Maev Kennedy

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Island hopping: exhibition finds connections between ancient cultures of the Mediterranean

Show at Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum of more than 200 artefacts from Sardinia, Cyprus and Crete considers the connections between lost island civilisations

Britain's oldest prayer beads—buried more than 1,000 years ago—to be displayed in new museum on remote island

It is one of several artefacts making their first public appearance at Lindisfarne Priory

Booksreview

For richer, for poorer: domestic life in 18th-century Ireland examined in new book

Scholarly essays examine how people lived, from poor tenant farmers to their whist-playing landlords

Conservation of Spanish Armada invasion maps reveals red ink details were added hundreds of years later

Analysis of 16th-century, hand-drawn maps finds that the reds pigments were only available from the late 19th century

London operating theatre—the oldest in Europe—goes under the knife for major restoration

Victorian hospital will re-create the original skylight that aided innovative treatment of “working and deserving” women

Gainsborough’s new home: museum dedicated to artist reopens in 'sweet' English village

The newly restored galleries will also exhibit loan shows and house collections by Suffolk’s own Cedric Morris and John Constable

Top-shelf secrets lie behind the Victorian respectability of newly restored Sambourne House

House in London's Kensington includes hundreds of commercial artist Linley Sambourne’s illustrations and cartoons—and (not on view) his pornographic photographs

British Museum’s cracking tale of ancient Egyptian code, scholarly rivalry, sex and a magic bath

A new exhibition based around the Rosetta Stone marks 200 years since hieroglyphs were deciphered

Eight exhibitions to see during London's Frieze Week

From Cezanne's love of Provence at Tate Modern to cracking the Ancient Egyptian code at the British Museum

London's Wellcome Collection returns remains of death camp victim to Denmark

Research carried out in 2019 helped identify the remains as Preben Holger Larsen, a 26-year-old artist and member of the Danish resistance

Booksreview

How England's Civil War laid waste to the country's grandest private house

Book tells tale of how Oliver Cromwell wiped Basing House—which provided shelter to the famous classical architect Inigo Jones—off the map

Booksreview

Adam Dant’s on-the-nose political maps are delightfully vulgar—and merit a ‘Partygate’ update

New book collects the illustrator’s maps that range from UK political sleaze to the renaming of American states using cockney rhyming slang

Tŷ Pawb: an eclectic Welsh centre that wants to be a home for all—including a sweet shop and a dog grooming parlour

Built as a multi-storey car park, this redeveloped Wrexham centre has found its focus on textiles, artists and local groups and offers children’s play and workshops

In partnership withArt Fund Museum of the Year 2022

William Beckford’s tower is finally complete, 200 years after the eccentric English architect started construction

The Bath museum, the only surviving example of the reclusive millionaire's architectural achievements, is also showing works from his original art collection

Medieval Welsh castle in world's first 'book town' saved from collapse

Hay Castle will open to the public for the first time following a £7m restoration project

Historic English villa—built by royal mistress to escape her 'stinker' of a husband—reopens after restoration

Henrietta Howard's Marble Hill is a rare surviving example of such a home, and even rarer as one created by a woman

Booksreview

Book investigates why so many Irish country houses were subject to devastating arson attacks in the 1920s

While the early part of this publication is dry, once the fires start the narrative heats up

Booksreview

From torture to cream tea: new book chronicles the history of Britain’s castles

Eyewitness accounts from behind the gates of fortresses dating from the seventh century to now bring these imposing buildings to life

William Morris's 'heaven on earth' home in the Cotswolds reopens after restoration

New research has helped to bring back lost objects and features at Kelmscott Manor, where the English Arts and Crafts designer lived for 25 years

Anne Boleyn’s falcon—removed after her execution—returns to Hampton Court

The newly discovered emblem goes back on show on the 500th anniversary of the day King Henry VIII first met his future second wife

The room where it happened: John Lavery’s studio

Cromwell Place opens up the former studio of the Irish artist, where he painted prominent Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiators

London's National Maritime Museum launches campaign to rescue giant decaying tapestry—unseen for decades

Commissioned by Charles II, the work depicts the 1672 Battle of Solebay between the English and Dutch in which the 1st Earl of Sandwich drowned

Exhibition explores the many faces of Elizabeth I and her fellow Tudors

The show of portraits at the Holburne Museum in Bath charts the reign of the Tudor monarchs and their subjects

True mettle: restoring Hampton Court Palace's glorious but scarred Baroque iron screens

Reviving 17th-century Tijou screens commissioned by Protestant monarchs William and Mary means undoing decades of damage and haphazard repairs

Booksreview

Spend, spend, spend: what lies behind the Stuarts’ taste for extravagant buildings and interiors

The turbulent period’s flashy architectural projects aimed to send out a powerful message, new book reveals

Magnificent Roman mosaic discovered in a farmer's field is 'UK's most exciting find of its kind in a century'

The first ever mosaic illustrating scenes from Homer’s Iliad, it would have decorated an imposing dining and entertainment space within a major villa complex

Going underground: English poet Alexander Pope’s hidden grotto to be saved

A relic of national importance, the man-made cave is all that remains of his villa and gardens—and is only accessible through a school dining hall

British Museum reveals the golden and gruesome history of Ancient Peru

This major London show, marking the 200th anniversary of the country's independence, does not flinch from the bloodiest aspects of Inca culture

Secrets of the Black Prince's tomb effigy in Canterbury Cathedral revealed by scientists

Sculpture atop the final resting place of the medieval knight and heir to Edward III has been examined by a team of researchers led by The Courtauld Institute of Art