Victorian Prudes and their Bizarre Beachside Bathing Machines

Picture that moment when you finally get to the beach after a long winter, excitedly peel off your clothes, run madly towards the water and crash into the salty waves without a care in the world … this is not that. If you were a beachgoer in Georgian or Victorian times, more specifically, a female…

If Ophelia Could Talk: The True Story of the Iconic Artist-Muse

If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the years, it’s to listen to the muse – she usually has the juiciest details behind some of history’s most iconic artworks and artists. Today, we travel to the gauzy, sun-dappled world of the romantic pre-Raphaelite painters and zoom in on their unsung queen, “Ophelia” in that iconic…

For Sale: The Victorian Butcher Shop You Never Knew You Needed

So generously preserved of its original features, you can almost imagine a portly butcher emerging from his back room to ask whether you want the Sirloin cut or Tenderloin. And yet this “rare survival” in North London has managed to find new life as a wonderful two-bedroom home with a kitchen and front room to…

So What Were UFO Sightings like in the Really Old Days?

Who made the little green spacemen, well, green? Long before the midcentury Space Race set the standard for collective extraterrestrial clichés, people were having out-of-this-world experiences that chilled them down to their frilly, 1850s pantaloons. The snag being, of course, that no one had any evidence. In 1919, American author Charles Hoy Fort came forth…

We Found a California B&B that Might be Madder than the Madonna Inn

As unabashed lovers of the more-is-more mantra, we were destined to fall in love with “The Victorian Mansion at Los Alamos” – which is anything but Victorian, in a way. It can be a 1950s drive-in, or a Parisian escape; a pirate’s lair, or a gladiator’s delight. The last Victorian estate in the area, this mansion-turned-B&B…

Victorian Mansion For Sale, Perfect for Wes Anderson’s remake of the Addams Family

Meet the Victorian gem that rolled right out of our dreams, and into the little city of Abilene, Kansas. The yellow brick mansion – boasting two dozen rooms and five storeys – is the ultimate Addams-Family-meets-Wes-Anderson fantasy. The “Lebold Mansion,” est. 1880, is already renovated – such a rare case for these beauties, which often…

The Belle Epoque Body-con Dress That Was Too Sexy for Paris

In the Spring of 1908, three women walked onto the Longchamp racecourse in Paris and jaws dropped. The elite society event was known for debuting the latest couture creations to the public, but no one had seen fashion quite like this before. Dressed in blue, white and havane brown creations, according to newspapers, spectators called the three…

Banner Ladies: The Human Billboards of Yesteryear

Whether you’ve traded your old sofa on Craigslist or advertised your business and its products to the world, we’ve all had to dabble in the art of promotion at one point or another. In my experience, creativity is key, and it doesn’t get much more creative than the advertising style of 19th century banner ladies,…

Before Photoshop, There Was the Disturbing Art of Spirit Photography

Ever since technology has allowed people to capture pictures, photographers have been using photo-editing techniques to trick people. One of the most fascinating early examples is spirit photography. William Hope (c) National Media Museum Spirit photography was a trend in which a photographer edited pictures to make ghosts or spirit-like figures appear alongside the human…

The Lost Art of Decorating with Shells

In Margate, on the south-east coast of England, there is an underground grotto lined with majestic mosaics made entirely of seashells – and no-one knows how it got there. The site was discovered in 1835 by a father and son who were attempting to dig a duck pond. The story goes that the young boy…