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Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

A great evening celebrating Nick Hayes’ new book The Medicine Tree. I can’t wait to read it.

My hand holding a copy of The Medicine Tree by Nick Hayes in front of an illuminated shop front full of books

Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Fortunately my manager was very understanding of my need to rearrange my working days this week so that I could take a day to read and drink tea.

Round side table containing a blue mug on a coaster and a copy of Rebecca Tamás’s book The Book of Mysteries.

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Always a thrill to see a Thomas Denny window; even if you've seen it many times before, you'll still see something new... #StainedGlassSunday Tewkesbury Abbey, #Gloucestershire

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Spitalfields Life @thegentleauthor.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Last roses of summer from Columbia Road market this morning

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Guy Shrubsole @guyshrubsole.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

2/ These are community projects in pretty well-off, middle-class, green, lefty communities - where there are plenty of folks with time & money to try to make them happen. If even *these* folks get overridden by developers & councils, what hope for communities lacking such resources?

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Guy Shrubsole @guyshrubsole.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Awful. Capital overrides communities once again. Frome's bid for a community-led housing & regeneration project at Saxonvale lies in tatters: the council's agreed a deal with a London-based real estate company instead. Similar story in Totnes with Atmos project www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

theguardian.com

‘Devastating’: council rejects Frome residents’ bid for regeneration project

Locals raised £1m for Mayday Saxonvale scheme involving homes and park but Somerset officials agreed deal with London-based real estate company

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Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

A week on Exmoor, camping in a lush green valley, falling asleep to the gentle burbling of the River Exe, first cup of tea serenaded by a robin, wandering the coast path in saturating drizzle, heading out across heather, gorse and moss in search of ancient barrows, eating far too much clotted cream.

A vast expanse of moorland with clumps of heather and wild Exmoor ponies grazing in the background.

Standing on rocks at the edge of a river, surrounded by trees.

A stone bridge crossing a calm river, the arches of the bridge reflected in the water.

A giant scone with pots of jam and clotted cream.

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Kate McAllister @katemcal993.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Last week was World Suicide Prevention Day. I saw lots of well meaning posts elsewhere on social media, about how ‘asking someone if they are okay’, or ‘sending them a song because it reminded you of them’, is suicide prevention. But it’s really not and it’s dangerous to pretend it is

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Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Rounding off a day at Gloucester History Festival with a walk around the glorious Gloucester Cathedral. I mean, it’s got to be up there with your favourite cathedrals hasn’t it?

Exterior of Gloucester Cathedral looking west towards the setting sun.

High altar and east window of Gloucester Cathedral.

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Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

End of day over Berkeley Town Hall.

Berkeley Town Hall, a two storey stone building sitting beside a road junction, with fiery skies behind

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Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

I know it’s still 21 degrees and it’s going to get hotter again at the weekend, but I’ve decided to commit to autumn now.

Glass dish of apple and blackberry crumble, some of which has been removed by a metal spoon which now rests in the dish

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Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

An evening stroll along the churchway, our equivalent to Dartmoor’s famous Lych Way, edging around Berkeley Castle and then out across open fields to Newport. Walking in the footsteps of seven hundred years. Home via my favourite tree.

The squat church of St Mary the Virgin, Berkeley, amongst tombs and long grass

A path emerging under the canopy of a tree and leading downhill

A sloping field edged with trees, with a rough footpath heading down one side and a stone wall on another

The tree I always take photos of, sitting at the edge of a field with a river to one side and the evening sun behind

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We're Right Here @right-here.org · 03/09/2026

One year of touring the Museum of Broken Dreams around the UK! The exhibition tells the story of community-led projects that could have transformed Britain – but failed because the power to decide whether their vision materialised lay elsewhere. 💔 See it here: storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/3659...

Museum of Broken Dreams in Parliament. Credit: Alex Brenner

Museum of Broken Dreams at Stretford Public Hall.

