by Annette Rubery | May 14, 2024 | Architecture, Art
We went to Blenheim on bank holiday Monday because I wanted to walk from the Ditchley Gate right up to the house. Well, it was pouring down with rain so that wasn’t happening. I managed to check a few aspects of the parkland that I wanted to, but we were soon...
by Annette Rubery | Dec 20, 2023 | Shakespeare
A Festive Shakespeare at The Garrick Inn, Stratford-upon-Avon. A big thank you for reading my blog this year. I have been trying to hook it up to a subscription email service which I am finding impossible to make work properly, so a double thank-you for finding it in...
by Annette Rubery | Nov 29, 2023 | Opera, Theatre History
Bedford Row, London, November 2023. I wrote the other day (in Operatic foundations: A relic of the Haymarket theatre) about the curious stones in the front garden of a law office in Bedford Row and how I think they once formed the foundation of John Vanbrugh’s...
by Annette Rubery | Nov 12, 2023 | Opera, Theatre History
"Little Whig" in the front garden of a law office on Bedford Row. I had read there was an important relic of John Vanbrugh’s Italian opera house in the Haymarket to be seen in Bedford Row. The first Haymarket theatre was co-managed, at least in the first...
by Annette Rubery | Nov 11, 2023 | History
The Hercules Pillars pub: between Holborn and Covent Garden, London. Last night we went to see Handel’s Jephtha at Covent Garden. On the way, we stopped for a drink at the Hercules Pillars. On August 7th 1718, Sir John Vanbrugh wrote to the Duke of Newcastle: I...
