Tantalus, also called Atys, was a Greek mythological figure, most famous for his punishment in Tartarus: for trying to trick the gods into eating his son, he was made to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches, with the fruit ever eluding his grasp, and the water always receding before he could take a drink.
Sir Edward Coke was an English barrister, judge, and politician. He is often considered the greatest jurist of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras.
Sir John Betjeman, was an English poet, writer, and broadcaster. He was Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death. He was a founding member of The Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture, helping to save St Pancras railway station from demolition. He began his career as a journalist and ended it as one of the most popular British Poets Laureate and a much-loved figure on British television.
Pentonville Road is a road in Central London that runs west to east from Kings Cross to City Road at The Angel, Islington. The road is part of the London Inner Ring Road and part of the boundary of the London congestion charge zone.
Sir Hugh Maxwell Casson was a British architect, also active as an interior designer, an artist, and a writer and broadcaster on twentieth-century design. He was the director of architecture for the 1951 Festival of Britain. From 1976 to 1984, he was president of the Royal Academy.
The Macallan distillery is a single malt Scotch whisky distillery in Craigellachie in Moray in the north-east of Scotland. The Macallan Distillers Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of Edrington, which purchased the brand from Highland Distillers in 1999.
Elizabeth Bowen CBE was an Irish-British novelist and short story writer notable for her books about the "big house" of Irish landed Protestants as well as her fiction about life in wartime London.
St Giles-without-Cripplegate is an Anglican church in the City of London, located on Fore Street within the modern Barbican complex. When built it stood without the city wall, near the Cripplegate. The church is dedicated to St Giles, patron saint of handicapped and infirm people of many different kinds. It is one of the few medieval churches left in the City of London, having survived the Great Fire of 1666.
Jonas Chickering was a piano manufacturer in Boston, Massachusetts.
The Tower House, 29 Melbury Road, is a late-Victorian townhouse in the Holland Park district of Kensington and Chelsea, London, built by the architect and designer William Burges as his home. Designed between 1875 and 1881, in the French Gothic Revival style, it was described by the architectural historian J. Mordaunt Crook as "the most complete example of a medieval secular interior produced by the Gothic Revival, and the last". The house is built of red brick, with Bath stone dressings and green roof slates from Cumbria, and has a distinctive cylindrical tower and conical roof. The ground floor contains a drawing room, a dining room and a library, while the first floor has two bedrooms and an armoury. Its exterior and the interior echo elements of Burges's earlier work, particularly Park House in Cardiff and Castell Coch. It was designated a Grade I listed building in 1949.
George Alfred Magee ('Colonel') Kolkhorst (1897–1958) was an Oxford don, first a lecturer and then Reader in Spanish.
Egloskerry is a village and civil parish in east Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated approximately five miles (8.0 km) northwest of Launceston.
Wadebridge railway station was a railway station that served the town of Wadebridge in Cornwall, England. It was on the Bodmin and Wadebridge Railway.
Haig is a brand of Scotch whisky, produced by Diageo in Scotland. It was originally manufactured by John Haig & Co Ltd. since the early 1720s.
Sir John Betjeman (1906–1984) was a twentieth-century English poet, writer and broadcaster. Born to a middle-class family in Edwardian Hampstead, he attended Oxford University, although left without graduating. He turned down a position in the family furniture business, and instead took a series of jobs before becoming the assistant editor of The Architectural Review in 1931, which reflected a deeply held affection for buildings and their history. That same year he published his first book, Mount Zion, a collection of poems.
Bell's is a brand of blended Scotch whisky produced by Diageo in Scotland. It was originally produced by Arthur Bell & Sons Ltd and is one of the best selling whiskies in the UK, only slightly behind The Famous Grouse which is the best selling Scotch whisky on the island.
Blair Athol distillery is a single malt whisky distillery in Scotland. It is used in Bell's whisky, and is also normally available in a 12-year-old bottling. The distillery is located on the south edge of Pitlochry in Perthshire, near the River Tummel.
A Passion for Churches is a 1974 BBC television documentary written and presented by the then Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman and produced and directed by Edward Mirzoeff. Commissioned as a follow-up to the critically acclaimed 1973 documentary Metro-land, the film offers Betjeman's personal poetic record of the various rituals taking place throughout the Anglican Diocese of Norwich and its churches in the run-up to Easter Sunday using the framing device of the Holy sacraments.
William la Zouche, 1st Baron Zouche (1276/86–1352), lord of the manor of Harringworth in Northamptonshire, was an English baron and soldier who fought in the Wars of Scottish Independence. He is referred to in history as "of Harringworth" to distinguish him from his first cousin Alan la Zouche, 1st Baron la Zouche (1267–1314) of Ashby de la Zouch in Leicestershire.
