Christopher LONG
@calong.bsky.social
Journalist, Editor & Foreign Correspondent | Lives in Normandy | Vernacular, church and hall-house architecture | Volunteer archaeologist | Timber & clay hall builder | Historian of C19th Chiot & Phanariot diaspora | Farmer. <ChristopherLong.co.uk> 🦋2023
My great-uncle Captain Basil Andrew Long died on The Somme and his dress sword, his bronze ‘penny’ and other belongings live on with us here every day. He is buried at Heilly, not far from Albert. He is not forgotten - and especially remembered at 11:00 am today.
November 11, 2025 at 11:50 AM
My great-uncle Captain Basil Andrew Long died on The Somme and his dress sword, his bronze ‘penny’ and other belongings live on with us here every day. He is buried at Heilly, not far from Albert. He is not forgotten - and especially remembered at 11:00 am today.
On Saturday 20th September about 250 descendants of the Chiot & Phanariot diaspora commemorated their origins at the Hellenic Enclosure, West Norwood Cemetery in London. This diaspora was provoked by the Massacres of Chios in 1822. Read more about this at: www.christopherlong.co.uk/WhoAreYourPe...
September 23, 2025 at 8:59 PM
On Saturday 20th September about 250 descendants of the Chiot & Phanariot diaspora commemorated their origins at the Hellenic Enclosure, West Norwood Cemetery in London. This diaspora was provoked by the Massacres of Chios in 1822. Read more about this at: www.christopherlong.co.uk/WhoAreYourPe...
Thank you! I love this picture but it can look even better, such like this…
August 18, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Thank you! I love this picture but it can look even better, such like this…
Here’s Ken Hay, 100 this year, at the Ver-sur-Mer memorial n Normandy this morning, chatting with local primary school children before our D-Day service. The kids were genuinely fascinated to meet him and he seemed very happy to see them too! 📷 mine.
June 6, 2025 at 8:40 PM
Here’s Ken Hay, 100 this year, at the Ver-sur-Mer memorial n Normandy this morning, chatting with local primary school children before our D-Day service. The kids were genuinely fascinated to meet him and he seemed very happy to see them too! 📷 mine.
Kate @curatorkate.bsky.social - don’t let @limefinishes.bsky.social see these! In Avranches, #Normandy, after WWll destruction, Italian artisans were employed to rebuild and repair the city. They replaced lime/sand/clay/grit joints with cement - and no doubt Italian snails to make ‘snail trails’!
March 29, 2025 at 1:01 PM
Kate @curatorkate.bsky.social - don’t let @limefinishes.bsky.social see these! In Avranches, #Normandy, after WWll destruction, Italian artisans were employed to rebuild and repair the city. They replaced lime/sand/clay/grit joints with cement - and no doubt Italian snails to make ‘snail trails’!
In 2008 we saved a British #WWll Bailey Bridge from destruction. It had served the 1944 Mulberry Harbour at Arromanches. After the war it replaced a war-damaged road bridge. It is now preserved in the #Normandy battlefields at Pont-Farcy. On Thursday France kindly declared it a Monument Historique!
March 22, 2025 at 1:54 PM
Wish I could be around when that happens (would interest me a lot) but today I started preparing for this season’s clay/sand/lime projects (restoring buildings on our place here in Normandy). A few to finish from last year (see pics) and a freestanding bread oven to start on… Will post more for you…
March 19, 2025 at 8:32 PM
Wish I could be around when that happens (would interest me a lot) but today I started preparing for this season’s clay/sand/lime projects (restoring buildings on our place here in Normandy). A few to finish from last year (see pics) and a freestanding bread oven to start on… Will post more for you…
Very bad photo, but here is a very simple solid-tread staircase at Aligny, #Normandy (house now ‘modernised’)… Nothing like as impressive as your fabulous vernacular example!
March 18, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Very bad photo, but here is a very simple solid-tread staircase at Aligny, #Normandy (house now ‘modernised’)… Nothing like as impressive as your fabulous vernacular example!
I just mentioned the mine clearance people - here we are in 2023 discovering US front line positions and action during August 1944 ‘Cobra’ breakout in Normandy. Led by archaeologist Cam Ross and BAG group, we had loads more of this nasty stuff and were glad to see it carted off for disposal.
March 15, 2025 at 4:37 PM
I just mentioned the mine clearance people - here we are in 2023 discovering US front line positions and action during August 1944 ‘Cobra’ breakout in Normandy. Led by archaeologist Cam Ross and BAG group, we had loads more of this nasty stuff and were glad to see it carted off for disposal.
Don’t Spring clean your archaeology bag. I trowelled through layers of sweet papers, desiccated fruit, mouldy bread, sherds never recorded (the shame of it) and an urgent note for Helen(?) to tell her to expect the mine clearance people any minute - never delivered. Leave the past buried in peace.
March 15, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Don’t Spring clean your archaeology bag. I trowelled through layers of sweet papers, desiccated fruit, mouldy bread, sherds never recorded (the shame of it) and an urgent note for Helen(?) to tell her to expect the mine clearance people any minute - never delivered. Leave the past buried in peace.
Tim, that puts us to shame! Very impressive though. Here in #Normandy we coppice our hedges so, with 2 km of hedges, we rotate the harvest to get about 150 metres per year. This is the result of 75 metres - two wigwams drying until we cut it up in October. Children and sheep adore them in summer!
