Gretel le Maître Ponders Beauty, with Bede & other guests

Send us Fan Mail Support the show Gretel le Maître likes to look for the beauty and curiosities in life, one day at a time.  She shares with you snippets from books about history, art and literature and regularly takes you on adventures to new locations, to explore churches, cathedrals and architecture.  We’ve reached 66,000 downloads.  Thank you!!  Historian Tom Holland is the Honorary Patron of...

Send us Fan Mail Support the show Gretel le Maître likes to look for the beauty and curiosities in life, one day at a time.  She shares with you snippets from books about history, art and literature and regularly takes you on adventures to new locations, to explore churches, cathedrals and architecture.  We’ve reached 66,000 downloads.  Thank you!!  Historian Tom Holland is the Honorary Patron of...

Send us Fan Mail Hullo, hullo, how are you? We are making good progress with Villette.  If you haven’t read it before you will find, perhaps, that it creeps up on your soul and tiptoes into your mind: the images in your head of the streets, the Pensionnat, Madame Beck, and Lucy Snowe.  Be patient and let the book come to you.   One quote from the chapter ‘Villette’ struck a chord with me and I tho...

Send us Fan Mail Support the show Gretel le Maître likes to look for the beauty and curiosities in life, one day at a time.  She shares with you snippets from books about history, art and literature and regularly takes you on adventures to new locations, to explore churches, cathedrals and architecture.  We’ve reached 66,000 downloads.  Thank you!!  Historian Tom Holland is the Honorary Patron of...

Send us Fan Mail Support the show Gretel le Maître likes to look for the beauty and curiosities in life, one day at a time.  She shares with you snippets from books about history, art and literature and regularly takes you on adventures to new locations, to explore churches, cathedrals and architecture.  We’ve reached 66,000 downloads.  Thank you!!  Historian Tom Holland is the Honorary Patron of...

Send us Fan Mail Support the show Gretel le Maître likes to look for the beauty and curiosities in life, one day at a time.  She shares with you snippets from books about history, art and literature and regularly takes you on adventures to new locations, to explore churches, cathedrals and architecture.  We’ve reached 66,000 downloads.  Thank you!!  Historian Tom Holland is the Honorary Patron of...

Send us Fan Mail Good Evening and welcome to tonight’s episode which I’ve produced just for you! Welcome newcomers and hello friends 🤗. First I visit the wonderful Swire Ridgeway Arts Prize 2026, organised by the Friends of the Ridgeway (https://share.google/OWNB5Guii9FsZ9EWJ).  Next I fly by Lacock Abbey and manage to have time alone in the cloisters; then after some pondering, I read more from...

Send us Fan Mail Dear friends, new and old, welcome to an episode that was recorded yesterday in the Oxfordshire sunshine but took a while to publish; huge apologies for the delay and also for the absence of our readings.  What a joy an honour it was to spend time with Hedley; such a lovely human being, whose curious and boyish attitude was delightful and charming.  Please find him on social media...

Send us Fan Mail Support the show Gretel le Maître likes to look for the beauty and curiosities in life, one day at a time.  She shares with you snippets from books about history, art and literature and regularly takes you on adventures to new locations, to explore churches, cathedrals and architecture.  We’ve reached 66,000 downloads.  Thank you!!  Historian Tom Holland is the Honorary Patron of...

Send us Fan Mail Support the show Gretel le Maître likes to look for the beauty and curiosities in life, one day at a time.  She shares with you snippets from books about history, art and literature and regularly takes you on adventures to new locations, to explore churches, cathedrals and architecture.  We’ve reached 66,000 downloads.  Thank you!!  Historian Tom Holland is the Honorary Patron of...

Send us Fan Mail Support the show Gretel le Maître likes to look for the beauty and curiosities in life, one day at a time.  She shares with you snippets from books about history, art and literature and regularly takes you on adventures to new locations, to explore churches, cathedrals and architecture.  We’ve reached 66,000 downloads.  Thank you!!  Historian Tom Holland is the Honorary Patron of...

Send us Fan Mail Support the show Gretel le Maître likes to look for the beauty and curiosities in life, one day at a time.  She shares with you snippets from books about history, art and literature and regularly takes you on adventures to new locations, to explore churches, cathedrals and architecture.  We’ve reached 66,000 downloads.  Thank you!!  Historian Tom Holland is the Honorary Patron of...

