Dr Melita Thomas

The second of my compact books published today. Available from Graffeg, if you'd like an insight into Tudor mischief!

Beautiful and talented Baroness Penelope survives scandal and tragedy to find happiness: 🇺🇸 www.amazon.com/dp/B0C78KDRK3 🇬🇧 www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C78KDRK3 #Elizabethan #Tudors #HistoricalFiction #Audiobooks

Publishing today!

Bowed but still hanging on valiantly after the fierce wind and torrential rain from two storms.

"Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night." Romeo and Juliet 3.2 #ShakespeareSunday

An early 12th century corbel from Wimborne Minster in Dorset of Moses, with the Ten Commandments in hand. 📸 My own #StoneworkSunday #WimborneMinster

Great news towards the reopening of our brilliant county museum, Amgueddfa Ceredigion 🥳 @carriecanham.bsky.social www.tivysideadvertiser.co.uk/news/2666347...

The famous - and very impressive - lantern at Ely Cathedral 🤩

O Lord, grant us a quiet night and a peaceful end. #Compline

#Roman blue #glass Amphoriskos (circa 1st Century AD. 3 1/4 in. (8.2 cm.) high #AncientGlass #artwork #Art

A cool model of the theatre of Clunia Sulpicia in northern Spain, one half as it once looked and the other as it was before excavation in the early 20th century 📍 Burgos Museum, Spain 📸 Me 🏺 #RomanSiteSaturday #archaeology

This beautiful Roman cameo glass disc portrays a young man in a Phrygian cap and cloak beneath foliage. Given the stereotypical ‘Easternness’ of his outfit, it may be Paris, prince of Troy, and may depict him in his judgement of the three goddesses on Mt Ida. 🕰️C1stAD 🏛️BM 📷mine

To bring a smile to your face, here’s a c. 4,500 year-old clay vase in the shape of a little hedgehog holding a bowl! 🦔 ❤️ From Chalandriani, Syros, Greece. Early Cycladic II period. National Archaeological Museum, Athens, 📷 ArchaiOptix #Archaeology

Magnificent fan vaulting above the choir and altar in Bath Abbey. built in the time of Henry VII by Master Masons Robert and William Vertue. #ceilingsonsunday #tudor

#Agincourt otd 1415 ⚔️

“A brilliant portrait of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, in a vivid recreation of the lethal court of Elizabeth I.” Historical Fiction Author David Pilling mybook.to/EssexTudorRe... #Elizabethan #Tudors #HistoricalFiction #Audiobook

I see your Roman fort and I raise you a Roman palace

Discover the origins of the Tudor dynasty, from Owen Tudor’s first meeting with widowed Queen Catherine of Valois to Henry Tudor becoming King of England. mybook.to/TheTudorTril... #Tudors #HistoricalFiction #KindleUnlimited #audiobooks

Inside (my) private library in Edinburgh, my pictires

Good morning to all our new followers and to our old chums alike. When we are not sharing pictures of medieval bats we are sharing pictures of our medieval roof. This is the Merchant Adventurers' Hall - built in 1357 and still looking fabulous 669 years later. 😘

Remains of a Roman bathhouse, added to the interior of Caernarfon (SEGONTIVM) Roman auxiliary fort #Gwynedd in the 3rd century AD Excavated by Mortimer and Tessa Verney Wheeler between 1921-23 Sadly missed by most modern visitors to the town 📷 Aug 2008 #RomanFortThursday

The heavily restored Norman font of St Peter and St Paul's Church at Belton in Lincolnshire. The church served as the estate church for the nearby Belton House. 📸 My own. #FontsOnFriday #Belton #Lincolnshire

#FindsFriday 🐉🐲 Dragonesque brooches are a distinctive type of brooch made in #RomanBritain between about 75 and 175 AD, they were not only decorative objects, but also functional fasteners, a strongly-curved pin would have held a thick fold of cloth. See Alt.

I’m talking about my new research into Jane Seymour over at @hrp-palaces.bsky.social podcast with @tracyborman.bsky.social So wonderful to get the chance to delve into Jane’s story in place where she died. Podcast on YouTube & all the places you currently find podcasts #janeseymour #hamptoncourt

did they hire Thomas Cromwell as consultant?