Two people sit outside next to a banner from the Museum of Broken Dreams exhibition. Photo credit: Jørn Tomter / UCL Policy Lab

People chat around a table at the Britain Renewed Conference, where the Museum of Broken Dreams was exhibited. Photo credit: Jørn Tomter / UCL Policy Lab

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JLM Morton @jlmmorton.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Excitement building for Stroud's inaugural poetry festival (well, to nitpick, first for 35 years!) - if you'd like to support poets and all that they give, check out the programme here... www.dobunnipoetryfestival.co.uk/events

dobunnipoetryfestival.co.uk

Event Tickets in Stroud Gloucestershire — Dobunni Poetry Festival

Book event tickets for the Dobunni Poetry Festival. The festival is organised by Dialect in partnership with the Gloucestershire Poetry Society and supported by Stroud Arts Festival.

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Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

I’ve really enjoyed seeing this door, with its layers of history, on my walks recently #AdoorableThursday

Wooden front door stripped of paint with traces of previous paintwork scattered across it

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Hannah Valerie @eckerusla.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

The Speech House Lake waterlilies are back and they're beautiful! So pleased I correctly timed my visit to try and see them. 🪷 #ForestOfDean

Landscape: lily pads and pink waterlilies on a lake, with a blue sky overhead and fir trees on the far bank

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Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

There’s something really special about these Severnside sunsets

Side view of Berkeley church overlooking chest tombs, all bathed in golden evening light

Shell keep and inner gatehouse of Berkeley Castle overlooking surrounding countryside, all glowing in evening light

West end of Berkeley church with yew tree in evening light

A field with trees and a river running alongside it with sunset behind

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Katrina Navickas @katrinanavickas.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

The eclipse felt joyous because everyone went out onto their local parks and commons. It was after work time. A balmy warm evening with no clouds. It did bring everyone together in open spaces for free.

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Matthew Teller @matthewteller.com · 12/08/2026

For the last 2 years, I've been directing a secret project, helping Raja Shehadeh safeguard the diaries he has written daily since teenage - literally millions of words, going back six decades. It's quite a story. Join us: > Thu 3 Sep > 3pm UK time > Free to register: llc.ed.ac.uk/raja-shehadeh

llc.ed.ac.uk

From Palestine to Scotland: Celebrating the Raja Shehadeh Archive | Centre for the Study of Islam in the Contemporary World | Literatures Languages and Culture

Join internationally acclaimed Palestinian writer, lawyer and activist Raja Shehadeh on 3 September 2026 as he marks the accession of his extraordinary personal archive to the University of Edinburgh'...

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Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

No colanders in the churchyard tonight, but cardboard boxes, pinpricks in sheets of paper and some glasses that someone had managed to procure. Curious light.

Berkeley churchyard, tombstones surrounded by grasses and wildflowers, with the church in the background all bathed in golden light

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Alice Lilly @aliceolilly.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Somebody in this field has sent just someone back to their house round the corner to gather colanders with the exhortation: AS MANY AS POSSIBLE, CHECK THE WENDY HOUSE

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Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

A hurried walk back from the supermarket to catch the sunset over the water meadows. A dog walker with a glass of rosé in her hand. Heat building on the walk back in to town, radiating from the stone walls. How can it be the start of a new heatwave if the previous ones never truly stopped?

A tree stands in a field silhouetted against the sunset

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Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

In celebration of Afternoon Tea Week, an excellent scene from my great-grandparents’ postcard collection.

Three women in Welsh traditional costume sitting having afternoon tea outside a building with a slate roof. The caption reads “Welsh women at afternoon tea”.

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Simone Cuff @simonecuff.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Just got back from getting MenB Vax for kid#2, and they vaxxed kid#3 for HPV at the same time. Overheard from the nurse "...and the cervical cancers. They're just gone! There are none in vaccinated girls! It's a modern miracle!" Immunology for the win. Hell yeah! #BSI #Vaccines

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Paddy Tracey BBC Gloucestershire @paddytracey.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

A truly lovely thing happening every Wednesday in the heart of our city Gloucester Cathedral Gardening group brings people together Read more here👇

bbc.co.uk

Gloucester Cathedral's gardening group 'bringing smiles' to city

The gardening group is going to start work on a sensory garden after receiving funding.