Send us Fan Mail Good afternoon and happy Tuesday.  We meet the curious Stanhopes in Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Towers: ‘Their conduct to each other was the same as to the world; they bore and forebore’.  We progress (not far) with Pepys (won’t it be good to get to 1664?).  We progress too with the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles but fall foul of the fact we are reading a version that combined them so t...

Send us Fan Mail Support the show Gretel le Maître likes to look for the beauty and curiosities in life, one day at a time.  She shares with you snippets from books about history, art and literature and regularly takes you on adventures to new locations, to explore churches, cathedrals and architecture.  We’ve reached 66,000 downloads.  Thank you!!  Historian Tom Holland is the Honorary Patron of...

Send us Fan Mail Good evening, how are you?  Can we really be so far into this year.  Why does time gallop 🏇?  Why cannot spring rest awhile: dawdle, dally, linger or tarry?   Welcome to the fifth season, where we begin Charlotte Brontë’s exquisite novel, Villette.  A gentle, soft-treading opening until you suddenly realise that you are deeply in.  Enveloped in perceptive, intelligent brilliance....

Send us Fan Mail Support the show Gretel le Maître likes to look for the beauty and curiosities in life, one day at a time.  She shares with you snippets from books about history, art and literature and regularly takes you on adventures to new locations, to explore churches, cathedrals and architecture.  We’ve reached 66,000 downloads.  Thank you!!  Historian Tom Holland is the Honorary Patron of...

Send us Fan Mail Support the show Gretel le Maître likes to look for the beauty and curiosities in life, one day at a time.  She shares with you snippets from books about history, art and literature and regularly takes you on adventures to new locations, to explore churches, cathedrals and architecture.  We’ve reached 66,000 downloads.  Thank you!!  Historian Tom Holland is the Honorary Patron of...

Send us Fan Mail Tonight is our penultimate Barnaby Rudge, which is preceded with the usual garden chatter.  Thank you so much for joining me, as always.   Support the show Gretel le Maître likes to look for the beauty and curiosities in life, one day at a time.  She shares with you snippets from books about history, art and literature and regularly takes you on adventures to new locations, to exp...

Send us Fan Mail Good evening and welcome to today’s episode where we progress with Barchester Towers and Chapters LXXVI and LXXVII of Barnaby Rudge. Support the show Gretel le Maître likes to look for the beauty and curiosities in life, one day at a time.  She shares with you snippets from books about history, art and literature and regularly takes you on adventures to new locations, to explore c...

Send us Fan Mail Support the show Gretel le Maître likes to look for the beauty and curiosities in life, one day at a time.  She shares with you snippets from books about history, art and literature and regularly takes you on adventures to new locations, to explore churches, cathedrals and architecture.  We’ve reached 66,000 downloads.  Thank you!!  Historian Tom Holland is the Honorary Patron of...

Send us Fan Mail Support the show Gretel le Maître likes to look for the beauty and curiosities in life, one day at a time.  She shares with you snippets from books about history, art and literature and regularly takes you on adventures to new locations, to explore churches, cathedrals and architecture.  We’ve reached 66,000 downloads.  Thank you!!  Historian Tom Holland is the Honorary Patron of...

Send us Fan Mail Good evening fair friends and any newcomers, welcome.  There is no Dickens in this episode, so those wanting to tune in to the next episode can skip this one if they are not in the mood for witterings.  Barchester Towers is proving to be a delight; and I hope you are enjoying it.  I have found the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles under a bookcase, so I can continue with that tomorrow.  Than...

Send us Fan Mail Support the show Gretel le Maître likes to look for the beauty and curiosities in life, one day at a time.  She shares with you snippets from books about history, art and literature and regularly takes you on adventures to new locations, to explore churches, cathedrals and architecture.  We’ve reached 66,000 downloads.  Thank you!!  Historian Tom Holland is the Honorary Patron of...

Send us Fan Mail Support the show Gretel le Maître likes to look for the beauty and curiosities in life, one day at a time.  She shares with you snippets from books about history, art and literature and regularly takes you on adventures to new locations, to explore churches, cathedrals and architecture.  We’ve reached 66,000 downloads.  Thank you!!  Historian Tom Holland is the Honorary Patron of...

Send us Fan Mail Support the show Gretel le Maître likes to look for the beauty and curiosities in life, one day at a time.  She shares with you snippets from books about history, art and literature and regularly takes you on adventures to new locations, to explore churches, cathedrals and architecture.  We’ve reached 66,000 downloads.  Thank you!!  Historian Tom Holland is the Honorary Patron of...