Mark Patton

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About Mark Patton
Mark Patton (b 1965) was born in Jersey, studied Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge (1983-86) and completed his PhD at University College London (1990). He has taught at several universities in the UK, the Netherlands and France, and currently teaches with The Open University.
He has published a number of non-fiction works in archaeology and historical biography.
His first historical novel, "Undreamed Shores," was published in 2012. Set at the dawn of the Bronze Age (c2400 BC), it is both a coming of age story and an epic journey narrative.
His second novel, "An Accidental King," was published in 2013, and is set in the early years of Roman Britain, telling the story of the British king, Cogidubnus, and his struggle to preserve the peace between Rome and the native tribes.
Further information can be found on his website (www.mark-patton.co.uk) and blog (http://mark-patton.blogspot.co.uk).
He has published a number of non-fiction works in archaeology and historical biography.
His first historical novel, "Undreamed Shores," was published in 2012. Set at the dawn of the Bronze Age (c2400 BC), it is both a coming of age story and an epic journey narrative.
His second novel, "An Accidental King," was published in 2013, and is set in the early years of Roman Britain, telling the story of the British king, Cogidubnus, and his struggle to preserve the peace between Rome and the native tribes.
Further information can be found on his website (www.mark-patton.co.uk) and blog (http://mark-patton.blogspot.co.uk).
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Author Updates
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Blog postThe British sculptor, Antony Gormley, in a recent television programme (available on BBC I-Player until the end of February), explored the question of how art began, among some of the earliest human hunter-gatherer groups during the Pleistocene era (between 2.6 million and 11.7 thousand years ago). Like the exploration of the same topic by the German film-director, Werner Herzog, in his documentary, "The Cave of Forgotten Dreams", his viewpoint is an intensely personal one: that o2 weeks ago Read more
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Blog postA visitor to London, exploring the City of Westminster, and having explored Parliament Square, can walk northwards, along Whitehall, to Trafalgar Square. Whitehall today is lined, as it has been since the Seventeenth Century, by government buildings (HM Treasury, The Ministry of Defence, The Scottish and Welsh Offices), and by statues of some of the leading figures in British military history. Downing Street, where the Prime Minister of the day resides, leads off from it, as does Scotland Y1 month ago Read more
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Blog postEighteenth Century London was the hub of a continually expanding network of global contacts. At its wharves and quays, ships arrived bearing lacquer-ware, porcelain, and tea from China; cotton fabrics from India; tobacco from North America; chocolate from Mexico; coffee and spices from Indonesia; and sugar from the Caribbean; smaller ships brought coal from the north-eastern ports of England, which was increasingly burned as a fuel in London, in preference to wood, the nation's forests having b3 months ago Read more
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Blog postThe London that endured the Great Plague of 1665 was largely swept away, the following year, by the Great Fire of London. Although blamed, at the time, on foreign or Catholic agents provocateurs, the fire was, in fact, an accident; the inevitable consequence of the growth of a city of timber-framed buildings with thatched roofs. The new city that sprung up in its place was built, largely, of brick, stone, and tile, and had, as its centre-piece, Sir Christopher Wren's bold new design fo4 months ago Read more
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Blog postA visitor to London, exploring the City of Westminster, and walking northward along Millbank from Vauxhall Bridge towards Parliament Square, crosses an invisible line, somewhere between Millbank Tower (the tallest building along the route) and Thames House (the headquarters of the domestic security service, MI5), marking the southern edge of Thorney Island. Thorney island was an eyot or ait: an island formed by the deposition of sediments, often at the confluence of two river5 months ago Read more
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Blog postA visitor to London, having explored the Borough of Lambeth, and arrived back at Vauxhall Bridge, can cross the bridge into the western end of the City of Westminster. The street that now bears the name of Millbank (after a Medieval tidal mill, owned by the Benedictine monks of Saint Peter's, otherwise known as Westminster Abbey) follows the northern (or "Middlesex") bank of the River Thames, between Chelsea and the Houses of Parliament. The modern view, as one walks across t6 months ago Read more