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Prospect Union @prospectunion.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Our members at Royal Museums Greenwich are out on strike today and tomorrow over terms and working conditions. Solidarity with everyone taking action ✊💚

Prospect members on strike at Royal Museums Greenwich

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Rebecca Rideal @rebeccarideal.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

What can Elias Ashmole tell us about the weather? And, what does he accidentally tell us about himself? I’ve started writing things again rebeccarideal.substack.com/p/elias-ashm...

rebeccarideal.substack.com

Elias Ashmole: A 17th-century weatherman?

“Observations of the Weather, made at my house at South-Lambeth"

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Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Obviously the headline is silly, but it is nice to see Chiddingstone Castle in the news. They took a chance on me to give me my first proper museum collections job many moons ago and I have enormous affection for the place. It's a really unusual collection and I thoroughly recommend a visit.

bbc.co.uk

Could a sword found in a castle's lake be Kent's Excalibur?

The sword was poking from it after being exposed by fallen water levels.

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Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

After yet another attack on vaccination by the Trump administration, I'm turning back to something I wrote last year following a different series of bleak days and trying to find hope in a history of lives saved and the world changed for the better. Let's hold onto that and base our response on it.

owengower.co.uk

"Why should we fix our eyes on this spot only?"

Recently I’ve been prone to thinking that things are looking bleak for vaccination, that wonder of science which is estimated to have saved 154 million lives since 1974.

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Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

A different walk this evening, a decision made to turn right instead of left and chase the fading sunset.

Grass with shrubs and trees in the background, against a cloudy sunset

A river with dense vegetation on the banks, against a cloudy sunset

Abandoned brick building with boarded up window. In the background a road, a gravel lay-by, and a cloudy sunset

Edgeland of grass and wooden fence where road meets field. In the centre some kind of measuring device and in the background a cloudy sunset.

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Caught by the River @caughtbytheriver.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

'We need to talk about how we talk about nature and climate [...] How the misuse of tongue, teeth, mouth and throat can be as violent as a naked flame in an open, dry moorland.' Blue Kirkhope unpicks how the English language can catalyse the climate crisis www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/07/word...

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Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Made a great big cake today

Four layers of chocolate sponge, sandwiched with yoghurty cream and a blackberry compote, with the top decorated with viola flowers, sitting on a table in a garden

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Louvain Rees ⚰️ @hellohistoria.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Census enumerator: Where were you born?

Victorian handwriting on a white background reading: 'somewhere'.

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Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

It’s been years since I last came to the forgotten orchard. It felt different today. Beautiful, still, but now squeezed by farm buildings, lifeless. Today I worry for its future. For the future of all the rich patchwork of magical spaces like this that contribute so much to our world.

Tree with no leaves but covered in mistletoe and ivy, surrounded by tall grass

Group of mature trees surrounded by tall, golden grass. In the foreground is a fallen trunk.

Group of mature trees, some covered in mistletoe, among tall grass

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Prospect Union @prospectunion.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Our members working in collections access at V&A have voted unanimously for strike action because they don't have time for toilet breaks or to drink water. All V&A members have separately also voted to strike over pay and conditions. Read more in the Guardian: www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

theguardian.com

Staff at newest V&A site in London vote overwhelmingly for strike action

V&A Storehouse dispute centres on toilet and hydration breaks as employees across V&A in London also vote to strike in wider action

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Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Now the mint is in flower, the garden seems more full of life than ever. Bees and butterflies and hoverflies give way in the evenings to moths that bat at my face as I continue the seemingly endless cycle of watering.

A bee sitting on the fuzzy flowers of apple mint

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Claire Boardman @claireboardman.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Heritage Tourism/Sustainable Development: Work by colleagues @goodorgcic.bsky.social. "Capabilities are the opportunities people have available [& what therefore can] ultimately achieve. The distinction may appear subtle, but it transforms the way we evaluate success." tinyurl.com/2z2ynmmj

outsideinfluence.co.uk

Insight to What Are We Really Measuring? Rethinking Success in Tourism

We’ve become exceptionally good at measuring the economic value, but remarkably poor at measuring what tourism actually does for the people who live in the places that visitors come to experience.

