When Wrest Park’s Jemima, Marchioness Grey, was widowed, she unleashed her purse strings to install lavish Chinese art across the Bedfordshire estate: perfect for taking tea with friends.
You can get lost in the intricate birds, plants and people featured in Wrest Park’s Chinese wallpapers, but how was this part of a wider fashion in textiles, design and l ... Show More
Sep 10
The sights, sounds and smells of a Roman fort
Housesteads Roman Fort on Hadrian's Wall is Britain's most complete Roman fort. From the remains of its buildings, we can get a good idea of what it looked like. But how did the bathhouse smell? Or, perhaps more importantly, what about the latrines? What did the food taste like? ... Show More
51m 6s
Aug 27
From monastery to mansion: The colourful history of Audley End House
Audley End House in Essex is still one of England’s finest mansions. To look at it today, you’d never know it started life as Walden Abbey, a Benedictine monastery dissolved by Henry VIII. The story of its journey from monastery to mansion involves intrigue, fraud, brazen ambitio ... Show More
48m 15s
May 2021
Fashioned from Nature in China: An Interview with Edith Cheung, Part II
Edith Cheung, curator of Fashioned from Nature in China: Then and Now, shares with us her path to becoming a fashion and textile consultant for the Chinese National Silk Museum.
Recommended browsing:
https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/china-national-silk-museum
Learn ... Show More
23m 42s
Jan 2024
It's Tea Time: Pirates, Polyphenols, and a Proper Cuppa (encore)
This week, Gastropod tells the story of two countries and their shared obsession with a plant: Camellia sinensis, otherwise known as the tea bush. The Chinese domesticated tea over thousands of years, but they lost their near monopoly on international trade when a Scottish botani ... Show More
45m 21s
Jul 2009
Duchess of Decadence: Georgiana
<p>Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, was also known as the Empress of Fashion. Married at the age of 16, the Duchess soon became enormously popular and led a life of excess. Learn what happened next in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.</p><p> </p> Learn more about your ad-choi ... Show More
21m 6s