Over lockdown, with walking one of the few allowable reasons to leave the house, many people discovered more about their local area. One such was Lit & Phil member Paul Gailiunas who writes of his discoveries in Gosforth in our 100th blog posting!
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Welcome to the Lit & Phil's Blog
Despite the current difficulties we really want to keep engaged with both our members and visitors. Our hope is to inform, entertain and possibly amuse you, offering at least some distraction from the current crisis. Don't forget to check our social media channels, too. We will do everything we possibly can to keep in touch.
Please note that all the contributions here are the views and opinions of the contributors!
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Bird's Eye View
The fascinating story of Newcastle's earliest map.
Well that's a relief!
As a Lit and Phil guide I always tell the story that in the late 1960s the Lit and Phil sold some Assyrian slabs, which had been bequeathed to it by William Kennett Loftus many years before, to the Los Angeles Museum for £40,000, which provided the funds for the conversion of the lecture theatre into 4 rooms. Although I knew it was a museum in Los Angeles, I didn’t know which one – until recently when by chance I stumbled across the museum in which they are housed.
The Lit and Phil and The Wombat
An extraordinary tale of a wombat pickled in a leaking cask of spirits coming from Australia to The Lit and Phil. It was the first ever seen in the UK, but it got put in a drawer and forgotten about for thirty years until it was stuffed then an engraving made by Thomas Bewick.
Talk, talk, talk...
Necessity drives invention and so it has been with the Lit and Phil's popular series of talks on YouTube.
Breathe in me
Kate Halsall is a regular visitor to the Lit & Phil giving both solo piano concerts and often in collaboration with others. She has just released a new album recorded in the Lit & Phil.
New books July 2021
Every month, the Lit & Phil buys new books - we're a library after all! Here are just four that have come in recently
The Rotherams
Newcastle has a long history of families whose members have contributed enormously to the world of learning and discovery. The Rotherams are a fine such example.
Hieroglyphs from the North
The term 'Rosetta Stone' is now used to refer to the essential clue to a new field of knowledge. Read about its connection to the Newcastle mummy, Bakt-en-Hor, and how its inscriptions were amongst the earliest hieroglyphic texts to be read by French scholar and Egyptologist Jean-François Champollion.
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