Researcher in Architectural History. Associate @WorcCollegeOx. Editor of @WalpoleSociety annual volume. I work on C18th buildings. More often on Instagram.
England
Joined February 2009
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Despite the many reasonable objections to the contrary, @CityWestminster still pursuing their misguided plan to get rid of their historic gas lamps. Here’s something I wrote on them earlier in the year. Sadly, they have already started to disappear
London‘s oldest streetlamps were designed to be beautiful as well as useful – so why is Westminster Council trying to remove them? apollo-magazine.com/westmins…
William Aslet retweeted
It is with profound sorrow that we bid farewell to Herbert Blomstedt. Our former Gewandhauskapellmeister & Conductor Laureate passed away today, 4 November 2026, in Gothenburg, at the age of 99. We pay tribute to his remarkable life's work with the deepest gratitude & respect.
William Aslet retweeted
Do join for the Friends of the Bodleian lecture I'm giving on November 3rd
"Bestsellers, Blunders and Bankruptcies: The Business of Bibles in Early Modern England" tours some of my favourite examples from my book, "Selling the Word of God" @bodleianlibs
visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/even…
William Aslet retweeted
You could almost believe the mason put down his chisel yesterday. Yet this Romanesque bird at St Peter’s in Rowlestone, Herefordshire, was carved nearly 900 years ago.
William Aslet retweeted
Sorry to see that the Blackwell's in the Westgate Centre in Oxford has closed. It wasn't a patch on the main shop and presumably the economics weren't working for them. But the Westgate was the better for it being there and I feel it was probably a shop children liked.
William Aslet retweeted
The most Manhattan thing in London. Ideal House by Raymond Hood. 1928-29. Great Marlborough St.
William Aslet retweeted
Carlevarijs painted the Venetian ambassador’s arrival in London in 1707 too. A fun pair!
William Aslet retweeted
Editor copies of Stuart Serenissima!
Featuring our beautiful cover image: the Earl of Manchester’s arrival in Venice, 1707/8, by Luca Carlevarijs (courtesy of the wonderful @BM_AG)
Available here: liverpooluniversitypress.co.… .
William Aslet retweeted
I remember a wonderfully civilised engagement I mediated between Chris Wickham and @holland_tom about Tom’s Millennium (still one of my favourite works of his) in the early days of my editorship of @HistoryToday. If only all historical debate was marked by such generosity.
William Aslet retweeted
A memory of timber, built in stone. Earls Barton’s rare Anglo-Saxon tower from around AD970 has an air of gingerbread! Unearth it in my Treasure Hoard: digest.andymarshall.co/treas…
William Aslet retweeted
The Botley Road – "The last enchantments of the Middle Age", as Max Beerbohm observed.
William Aslet retweeted
OUT NOW - Selling the Word of God: The Early Commercial History of the English Bible
Pictured here @EmmaCambridge beneath the Tyndale window, and with the @Newnham_College table and pink velvet chaise longue that enabled its writing
bodleianshop.co.uk/products/…
William Aslet retweeted
Managed to fulfil a regional museum dream at @MaidstoneMuseum the other week, by getting a chance to see this haunting sketch by John Hoppner (1758-1810) in person. She’s currently kept in storage, but, if cleaned, would probably be one of their most popular paintings (?)
William Aslet retweeted
I think that Britain has some of the best door heritage in the world - and this has to be in my top 10 - found over in King's Lynn - a real treasure and rarity. More 📸 ✨ 👉 digest.andymarshall.co/treas…
William Aslet retweeted
Shostakovich enjoyed Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar so much he saw it twice on consecutive nights on a trip to London in 1972, confessing that but for Stalin he might well have written something like this himself. Imagine a Shostakovich version of Cats...
William Aslet retweeted
Leading Bolognese artist Lavinia Fontana’s Portrait of a Noblewoman (c 1580-90), before and after recent restoration. Which do you prefer? Fontana was the main breadwinner in a family of 13, but (surprise, surprise) her works were often misattributed to male artists
William Aslet retweeted
It's fun to remember how we celebrated the 900th anniversary of the Battle oh Hastings in 1966 the-tls.com/regular-features… @TheTLS I love this Pooh version by E Shepard complete with Latin (it was also 100th anniversary of Winnie the Pooh)
William Aslet retweeted
This absolute gem at 102 Wavertree High Street is officially the last surviving Georgian bowed shop window in Liverpool! Built way back in 1796, those beautiful curved windows were originally designed to catch the natural light and show off goods to passersby.
Over the centuries, this Grade II listed building has been a cobbler, a saddler, and a "boot dealer". Today, the striking green facade is home to Ray Jones' World of Wood Turning, a master craftsman who lovingly restored the shopfront back in the 1980s.