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Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

The screech of a buzzard, the trill of a wren. A field full of grasshoppers then a woody copse marked on the map as Purgatory, a place of transition. Light into shade, hot into cool. On to Swift’s Hill, the grass almost sand-like, butterflies with every step. I sit for a while.

Path through a grassy field, with trees in the background. The grasses are green and brown and purple. The sky is bright blue with a hint of cloud.

A path through a patch of woodland. There are leaves on the ground and dense vegetation

A path along the side of Swift’s Hill, a steep slope covered in grasses with trees at the bottom and, in the distance, the edge of Stroud

View from Swift’s Hill over fields and woodland. There are a scattering of buildings in the foreground and, in the background, the edges of Stroud

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Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

A mouse chattering in the hedgerow, great cracks in the dry ground, fluffy thistles in the verges, golden clouds reflected in farmyard windows. A walk I’ve done countless times, always full of surprises.

River with dense vegetation on both banks, photographed from the middle of a bridge and with golden clouds in the background

Golden clouds reflected in a partially open window. The building is constructed of large pieces of stone

Purple thistles, some with fluffy seed heads, and tall grasses on a roadside verge

Overhead power lines in a field beside a river at dusk

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Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

My preferred way of reaching the Severn now is to follow the route of the Pill, once busy with ships connecting Berkeley to the world, squeezing down a path at the side of an industrial unit that gives way to a field full of butterflies and, occasionally, llamas. Ancient and modern, water and land.

Wide grassy path with ploughed field to one side and Berkeley Pill to the other on a summer’s day with some clouds in the sky

The wide River Severn, with Oldbury Power Station and the Severn Bridge in the distance

Close up on thistles growing on the banks of the River Severn. A bee can be seen on one flower.

Blackberries, some very ripe, growing in a hedgerow

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Ray Newman @raynewman.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Nice try, National Trust. I'm not falling for that again.

A yellow wooden box on a lawn with a sign on the outside that reads: crawl inside to spot creatures in the grass.

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Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

What if a village street name is the last clue to Freeland's hidden fighting past? Seven minutes of research from me, with Liz Green, for BBC Radio Oxford! Come for Wally Turner's accent, stay for me trying to say ANYTHING after four coffees in Chelmsford 'spoons: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

bbc.co.uk

Secret Oxfordshire - Wrestling on the Wroslyn Road - BBC Sounds

What if one village street name is the last clue to Freeland's hidden fighting past?

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Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

A familiar walk to round off the day.

A single tree stands alone in a field, lit from behind by the setting sun. To the edge of the field is a dense clump of trees.

A river in evening light with trees on each of its banks

Several sunflowers silhouetted against an evening sky with a thin band of cloud

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Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Built for people long forgotten, now called Hetty Pegler’s Tump remembering a seventeenth century landowning woman, and, judging by the flickering candle in the heart of the chamber and the rich smell of incense in the air, still very much a place of gathering and commemoration five millennia later.

Uley Long Barrow, a mound on the edge of a field with trees behind and a path leading to stones in the centre

Common knapweed in the foreground with the stone marking the entrance to the burial chamber just visible behind tall grass

Entrance to the burial chamber, lined with stones and with a gravel floor. At the back someone has lit a candle

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Skulls and Sheets @skullsandsheets.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Look at these wonderful chappies

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Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Walk through the gate and you might just step off the edge of the world.

View from Coaley Peak. A gate and fence in the foreground with views stretching far over the vale below to the River Severn and beyond.

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Owen Gower @owentg.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Curious if vaccinating against smallpox using dried scabs was a primarily American way of doing things? Jenner preferred to use the fluid from pustules (dried for storage and transportation) and I've not come across accounts of anyone doing any different in the UK. Also, best not sniff the objects.

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Jon Pountney @jonpountney1.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

In the shadow of the last Blast Furnaces in Port Talbot, knapweed covered with beautiful burnet moths yesterday

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