Westminster Abbey


People are often accused of ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’; but who is the unfortunate Peter who is being robbed to pay the rather more fortunate Paul in this common phrase? This week, two politicians have hit the headlines accusing the government of ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’. In America, the looming ‘fiscal cliff’ elicited the phrase from Virginia State Senator Adam Ebbin as he criticized […]

Robbing Peter to pay Paul


It was a vast civil engineering programme that diverted the resources of the nation. At fifteen sites across the country, from Durham in the north to Chichester in the south, Norwich in the east to Hereford in the west, thousands of men laboured to create marvels that would amaze their contemporaries. Their creations would become instant landmarks, the centre of civic pride in their local areas and […]

Statements in stone – England’s Norman cathedrals