The church of Saint Cecilia is in Trastavere, a beautiful part of Rome that's filled with tiny alleyways and old buildings. The church is down one of those alleyways, our guidebook had to give us pretty precise instructions for us to find it, and we were glad that we went out of our way to track it down. 

The town of Leigh on Sea in Essex has become a regular visiting spot of mine over the past year, as my fiancee's parents live there. While walking around the town with my fiancee we had a wander up to the local parish church. A building has stood here since the 13th century, but the current church was built in the 1500's, with additional works carried out in the 19th and 20th centuries. The position of the church means that it virtually looms over the area known as "Old Leigh", but the proximity to the Thames Estuary makes this quite an apt place for a type of memorial that I've never seen before - a Dunkirk memorial. 

One of the great things about driving around the countryside is that you often find very odd buildings or additions that mean you just have to stop and take a photo. If you are driving around the Cambridgeshire/Hertfordshire border then you might stumble on the tiny village of Heydon, and it's very odd red brick church tower. 

The church of St George stands in the village of Anstey in Hertfordshire. A church has been on the site since Saxon times, but was rebuilt by the Normans after the invasion of 1066, and then restored in the late 19th century by William Butterfield. Despite this restoration there are still remains of the old Norman structure, including part of the tower. Unusually for the area, the church is built as a cruciform, with the tower in the middle of the building. A south porch was added in the 15 century, and there is also remains of 14 century work, such as the corbels. 

Despite it being the closest cathedral to me growing up, I finally visited Ely Cathedral in Cambridgeshire for the first time in 2015. What I found was a beautiful building, which after a full Victorian restoration, was left with a visually stunning interior. 

If you've ever read up on medieval graffiti (especially if you got the incredible book "Medieval Graffiti: The Lost Voices of England's Churches" by Matthew Champion for last Christmas) then you'll probably have heard of the church at Ashwell. This small Hertfordshire village is full of unique historic property, with a high street showing houses from several eras. But this church itself is the real call for many, due to the extensive medieval graffiti you can find inside. 

In the late 1700's, Charles Langhorn appears to have had a decent enough life for a village labourer. He was married with two young children, living in or near the village of Ashwell in Hertfordshire, and apparently on good terms with his neighbours and well-liked by the community at large. Like many men in rural areas he worked for a prominent local family, in this case he was employed as a shepherd by Elias Fordham. 

On 15th September 1666 the sole heir to the Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg was born, and it was a girl. Named "Sophia Dorothea",  the little Duchess would go on to have a deeply unhappy marriage to a man who would then imprison her for thirty years, the future King George I of England. 

On 21st June 1914 the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Bertha von Suttner, died in Vienna. She was the second woman, after Marie Curie, to become a Nobel laureate, and like Marie Curie her life was one of frequent turmoil. 

Today is a resounding Happy Birthday to one of my favourite women in history - Elizabeth Garrett Anderson! She dedicated her life to studying medicine, becoming the first British woman to become a doctor, and then ran hospitals, public health programmes, and trained other women to follow in her footsteps.