Gretel le Maître Ponders Beauty, with Bede & other guests
Gretel le Maître likes to look for the beauty and curiosities in life, one day at a time. She shares with you snippets from books about history, art and literature and regularly takes you on adventures to new locations, to explore churches, cathedrals and architecture. We’ve reached 71,000 downloads. Thank you!! 🙏
Gretel invites you to accompany her as she navigates the world a day at a time; the podcast is unscripted, it’s ad-free.
Gretel loves the world and history, architecture, literature and people. And so is determined to walk this path with light footsteps and with humour and warmth. Let’s gather up the beautiful things and ponder them in our hearts.
Top 10 in Global Rankings according to Listen Notes. I would be so grateful if you would spare the time to give me a kind review 🤗
Previous guests include:
historian Tom Holland (who has kindly agreed to be the podcast’s Honorary Patron); Sir Richard Eyre; Actors Guy Henry and Enzo Cilenti; Art historian Philip Mould; Writer David Willem; Composer Matthew Coleridge; Vicar Angela Tilby; Aerial photographer Hedley Thorne; Author Bijan Omrani; Journalist and Historian Sir Simon Jenkins; Dorset garden hedgehog family, the Venerable Bede and other guests.
Future guests (all being well) are Tom Holland again, John Simpson, Kevin Stroud, Philippa Langley again, Clair Crawford, David Crowther, Philip Mould again, David Willem again, Aidan Ridyard and Katie Channon
Episodes
600 episodes
Drama in Barchester Towers; and we revisit St Nicholas Church in Bratton St Maur
Strictly Books: Haworth ‘Arvills; Young Christianity in Britain; Pepys; & Trollope
Flying Geese & The Pickwick Papers, by Dickens, from beautiful Cornwall
Fluffy Dunnock passes by; Mr Winkle avoids a Duel and Mr Arabin is in love;
Good evening Thank you so very much for joining me. Thank you Brendan for the wonderful bits and bobs: I will reply soon. If Dickens is new to you, please persevere with TPP. It really is wonderf...
St James’s Palace; Barchester Towers; Scottish Kings and The Pickwick Papers
The Wholeness of Holiness; Wordsworth; The Jamaica Act; and a Chatty Mr Katt 🐈⬛
Lundy Island
I’m so sorry this is late, that the sound is dodgy and that I don’t say goodbye at the end. It was so windy and I couldn’t get a signal on the island.
A Nightingale & Orange Tree delight Pepys 🍊; a Saxon Love Letter; Beeny Cliff; and Trollope
This episode also includes a delightful reminiscence of Lundy Island by Hedley Thorne, more of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and a message from a new listener from Sydney, Australia. I hope you are well. Thank you so much...
Lucy, the Lundy Island Native, talks to Gretel
This is a very special episode because it’s an interview - or more like a chat - with a one-in-a-million sort of person, whose family have lived on Lundy Island for generations. This is Lucy, a lady we met by chance and whose infectious j...
How to get rid of a horse, in The Pickwick Papers; and Charlotte Brontë’s Irish and Cornish ancestry.
A Walk in Cerne Abbas; Fuller’s Church History of Britain, of 1648; Tension mounts in Barchester Towers; and poems by Thomas Hardy
A Book at Bedtime: a collection of readings including The Pickwick Papers and Barchester Towers
Obadiah Slope’s Slippery Scheme; Windy Wittering; and Sir Robert Peel’s Undoing
The Ancient Tale of Robin Hood; St Paul’s Church, Jarrow; The Crimean War; and Norman Churches
Gretel gives impromptu Sermon; Childe Okeford Village; and more Pickwick
The Tuesday Bells 🔔; Shenanigans in Barchester; and blessed John Clare
Hello and welcome! I share with you a photograph from my walk today, where we passed Sherborne New Castle, built by the wonderful Walter Raleigh.
The Dedicated Listener meets a Brontë, a Chronicle, Caedmon, King Edwin, a Princess of Hesse & Mr Pickwick
Dear FriendSo very much is going on, with my mother’s house about to be sold, relationship with siblings improving (thank GOODNESS), and Son off to university, not to mention Husband doing All-Sorts, that I needed an evening shut awa...
Benedict Biscop: a Detailed Death; A Life in Boxes; Battersea Leaves; and Milton
Leaderboards#21 in the Top 100 Nature Monthly chart #44 in the Top 100 Nature All time chart #52 in the Top 100 Books Monthly chart #1 in the Top 100 Theatre All time chart #1 in the Top 100 Reflection All time chart
A Pinch of Bernard Shaw; a Sprinkle of Samuel Pepys; and a Dollop of Waffle
Thank you, thank you, thank you for joining me and bearing with me. I couldn’t be more grateful for your support and comforted by your presence. WHAT a relief to return home: I will never return to my mother’s house n...
