Gretel le Maître Ponders Beauty, with Bede & other guests
Episodes
511 episodes
Strictly Literature: dear John Clare; Anthony Trollope; and Charlotte Brontë
Dr Eleanor Parker, author of Winters in the World, chats to Gretel in Brasenose College, Oxford
In this episode I chat to outstanding author and delightful lady Dr Eleanor Parker. Thank you to her for her time and congratulations to her for the huge success she has had with all her books, but particularly with Winters in the World, ...
Saxon Saturday: The Seafarer; Saxon Churches; and Anglo-Saxon England 🗡️
Strictly Books; Villette by Charlotte Brontë 🥀
Good evening and thank you so very much for joining me. Without you I really wouldn’t do this, and it’s a blessed existence, living, enfin, as I actually wish to live: rooted in a warm home, but wandering about learning, absorbing and rea...
Bonus Episode: St Augustine wins over the King of Kent while Gretel visits Sherborne Abbey
Pepys enjoys his Sliding Rule; Lucy Snowe enjoys a Thunderstorm; and Madame Neroni enjoys needling a Bishop’s wife
The Hollow Tree by John Clare; Lucy Snowe is watchful, in Villette; and St Gregory’s Greatness
Hello!There are 6 supporters whose addresses I don’t have, and I wanted to pop a thank you note in the post to you. Please DM me your address if you are happy for me to send something. The initials are:DWNL<...
St Gennys, Samuel Pepys and an Old Saxon Lament; historian Tom Holland becomes our Honorary Patron
Strictly Literature: Charlotte Brontë, Anthony Trollope, and Cup of Exquisite Poetry
Gretel pays her respects to the ANZACs at St Nicholas Church, Brockenhurst and sees a fox
Gretel Ponders her Past; Pepys is Up Betimes; A Brace of Saints; and Chapter 8 of Villette
Hullo, hullo, how are you? We are making good progress with Villette. If you haven’t read it before you will find, perhaps, that it creeps up on your soul and tiptoes into your mind: the images in your head of the streets, the Pensionnat,...
Saxon Saturday: The Departing Soul’s Address to The Body; Egbert, Anselm & The Chronicle.
Lucy’s heart awakens by St Paul’s in Villette; Monsieur Robin; and Barchester Chronicles
Fruit of Three Segments: SWIRE Exhibition; Lacock Abbey; and Books (Pepys, Trollope & Brontë)
Good Evening and welcome to tonight’s episode which I’ve produced just for you! Welcome newcomers and hello friends 🤗.First I visit the wonderful Swire Ridgeway Arts Prize 2026, organised by the Friends of the Ridgeway (https://share.goo...
Gretel and Aerial Photographer Hedley Thorne visit Wayland Smithy
Dear friends, new and old, welcome to an episode that was recorded yesterday in the Oxfordshire sunshine but took a while to publish; huge apologies for the delay and also for the absence of our readings. What a joy an honour it was to sp...
The White Church of Woolstone; A Jamboree of Jackdaws; Wordsworth; and Villette
Bonus Friday Episode: Secret Old Buildings; Trollope; and a Gothic Glossary
Villette by Charlotte Brontë: Chapter Three - The Art of Minute Observation
A Walk about St Peter’s Church, Purse Caundle; and we meet Madeline in Barchester Towers
Strictly Books: Trollope, Brontë, Pepys and The Chronicles
Good afternoon and happy Tuesday. We meet the curious Stanhopes in Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Towers: ‘Their conduct to each other was the same as to the world; they bore and forebore’. We progress (not far) with Pepys (won’t it ...
