Caroline Shenton
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dustshoveller.bsky.social
Caroline Shenton
@dustshoveller.bsky.social
Archivist, Historian and Author of The Day Parliament Burned Down and National Treasures. #RCEWA member. Secretary to Council at Girton College, Cambridge. TLDR: PenPusher.
Tough choice this one. Roman road made of oreos or the little animals peering out atop the summit of Mount Ararat?
I can’t decide which is my favourite capital at Autun - should I go for the donkey or for Noah’s ark? Votes, please?
August 7, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Reposted by Caroline Shenton
Today is my last day working in the Parliamentary Archives after nearly 25 years! I am v grateful to colleagues for many cards and gifts. I have a shiny new website to support next phase of life www.maritakayanagi.com
June 13, 2025 at 7:49 AM
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Very pleased to encounter this very handsome fellow enjoying summer Cambridge.
June 16, 2025 at 7:38 PM
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Charles Barry, architect of the new Houses of Parliament, was born #OnThisDay 1795, a stone’s throne from the old Palace of Westminster. This guest post from @dustshoveller.bsky.social looks at his background and knowledge of Westminster: historyofparliament.com/2025/05/12/c...
A Westminster Boy Made Good: Charles Barry (1795-1860) - The History of Parliament
On the night of 16 October 1834, thirty-nine year old Charles Barry was travelling back to town from business in Brighton. As his stagecoach trundled over the top of the North Downs, and began its des...
historyofparliament.com
May 23, 2025 at 11:49 AM
Reposted by Caroline Shenton
Major news from our Special Collections and Archives! 📢

Our Head of Music, Prof Lisa Colton @lisacolton.bsky.social, identified that we hold the manuscript of Dame Ethel Smyth's Mass in D, which scholars thought was lost. It is now fully available on the Digital Heritage Lab: tinyurl.com/47ce8hkd
May 9, 2025 at 3:26 PM
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And another one @dustshoveller.bsky.social , in the display associated with their excellent London in the Second World War exhibition @thelondonarchives.bsky.social
May 10, 2025 at 7:00 AM
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National Treasures by @dustshoveller.bsky.social featured in my local library’s VE display!
April 30, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Just in case you’re at a loose end, my book National Treasures explains how #London protected its national art, museums and archives in WWII, mostly returned to the capital from their hiding places by 1945 #VEDay80 #VEDay2025
May 5, 2025 at 6:42 PM
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Ok #photofriday #histbookchat. @dustshoveller.bsky.social is the fascinating account of how we protected our art treasures from destruction. Morrin’s book is an account of the crash of a Silver City Wayfarer in 1958. Good books.
April 11, 2025 at 1:25 PM
Reposted by Caroline Shenton
Happy 250th birthday to J M W Turner. Such a titan of British art, I had to give him his own chapter to end my book (focussing on his paintings of the burning of Parliament in 1834). One critic called him ‘the Fire King’, as an insult - but Turner had the last laugh!
April 23, 2025 at 8:45 AM
National Treasures by @dustshoveller.bsky.social featured in my local library’s VE display!
May 5, 2025 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by Caroline Shenton
Devoured this, by the great @dustshoveller.bsky.social over two sittings in the last week. I would highly recommend 🤓
#History #Heritage #Books
December 29, 2024 at 11:45 AM
Reposted by Caroline Shenton
With perfect timing for the paperback publication of #NecessaryWomen today, why not read this splendid new review by @dustshoveller.bsky.social - herself a great Necessary Woman of Parliament previously of course! londonhistorians.wordpress.com/2025/02/06/a...
A House of Their Own
Guest Post by Caroline ShentonReview: Necessary Women: The Untold Story of Parliament’s Working Women by Dr Mari Takayanagi and Dr Elizabeth Hallam Smith. Who do you think of when you think of wome…
londonhistorians.wordpress.com
February 6, 2025 at 6:35 PM
ICYMI, here I am on @bbcradio4.bsky.social talking about the St Stephen’s Chapel Westminster project and the new book which came out of it a month or two back www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
Today in Parliament - 10/01/2025 - BBC Sounds
Sean Curran with the news and interviews from Westminster.
www.bbc.co.uk
January 12, 2025 at 8:26 PM
Reposted by Caroline Shenton
Fascinating - part of the archive of the great medieval historian Eileen Power (1889-1940). This box is material relating to her ground-breaking book Medieval People (1924). Was delighted to attend the once-a-decade Power Feast @girtoncollege.bsky.social with @dustshoveller.bsky.social a while ago.
January 10, 2025 at 5:58 PM
So glad you enjoyed, Will!
Devoured this, by the great @dustshoveller.bsky.social over two sittings in the last week. I would highly recommend 🤓
#History #Heritage #Books
January 8, 2025 at 7:05 PM
“Caroline is a very bossy little girl”. I was 5. Plus ça change…
Introduce yourself with your worst feedback from school:

"There is no hope now"
My chemistry teacher in college, on my chances of passing his class.

To be fair, he was right
"i think you'd throw that shot putt further if you just gave up and fell forward"

Ever supportive, my sports teacher.
November 21, 2024 at 9:06 PM
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Maybe more a bit disappointed than grumpy but a lovely piece
November 21, 2024 at 9:03 PM
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The cold snap justifies opening a bottle of Smoking Bishop. Amazing what a year can do to the flavour—needed to add a decent amount of extra sugar. I heated it with bergamot for that lovely perfumed aroma, although I did have to pull them quite quickly to stop it overpowering everything!
November 19, 2024 at 5:59 PM
Reposted by Caroline Shenton
Just recapping a few pictures of the unbelievably wonderful painter monasteries of Southern Bucovina, Romania - this summer with @dustshoveller.bsky.social and @davidatkinson.bsky.social.
November 17, 2024 at 6:24 PM
Reposted by Caroline Shenton
Gladly speaking at Gustav Holst: an archival legacy 20 Nov 1400-16.30 @britishlibrary.bsky.social. Experts from BL, Britten-Pears and Gustav’s birthplace talking about their archives, and performances of his Terzetto + Imogen’s suite for solo viola. Free tickets by emailing music-events@bl.uk
November 18, 2024 at 8:45 AM
Nice pic too…the evacuated public records from Chancery Lane in storage at The Oxford Diocesan teacher training college, Culham in WW2!
November 18, 2024 at 6:25 PM
Reposted by Caroline Shenton
Do you know of an archive at risk of being lost? The National Archives have grants available.
Records at Risk Grants - Archives sector
The Records at Risk Grants programme is delivered in collaboration with the British Records Association and the Business Archives Council, to provide support for urgent interventions to save significa...
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
November 18, 2024 at 6:07 PM
A good place to enter my 60th year…
Just leaving the Château de Cocove at Recques-sur-Hem.
November 17, 2024 at 9:36 PM
Reposted by Caroline Shenton
Hello friends! Independent bookshops really appreciate it if you buy your Christmas presents from them. There's a week left to order your signed and dedicated copies of my books from my friends at Chorleywood Books for delivery in the UK before Christmas 😃
chilternbookshops.co.uk/product-cate...
November 17, 2024 at 7:19 PM