As several readers may know, my day job is looking after Chedworth Roman Villa in the Cotswolds. Chedworth sits comfortably within a region that supported some of the most prosperous rural estates in Britannia. Yet the world that sustained and shaped the villa extended far beyond the Coln valley.
BOOK REVIEWS
Stephen Coan’s The Buried Man can only be described as magisterial. It is the culmination of decades of patient, methodical, and deeply informed scholarship. Coan has lived with, traced, and tracked H. Rider Haggard for much of his adult life, and this monumental volume represents the distillation of that long engagement. It is unlikely to be surpassed for a very long time.
BLUE PLAQUES
Founded in 1902 to serve migrant Zulu workers, services were held in an old bakery on the site which was destroyed by snow in 1909. Pastor Je Nornius raised the funds to build the church including basement space for adult education classes. He and evangelist, Petro Kumalo, had offered these since the inception of the Mission. The manse was built in 1905, the bell-tower in 1928 and the hall in 1954.