc/pages/30-for-30th

Silver medal awarded by James Young Simpson to George Hogarth Pringle, a student at the University of Edinburgh in the Class of Midwifery, session 1850–51. It was given “for very high merit as a pupil”.

It's #WorldAnatomyDay! To celebrate here's a stunning woodcut illustration from our first edition of "De Humani Corporis Fabrica" by Andreas Vesalius. Published in 1543 the book was a major breakthrough in the development of modern anatomy

This is a 19th century pill machine. A "pill mass' would be rolled into a paste like pipe and placed across the brass corrugated sections. The handle would then be put in place and moved over its rail to divide the pipe into equally sized parts which would be rolled into pills.

As part of our Birth Stories project, Emily has been in the archives! An article from Berrow’s Worcester Journal in 1934 celebrates the opening of the new maternity unit at Worcester Royal Infirmary and provides a wonderful description of the ward's decor (1/3) @voicesofmotherhood.bsky.social

1/2 During the course of research for our Birth Stories project, Emily has come across this article from Berrow's Worcester Journal in 1774 advertising private "Lying in" services for pregnant women in Worcestershire. @voicesofmotherhood.bsky.social

She did what many people in her position have done and continue to do... she went to bed and hoped for the best. She was thirty-two. sophiemhistory.substack.com/p/peculiar-p...

Martha knew her husband better than anyone and she was very worried about his condition the evening before he died. But what could she do? The doctor would not send Isaac back to the asylum until he did something violent. If he went back to the asylum, Martha was left penniless and unable to marry.

FRIDAY MURDER TIME and this time we go to Sandon in rural Essex. In 1859, Isaac Finch married Martha Barber in Woodham Ferrers. They settled in a house just outside Sandon and Isaac worked for Sandon Hall. By 1870, Martha had birthed eight children and lost three. Standard ag labs of the time.

#31DaysOfGraves Day 17: Music This gravestone for Silva Gardner was purchased by her father, Newport Gardner (born Occramer Marycoo). He was kidnapped in Africa at age 14, enslaved, and—after winning a lottery that allowed him to buy freedom for his family—owned a music school in Newport, RI.

#31DaysOfGraves Day 18: Earth John Foster gravestone (1681) by the Old Stone Cutter of Boston, originally erected in Dorchester. A gravestone that will make you ask questions such as, Why do geese hold up the globe? Has the carver ever seen a pelvis? When did he realize he forgot the scythe?

#31DaysOfGraves Day 20: Fire Not a great photo, but this is the gravestone of brothers Levi and Nathaniel Marshall, who were killed (with 2 others) in an explosion at the Chelmsford (Mass) gunpowder mill in 1820. Over the next decade, the mill exploded at least 4 more times, killing 5 more men.

#31DaysOfGraves Day 21: Air John Bull of Newport, RI carved this stone for Charles Bardin (d.1773). New Englanders were generally not big on direct images of God, but John Bull was a literal mutineer, so 🤷 Some have argued that this is Moses parting the Red Sea. I see clouds, not water.

Today I think of my terrified grandmother who lived in Treharris. A year earlier, at age 14, she lost her mother to cancer and left school to take care of her siblings. Her father and brother walked to Aberfan to dig the children out. She was terrified that her father was going to die.

I had so much fun researching this. It was a huge privilege to bring these people ‘back to life’