Nick Higham
@highamnews.bsky.social
Mavericks: Empire, Oil, Revolution and the Forgotten Battle of World War One published by Bloomsbury 9 October. Water news, London history, laundry, ghost pubs etc. Former BBC correspondent…
Winter sun. The East Reservoir, Stoke Newington last Thursday…
November 26, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Winter sun. The East Reservoir, Stoke Newington last Thursday…
Art of Laundry. Via FB/A world of washing/Isabel Amaral Lapa Vasques. Jacob Happ (1861-1936)
“Washerwomen”. Happ was a German artist and draughtsman. The image is clearly late 19th/early 20thC, but the scene could have been painted any time in the preceding several centuries…
“Washerwomen”. Happ was a German artist and draughtsman. The image is clearly late 19th/early 20thC, but the scene could have been painted any time in the preceding several centuries…
November 26, 2025 at 11:38 AM
Art of Laundry. Via FB/A world of washing/Isabel Amaral Lapa Vasques. Jacob Happ (1861-1936)
“Washerwomen”. Happ was a German artist and draughtsman. The image is clearly late 19th/early 20thC, but the scene could have been painted any time in the preceding several centuries…
“Washerwomen”. Happ was a German artist and draughtsman. The image is clearly late 19th/early 20thC, but the scene could have been painted any time in the preceding several centuries…
Coincidentally I am reading this book on Matthew Digby Wyatt, Victorian architect and polymath, who spent holidays in the 1830s at Troy House with his uncle, formerly agent to the Somerset family… 2/2
November 26, 2025 at 11:23 AM
Coincidentally I am reading this book on Matthew Digby Wyatt, Victorian architect and polymath, who spent holidays in the 1830s at Troy House with his uncle, formerly agent to the Somerset family… 2/2
Happy accident department. Was at the Secret Maps exhibition at the British Library yesterday where they have this 1881 OS 1:2500 map showing Troy House in Monmouthshire. The owner, Lord Grenville Somerset MP, in 1841 objected to the map as an invasion of his privacy… 1/2
November 26, 2025 at 11:23 AM
Happy accident department. Was at the Secret Maps exhibition at the British Library yesterday where they have this 1881 OS 1:2500 map showing Troy House in Monmouthshire. The owner, Lord Grenville Somerset MP, in 1841 objected to the map as an invasion of his privacy… 1/2
Toll bridge cat, Whitchurch-on-Thames…
November 23, 2025 at 5:04 PM
Toll bridge cat, Whitchurch-on-Thames…
The 458m Bruce Tunnel at the summit of the Kennet & Avon Canal. It’s down hill from here all the way to Bath and Bristol. The commemorative plaque was recarved in 2003 by local stonemason John Lloyd, whose ancestor Benjamin Lloyd carved the original in 1810…
November 23, 2025 at 4:51 PM
The 458m Bruce Tunnel at the summit of the Kennet & Avon Canal. It’s down hill from here all the way to Bath and Bristol. The commemorative plaque was recarved in 2003 by local stonemason John Lloyd, whose ancestor Benjamin Lloyd carved the original in 1810…
Lovely day for a canal walk…
November 23, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Lovely day for a canal walk…
Art of Laundry. Via FB/A world of washing/Isabel Amaral Lapa Vasques. William Orpen, The Wash House. Orpen understood the work involved in laundry, the fatigue, the monotony…
November 4, 2025 at 8:59 PM
Art of Laundry. Via FB/A world of washing/Isabel Amaral Lapa Vasques. William Orpen, The Wash House. Orpen understood the work involved in laundry, the fatigue, the monotony…
Great news. Mavericks is now available in India. Appropriate, since several of the characters were Indian imperialists. And if things had panned out differently Persia and Transcaspia might have ended up as part of Britain's Indian empire @willdalrymple.bsky.social www.bloomsbury.com/in/mavericks...