March 9, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Tim, that puts us to shame! Very impressive though. Here in #Normandy we coppice our hedges so, with 2 km of hedges, we rotate the harvest to get about 150 metres per year. This is the result of 75 metres - two wigwams drying until we cut it up in October. Children and sheep adore them in summer!
Interesting! You can just see (look carefully) a similar line of small scriptorium windows, now blocked in, at Beauport Abbey in Britanny.
February 26, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Interesting! You can just see (look carefully) a similar line of small scriptorium windows, now blocked in, at Beauport Abbey in Britanny.
My Brabant plough which was used on our land (by our predecessors, behind a Norman Cob horse) well into the 1960s… One day I’ll hitch it to my Massey Ferguson 152 and grow a crop of potatoes…
February 14, 2025 at 8:53 PM
My Brabant plough which was used on our land (by our predecessors, behind a Norman Cob horse) well into the 1960s… One day I’ll hitch it to my Massey Ferguson 152 and grow a crop of potatoes…
I was at school in Canterbury and when I came to build my own timber hall here in #Normandy, 60 years later, I was of course hugely influenced by the mediaeval timber houses I knew in Kent and Sussex!
February 3, 2025 at 10:18 PM
I was at school in Canterbury and when I came to build my own timber hall here in #Normandy, 60 years later, I was of course hugely influenced by the mediaeval timber houses I knew in Kent and Sussex!
First primroses of 2025 are sunning themselves in one if our innumerable ancient hollow ways here in #Normandy ! Spring can’t be far behind… and now I’ll start posting mediaeval churches again (inter alia) after a pause of a month owing to circumstances beyond my control…
January 30, 2025 at 3:59 PM
First primroses of 2025 are sunning themselves in one if our innumerable ancient hollow ways here in #Normandy ! Spring can’t be far behind… and now I’ll start posting mediaeval churches again (inter alia) after a pause of a month owing to circumstances beyond my control…
… and barred windows of the same sort were standard-issue in rural #Normandy during the troubled mid-C16th period of the wars of religion, as seen in this 1584 manor house at Saint-Vigor-des-Monts.
January 29, 2025 at 12:53 PM
… and barred windows of the same sort were standard-issue in rural #Normandy during the troubled mid-C16th period of the wars of religion, as seen in this 1584 manor house at Saint-Vigor-des-Monts.
My humble reply, Colin, and no way matching you wonderful results, but here’s a happy snap of our local #Mont-Sant-Michel. I’d done translations for an exhibition catalogue + film and we were gathered for the PV and endless speeches! I was snapping in caged frustration from an uncomfortable chair!
January 5, 2025 at 4:27 PM
My humble reply, Colin, and no way matching you wonderful results, but here’s a happy snap of our local #Mont-Sant-Michel. I’d done translations for an exhibition catalogue + film and we were gathered for the PV and endless speeches! I was snapping in caged frustration from an uncomfortable chair!
Well, when Christmas is over, the next thing on our agenda is New Year and lambing! This year, at last, we are spared going out in dressing-gowns and wellie boots to pull out lambs by torchlight, but we will see the new-comers tottering around uncertainly in search of a warming welcoming teat…!
December 26, 2024 at 1:09 PM
Well, when Christmas is over, the next thing on our agenda is New Year and lambing! This year, at last, we are spared going out in dressing-gowns and wellie boots to pull out lambs by torchlight, but we will see the new-comers tottering around uncertainly in search of a warming welcoming teat…!
Happy new year @lynnswafflespics.bsky.social ! Impressive quiz, thank you! This is a summer house-party of my mother’s family at Saltmarshe Castle, Herefordshire in 1911. I can identify everyone but not the make of the car. How can one do that? Someone suggests a Napier. Greatly appreciate any help.
December 26, 2024 at 10:20 AM
Happy new year @lynnswafflespics.bsky.social ! Impressive quiz, thank you! This is a summer house-party of my mother’s family at Saltmarshe Castle, Herefordshire in 1911. I can identify everyone but not the make of the car. How can one do that? Someone suggests a Napier. Greatly appreciate any help.
Christmas Day walk in Saint-Sever forest, #Normandy. The huge mound of our local motte (sans bailey) is hidden among the fir trees, a reminder that these C11th symbols of power (tyranny?) had their origins here across the Channel. It sits on the formerly rich C12th lands of the abbey of Saint-Sever.
December 25, 2024 at 2:01 PM
Christmas Day walk in Saint-Sever forest, #Normandy. The huge mound of our local motte (sans bailey) is hidden among the fir trees, a reminder that these C11th symbols of power (tyranny?) had their origins here across the Channel. It sits on the formerly rich C12th lands of the abbey of Saint-Sever.
Apparently, when I was very young, I wished people ‘Happy Holly’ — so happy holly to everyone now…
December 24, 2024 at 2:31 PM
Apparently, when I was very young, I wished people ‘Happy Holly’ — so happy holly to everyone now…
You want faces, we got faces! Some old, some quite new, all living in Sainte Marie-Laumont church in #Normandy. Will post more about the church another time. The crossing tower is octagonal and its interior richly influenced by Byzantium…
December 23, 2024 at 2:05 PM
You want faces, we got faces! Some old, some quite new, all living in Sainte Marie-Laumont church in #Normandy. Will post more about the church another time. The crossing tower is octagonal and its interior richly influenced by Byzantium…
Love this little detail in your pic, Kate!
December 22, 2024 at 12:52 PM
Love this little detail in your pic, Kate!