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Blog postIn 1663, news first reached London of a plague that had been devastating the city of Amsterdam. The extensive trade links between England (especially London) and the Netherlands (most significantly Amsterdam) made it more or less inevitable that the sickness would, in time, make its way to these shores. The plague (both bubonic and pneumonic) was no stranger to Londoners: there had been periodic outbreaks over a period of more than three centuries, the most serious, by far, being the "Black6 months ago Read more
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Blog postThe golden age of English theatre spanned the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I. It was overwhelmingly a London phenomenon (although productions did tour, especially when the plague was raging in the City), and is not really matched in any of the other major cities of Europe, where the main cultural achievements of the late Renaissance were in the fields of painting, sculpture, architecture, and music. We have already looked at this in relation to Christopher Marlowe, but his career was cut7 months ago Read more
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Blog postA visitor to London, exploring the Borough of Lambeth, and having visited Brixton, can take any one of several buses (159, 133, 333, 118) southwards to Streatham Hill. The railway station here opened in 1856, as part of the West End of London and Crystal Palace Railway, the arrival of which made this area of south London more attractive to London's burgeoning population of commuters. Even before this, however, horse-drawn omnibuses had opened up Streatham to residential development; and, go8 months ago Read more
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Blog postLondon during the Sixteenth and early Seventeenth Centuries was a bustling port, with ships arriving on a daily basis from the most dynamic cities of Europe: Stockholm & Copenhagen; Rotterdam & Antwerp; Bordeaux & Seville; Genoa & Venice. These ships brought furs, timber, wine, silks, and spices, but, just as importantly, they brought knowledge and information, and they brought books. Following the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turk in 1453, waves of Greek immigrants sett9 months ago Read more
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Blog postA visitor to London, exploring the Borough of Lambeth, and having arrived at Vauxhall Bridge, can turn southward, and cross the roundabout to Vauxhall Underground Station. From here, on the Victoria Line, it is just two stops to our penultimate port-of-call within the borough, Brixton.
In the Eighteenth Century, Brixton was open countryside, producing food for the London markets, and known, especially, for its strawberries. There is even a windmill, close to the station, built9 months ago Read more -
Blog postA major exhibition currently open at Tate Britain highlights the London works of a group of (mainly) French painters living in London in the second half of the Nineteenth Century. Not all of the works on display are, in the strictest sense, "Impressionist:" there are Impressionist masterpieces by some of the best known figures of the movement, such as Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro; but there are also works by members of their extended social circle, such as James Tissot, who are no10 months ago Read more
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Blog postIt has sometimes been said that England, in contrast to Italy, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, never really had a "Renaissance." To the extent that this is true at all (questionable in itself), it applies only to the visual arts, and most particularly not to literature, drama, or philosophy. In fact, it can be argued that the institution of the commercial theatre, which, in the Sixteenth and early Seventeenth Centuries, was almost uniquely English, and, more specifically, London-10 months ago Read more
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Blog postA visitor to London, exploring the Borough of Lambeth, and, having viewed the Garden Museum, can continue southwards along the Albert Embankment towards Vauxhall Bridge. The current bridge was opened in 1906, replacing an earlier one (originally called Regent Bridge), built between 1809 and 1816. At low tide (the Thames is tidal as far as Richmond), rows of wooden posts can be seen on either side of the modern bridge: those downstream of the bridge have been dated by archaeologists to the l10 months ago Read more
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Blog postIn the early decades of the Sixteenth Century, London was one of the great trading cities of Europe, a major port city, and a rival to Antwerp as a hub of the international cloth trade: yet it remained, by any modern standard, a relatively small urban settlement. The estimated population in 1530 was around 50,000: comparable to modern Salisbury or Surbiton; a little smaller than today's Tamworth or Maidstone; a city that offered little in the way of anonymity, in which people were likely to hav11 months ago Read more
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Blog postA visitor to London, exploring the Borough of Lambeth, and having passed Lambeth Palace, on the south bank of the Thames, arrives at the Church of Saint Mary-at-Lambeth. The first church on his site was built in 1062, by Goda (or Godgyfu), the sister of King Edward the Confessor, but nothing is preserved of her construction, which was probably made of wood. The current church (now deconsecrated) dates, substantially, to the Fourteenth Century, but was substantially repaired and altered in t12 months ago Read more