November 4, 2025 at 10:52 AM
Great news. Mavericks is now available in India. Appropriate, since several of the characters were Indian imperialists. And if things had panned out differently Persia and Transcaspia might have ended up as part of Britain's Indian empire @willdalrymple.bsky.social www.bloomsbury.com/in/mavericks...
Art of Laundry. Via FB/Rita M Sjöholm. Housing Facades in Napoli ~ Giorgio Sommer, 1878. Sommer (1834-1914) was a German-born photographer based in Naples from 1856 and one of Italy’s leading photographers…
November 3, 2025 at 9:04 PM
Art of Laundry. Via FB/Rita M Sjöholm. Housing Facades in Napoli ~ Giorgio Sommer, 1878. Sommer (1834-1914) was a German-born photographer based in Naples from 1856 and one of Italy’s leading photographers…
Agatha Christie’s holiday home, Greenway above the River Dart in Devon, now NT. they have a case full of her signed first editions. Except that one is not actually a first edition…
November 3, 2025 at 9:33 AM
Agatha Christie’s holiday home, Greenway above the River Dart in Devon, now NT. they have a case full of her signed first editions. Except that one is not actually a first edition…
Art of Laundry. Via FB/Junta Takao (with thanks to Clive Norris). Estendendo a roupa 1953 photo Ramón Dimas…
November 3, 2025 at 9:15 AM
Art of Laundry. Via FB/Junta Takao (with thanks to Clive Norris). Estendendo a roupa 1953 photo Ramón Dimas…
Art of Laundry. Via FB/A world of washing/Rita M. Sjöholm. The Laundress - 1858, Francisco Laso (1823-1869), Peruvian artist and writer…
November 3, 2025 at 8:17 AM
Art of Laundry. Via FB/A world of washing/Rita M. Sjöholm. The Laundress - 1858, Francisco Laso (1823-1869), Peruvian artist and writer…
The oddly named Green in Bishopsteignton, Devon, where Margaret (‘Daisy’) Keyworth grew up. 17thC, heavily remodelled in the 1920s and “rather eccentric” (Historic England). Daisy wed Lionel ‘Stalky’ Dunsterville, one of five mavericks featured in my new book. Pix via Wikitree…
November 3, 2025 at 8:13 AM
The oddly named Green in Bishopsteignton, Devon, where Margaret (‘Daisy’) Keyworth grew up. 17thC, heavily remodelled in the 1920s and “rather eccentric” (Historic England). Daisy wed Lionel ‘Stalky’ Dunsterville, one of five mavericks featured in my new book. Pix via Wikitree…
Art of Laundry. Via @blogexhibitions on Ex-Twitter. Woman Running to Take in the Clothes during a Summer Shower, by Suzuki Harunobu, 1765…
November 1, 2025 at 10:24 AM
Art of Laundry. Via @blogexhibitions on Ex-Twitter. Woman Running to Take in the Clothes during a Summer Shower, by Suzuki Harunobu, 1765…
I have been coming to Abingdon for almost 40 years and walked round almost all the town, but only yesterday did I discover a) the path by the Stert Stream and b) that next to the stream is the motte of a Norman castle complete with remains of a moat…
October 31, 2025 at 12:50 PM
I have been coming to Abingdon for almost 40 years and walked round almost all the town, but only yesterday did I discover a) the path by the Stert Stream and b) that next to the stream is the motte of a Norman castle complete with remains of a moat…
Art of Laundry. Via FB/A world of washing/Rita M. Sjöholm. Hanging Out the Laundry by Jean-François
Millet…
Millet…
October 26, 2025 at 9:34 AM
Art of Laundry. Via FB/A world of washing/Rita M. Sjöholm. Hanging Out the Laundry by Jean-François
Millet…
Millet…
The fancy new signage on this bus is quite impressive. Unfortunately we’re on a 141 to Palmers Green N Circular Rd going up Southgate Rd N1, and it’s not half past midnight…
October 24, 2025 at 4:46 PM
The fancy new signage on this bus is quite impressive. Unfortunately we’re on a 141 to Palmers Green N Circular Rd going up Southgate Rd N1, and it’s not half past midnight…