Amazingly crafted gold leaf funerary mask, to be placed over the face of a mummified person, c.200BC It still has traces of the fingerprints of the maker apparently! Just a shame it's in the UK and not still in Egypt though... 📸 Me 📍 Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge #archaeology #FindsFriday

A lovely Romano-British brooch in the form of a cheerful little hare! ❤️ Copper alloy decorated with enamel, 2nd-3rd century AD. 📷 British Museum www.britishmuseum.org/collection/o... #Archaeology

One of the more remote fortifications in Britannia for #RomanFortThursday The earthwork remains of a Roman watchtower on the rocky summit of Penbrynyreglwys, above Carmel Head on NW Anglesey, commanding the northwest seaways of Wales overlooking Holyhead harbour 📷 My own last week

Stabiae was a luxurious holiday resort on the Bay of Naples for wealthy Romans who went for the social scene and the natural thermal baths. Like Pompeii, it was buried in ash by Vesuvius in 79AD. This incredible fresco of its port was found in one of the villas. 🏛️📷 MANN #FrescoFriday

A number of manuscripts in the renowned Cotton collection were damaged or destroyed in the fire at Ashburnham House, London, #OTD in 1731. The Lindisfarne Gospels, pictured, and the Durham Liber Vitae were among those to survive.

This weekend's #ShakespeareSunday theme: NIGHT TIME! 🌙

A hooked tag from the 9th century for fastening a purse or clothing. The Anglo-Saxon tag was discovered by a metal detectorist in Chippenham, and is now part of the collections at Ely Museum. 📸 My own. #FindsFriday #AngloSaxon #ElyMuseum

That’s unexpected! A white nerine has popped up in my Devon garden. I don’t remember planting it there! #FlowersOnFriday

May the happy bats bring you much joy this weekend. Oh and for those who’ve not seen it, there’s a post below with many more of our flying friends. 🦇 👇

Some gorgeous, decorated glass beads, one complete (18mm diameter) and three fragmentary, from Glastonbury Iron Age Lake Village Showy and eye-catching jewellery from over 2,000 years ago now in the Glastonbury Tribunal Museum #Somerset 📷 August 2026 #FindsFriday

When Welsh servant Owen Tudor secretly marries the widowed Queen Catherine of Valois, neither can imagine how they will change England forever. Discover the extraordinary origins of the Tudors. 📖 mybook.to/Owen #HistoricalFiction #Tudors #KindleUnlimited

The wonders of peatlands - bog asphodel.

Elizabeth Brooke m. Thomas Wyatt but he abandoned her. He told his son that ‘[t]he fault is both in your mother and me, but chiefly in her.’ In 1541 Wyatt was accused of treason. He was pardoned conditional on reconciliation w. Elizabeth. Kings, Queens, Nobles, and Courtiers. link.amazon/B0fjQ1UK2

Lady Anne Villiers, by Theodore Russel, c. 1640s #Stuarts

Thanks @cathiedunn.bsky.social for some great questions on today's blog tour at #TheCoffeePotBookClub. You nearly made me give away the big plot twist! #HistoricalFiction #HistoricalMystery #Stuarts thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2026/10/join...

The east gate at Birdoswald is the best preserved of any of the forts on Hadrian's Wall, while nearby sections of the Wall itself are easily accessible. More on Birdoswald in a new blog: visiting-roman-sites.blogspot.com/2026/10/bird... #RomanFortThursday #RomanBritain #HadriansWall

Sheela-na-gig, said to have attached to a medieval church, Seir Kieran, Co. Offaly, National Museum of Dublin #druidsky /|\ #pagansky #witchsky #occultsky #heathensky #archaeology #celtic #Ireland #Sheela-na-gig #goddess

You know how edited collections of academic essays can take a while to come out? Well, one of the contributors to this one died sixteen years ago.

For #RomanFortThursday here’s a smaller fortlet on top of Penycrocbren hill, Dylife in Powys, Mid Wales. It lies next to a Roman road over the ridge & north of the linear remains of early lead mines. To the west is a gibbet site on a Bronze Age burial mound. The fortlet dates to the 2nd c.

The west doorway of St Mary, Mulberry Street, Manchester, better known as the Hidden Gem, by Matthew Hadfield, 1848 based on a design by the Salford architect Richard Lane. Hadfield's St Chad, Cheetham Hill had opened the previous year. He also designed Salford Cathedral. #ADoorableThursday

All a bit of lockdown project, early modern research carry on