Alice Loxton EleanorA 200-mile walk in search of England’slost queen352pp. Pan Macmillan. £22. Many are commemorated in stone, but few so grandly as Eleanor of Castile (d. 1290). Following her unexpec

It’s the question I’m asked more than any other whenever I give a talk on the history of the constellations: who invented the Southern Cross? The short answer is: no one did – or at least no individua

On 30 October 2025, a cross was set on the spire of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí’s masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia cathedral of Barcelona, turning it into the world’s tallest church – a title previ

The sale of a Fabergé imperial egg and a 15th-century triptych made headlines last year, but one of the most powerful pieces was a painting by Richard Parkes Bonington showing what he could have become, had he not died so young

Rue des Colonels Renard, near the Arc de Triomphe in the 17th arrondissement, is situated in a well-heeled part of Paris, featuring fashionable apartments at vertigo-inducing rents. In the late 1930s

ENGINEERING THE END OF MEDIEVAL WARFARE