I shall be in the bookshop at the IWM London tomorrow signing copies of Mavericks and happy to answer questions. It’s had great reviews in the Telegraph and Times and this week in the Spectator. I’d say it’s ideal Xmas present material…https://www.iwm.org.uk/events/meet-the-author-at-iwm-london
October 23, 2025 at 9:58 AM
I shall be in the bookshop at the IWM London tomorrow signing copies of Mavericks and happy to answer questions. It’s had great reviews in the Telegraph and Times and this week in the Spectator. I’d say it’s ideal Xmas present material…https://www.iwm.org.uk/events/meet-the-author-at-iwm-london
Was interviewed about Mavericks by Robert Elms on Radio London yesterday immediately after James Cheshire talking about his fabulous The Library of Lost Maps. Went straight to Foyles and bought it. We discovered both books were commissioned by Ian Marshall at Bloomsbury. What excellent taste he has…
October 19, 2025 at 8:35 AM
Was interviewed about Mavericks by Robert Elms on Radio London yesterday immediately after James Cheshire talking about his fabulous The Library of Lost Maps. Went straight to Foyles and bought it. We discovered both books were commissioned by Ian Marshall at Bloomsbury. What excellent taste he has…
Next Tuesday I shall be giving my lecture on the Art of Laundry at Highgate Literary and Scientific Institution. What do 400 years of paintings, prints and photographs of women who washed tell us about the artists who made them and the society they lived in…?
hlsi.org.uk/whats-on/the...
hlsi.org.uk/whats-on/the...
October 17, 2025 at 7:38 AM
Next Tuesday I shall be giving my lecture on the Art of Laundry at Highgate Literary and Scientific Institution. What do 400 years of paintings, prints and photographs of women who washed tell us about the artists who made them and the society they lived in…?
hlsi.org.uk/whats-on/the...
hlsi.org.uk/whats-on/the...
Art of Laundry. Via FB/A world of washing/Isabel Amaral Lapa Vasques. Gaston Marquet (1848-1923), Lavoir Saint Pierre, a Montmartre (The Washhouse). Perhaps Marquet’s most famous painting. She looks exhausted…
October 15, 2025 at 8:46 AM
Art of Laundry. Via FB/A world of washing/Isabel Amaral Lapa Vasques. Gaston Marquet (1848-1923), Lavoir Saint Pierre, a Montmartre (The Washhouse). Perhaps Marquet’s most famous painting. She looks exhausted…
Art of Laundry. Two paintings (c 1928) by Diego Rivera of a washerwoman or pair of washerwomen and “zopilotes” (black vultures or buzzards). Most images of laundry are relatively benign: the buzzards lend this one a rather threatening aspect…
October 15, 2025 at 7:35 AM
Art of Laundry. Two paintings (c 1928) by Diego Rivera of a washerwoman or pair of washerwomen and “zopilotes” (black vultures or buzzards). Most images of laundry are relatively benign: the buzzards lend this one a rather threatening aspect…
Art of Laundry. Via Ex-Twitter/Laundry. A typically exquisite woodcut by the great Thomas Bewick, 1797 Northumberland…
October 14, 2025 at 7:55 AM
Art of Laundry. Via Ex-Twitter/Laundry. A typically exquisite woodcut by the great Thomas Bewick, 1797 Northumberland…
Art of Laundry. Quiet Work, by Australian artist Richard Claremont, who writes: “No one ever talks about the laundry. Yet somehow it always gets the best light — the kind that makes even socks look poetic. I love painting these quiet corners, where the ordinary turns quietly magnificent…”
October 14, 2025 at 7:46 AM
Art of Laundry. Quiet Work, by Australian artist Richard Claremont, who writes: “No one ever talks about the laundry. Yet somehow it always gets the best light — the kind that makes even socks look poetic. I love painting these quiet corners, where the ordinary turns quietly magnificent…”