Chasing more horse ghosts in London.
Category Archives: Architecture for Equines
Everything I Don’t Know About Selika Lazevski
UPDATE: The viral photographs of Sélika set me hunting through archives and circuses from St Petersburg to Paris to uncover the lives of elusive women who were celebrated artistes, survivors, and scapegoats of the nineteenth century. I’m telling their stories now in Amazons of Paris. You can sign up here for more information and …
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Clever Hans: A Horse, a House and a Little History
Wilhelm von Osten was born into the German squirearchy in 1838 and went on to work as a maths teacher. He moved to the eastern Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg in 1866 and purchased a house at 10 Griebenowstraße. A befitted his background, he was a keen rider and huntsman with an appreciation of horses. …
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The Horse Ghosts of East London
I had some time to kill near Liverpool Street Station in London yesterday and remembered a quest I’d started to put together earlier this year, before it was cut short by health problems. In The Age of the Horse I’ve tried to write a sweeping, single-take overview of all the ways in which horses powered Britain in the nineteenth …
The Cremellos of Versailles
Scraps of incomplete research I’m doing to trace the history of cream-coloured horses at Versailles and earlier French royal stables. I knew the Hanoverian monarchs of England had cream-coloured carriage horses (the “Hanoverian creams” mentioned in W J Gordon’s Horse World of London in 1893), and that cream horses are mentioned by François Robichon de …
Dutch Stables: Horses in the Heart of Amsterdam
I went to Amsterdam last weekend to see friends I hadn’t seen for far too long, and ended up doing a little unscheduled horsey tourism. I hadn’t planned it, honest! I had no idea that Amsterdam had a nineteenth century riding manège right by its main park, nor that the building was still home to …
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Pegasus Working Hard for a Living in Noto, Sicily
I couldn’t find the plural of Pegasus in the OED and I know from a distant Greek A-Level that it’s probably not Pegasi. Suggest away, linguists!
Art & Horseyculture: Horses Stabled Underground in Nineteenth-Century Norway
“Subterranean stables” painted by Charles Taylor in 1856–7, most likely in Norway. More details at the US Library of Congress’ website, which should be browsed for hours.
Whole Heap of Little Horse Links
The American Quarter Horse Association is being sued for not allowing the registration of cloned horses. (ABC News) A New Yorker suggests that the local Boris bike system is replaced by one providing horses. (Gabe Capone) The suspicious death of a racehorse in West Virginia. (Bloodhorse.com) A profile on Marty Irby, a Tennessee Walking Horse …
No Plans for the Weekend? Why Not Pop Over to Chantilly?
The Prince of Condé, Louis Henri (also a Duc de Bourbon) was prime minister of France for Louis XI from 1723 to 1726. He was also, according to an old tale I really hope is true, sure he would be reincarnated as a horse. He built the stables by which all other stables are judged …
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