As a special Christmas treat for you, my listeners, I have done something a bit different for this episode of Past Matters. Instead of asking a museum, gallery or historic house what their most underrated item is, I have instead asked historian Nicola Tallis, what historical object she thinks is underrated.

Apsley House (also known as No.1 London) is the home of the Dukes of Wellington and for the first time has extended its opening times to the 22nd December 2019 and decorated the house in 1840s style Christmas decorations. Visitors can therefore experience this already beautiful building as it may have looked for a Georgian Christmas. It therefore seemed fitting to feature one of the Christmas special episodes here.

Art, dogs, and a famous royal mistress… what more could you want from a podcast episode?

This episode of Past Matters is for fans of the Tudors, Anne Boleyn and anyone who has ever wanted to learn more about tapestries, royal signifiers of power and historical fashion. Or those who enjoy looking for the comic scenes hidden in art. 

This episode takes us to the Holburne Museum in Bath, which runs an excellent programme called Pathways to Wellbeing whereby they offer art classes focusing on the objects in the museum to people with mental health issues referred by the local NHS trust. 

It’s not all about the mammoth! Visitors to Ipswich Museum should also take note of three frightening looking taxidermied gorillas in the corner of the Victorian Natural History Gallery there.

This episode is for those people who love animals and art because in it, I interview Jenny Hand, curator at Munnings Art Museum.

Nestled among the reconstructed low-status farm buildings in Weald & Downland Living Museum is an almost fairytale-like structure. It wasn’t the home of fairytale heroine though – it’s actually an ornamental dairy from Regency England. Although, there are marks within it to ward off witches and evil spirits…

It would be very easy to walk by the small, understated self-portrait of Emma Brownlow at the Foundling Museum in London, but it would be a travesty to not pay more attention to someone whose works provide such an interesting insight into life at the UK’s first ever children’s charity – the Foundling Hospital.

It can be very easy to walk by jewellery in an exhibition because these items tend to be very small. Don’t skip by this episode of Past Matters though – in it I talk to to Colchester Museums’ Senior Collections and Learning Curator Glynn Davis about some exquisite pieces of Roman jewellery that cast new light on the inhabitants of Roman Colchester, show off the skill of jewellers and gems cutters of the time, and reveal more about Roman jewellery trends.