...are kept at Kensington, so I parked my bike at the nearby church of Our Lady of Victories in Kensington High Street, and found my way to the archive office. The materials are housed in a huge basement sort of area, very well organised and in the charge of the Archivist, Fr Nicholas Schofield. Gosh, what a treasure-trove! Some fascinating material here, including a lot relating to the English Martyrs, and to Catherine of Aragon's marriage, and more...
My current research involves seeking material about a priest working in Southwark in the 1780s and 1790s...and behold, I discovered a letter from him, carefully kept and preserved in a big folder along with much other correspondence.It is awesome to be handling a letter written some 200 years ago.I could hardly wait to get home to email my findings to Marcus Grodi of EWTN/Coming Home Network, as whose behest I am doing this research...it feels really exciting when you piece together bits of history, and this particular project is becoming most interesting.
London has a delicious Autumnal feel. The horse-chestnut trees are dropping their conkers, and children are hurrying to and from school in their new uniforms. The Albert Memorial glistens with its over-the-top gold as I cycle past. Not everything is attractive: the russet glow from the leaves of the horse-chesnut trees speaks not of Autumn colours but of some sad disease with which they are afflicted, which is ghastly as they are a landmark of England and it would be tragic if they were to disappear as our lovely elm trees did in the 1970s...
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Gosh! I didn't realize our horse-chesnut trees were under attack. If they did go the way of the elms, that would be tragic. Here on the Isle of Wight, we're always the last to know these things. We still have red squirrels!
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