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 60,000 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; 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
516 episodes
An Episode of Two Halves: birds, hedgehogs, puppies and silences; and then exquisite Villette
Helloooo, and please I beg of you go straight to 25 minutes if you’re not in the mood for silences, witterings, stuttering, birds, hedgehog rustles and poor (very poor) production quality. But then, oh we get to swim in Cha...
Simply Villette: Chapter XV ‘The Long Vacation’ 🌒
A photo of my daughter and Doggo in Cornwall expressing possibly the Villette atmosphere.
Gretel absorbs William Shakespeare’s Stratford-Upon-Avon and chats with Sir Richard Eyre 🎭
Hullo and welcome to this late episode where I wander the beautiful streets of William Shakespeare’s home town and manage to grab Director of The Tempest and all-round legendary figure Sir Richard Eyre for a quick chat in the infamous actors’ p...
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...