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Blog postThe City of London, having lost at least half of its population to the Black Death in 1348, recovered surprisingly rapidly. The decades that followed offered unprecedented opportunities for those who had been fortunate enough to survive: the sons of peasants from Kent and Surrey, Suffolk and Norfolk, flocked to the capital to take the place of the thousands of apprentices who now lay buried in the mass graves beyond the City walls. There were fewer opportunities for girls than for boys, althoug1 year ago Read more
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Blog postA visitor to London, exploring the Borough of Lambeth, and having followed the Thames Path from the South Bank Centre to Saint Thomas's Hospital, can continue along this path, arriving, after a short walk, at Lambeth Palace, the London residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury since around 1200 AD. I do not usually take readers inside such attractions: they have their own websites, and I wouldn't wish, as it were, to spoil the plot, preferring to weave a connecting path between them.1 year ago Read more
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Blog postA visitor to London, exploring the Borough of Lambeth, and having viewed the site of the Festival of Britain, can follow the Thames Path southwards, towards Westminster Bridge, passing the London Eye. We are walking, here, along an embankment created by the Victorian engineer, Sir Joseph Bazalgette (of whom more in a later post), which, by making this stretch of the tidal Thames narrower and deeper, did much to alleviate the problems of flooding that once marred the lives of residents of So1 year ago Read more
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Blog post"Across my foundering deck shone a beacon, an eternal beam
Flesh fade, and mortal trash fall to the residuary worm;
World's wildfire, leave but ash;
In a flash, at a trumpet crash,
I am all at once what Christ is, since he was what I am, and
This Jack, joke, poor potsherd,
Patch, matchwood, immortal diamond,
Is immortal diamond."
Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Winter and death are among the themes explored by some of our great1 year ago Read more -
Blog postA major new BBC television series, presented by the maritime historian and archaeologist, Dr Sam Willis, sets out to tell "the stories of the invasions of the British Isles" from earliest times down to the modern era. Appropriately enough, Willis begins by insisting that "invasions come in many forms:" glaciers and pigs, as well as marauding foreign warriors, such as the Saxons and Vikings, can be "invaders." The supposed "Celtic invasions" of th1 year ago Read more
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Blog postIn an earlier blog-post, I explored the question of "Celtic" identity through a review of an exhibition at the British Museum, and a related BBC television series. The British Museum's current major exhibition is on the Scythians, an even more elusive people: it is subtitled "Warriors of Ancient Siberia," but the Scythians (as the exhibition itself makes clear) were so much more than this. Certainly they were warriors, and, as such, perfected the art of mounted warf1 year ago Read more
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Blog postThe Medieval approach to "The Festive Season" could hardly have been more different from our own. The festivities, which today culminate on the 25th December, could not begin, in the Middle Ages, until Christmas Day, and, in order to respect the religious solemnities of the festival, the exchange of gifts more commonly took place towards the end of the season, often on New Year's Day.
Nativity scene, from the Hours of Charles d'Angouleme, late 15th Century, National Librar1 year ago Read more -
Blog postThe Black Death, which swept through Europe between 1346 and 1353, was one of the most devastating epidemics in human history, killing between 30% and 60% of the continent's population. In crowded cities, such as London, the figure may well have been higher. The shortage of labour pushed wages up, both in the cities and in the countryside, and the attempts of governments, including that of King Edward III in England, to use legislation to keep wages low, and keep peasants tied to the land, unsu1 year ago Read more
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Blog postAs the Roman administration of Britain collapsed, during the course of the Fifth Century AD, London was progressively abandoned. Urban life becomes impossible in a land without reliable infrastructure: some Londoners probably took refuge on the continent, still, at least nominally, under Roman rule; others melted away into the countryside, where they could, at least, produce their own food, and where they were less obvious targets for increasing numbers of Saxon pirates.
The Pagan S1 year ago Read more
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Jersey in Prehistory
Dec 31, 1987
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