The Shivering Timbers

Can objects carry a shadow of their history with them?

I remember looking through the glass of a cas which contained a book owned and read by Catherine of Aragon. She had thumbed it, turned the pages, thought on it, mused over it. At a time when books were incredibly expensive, she, a woman of rank and privilege, had made it part of her everyday life.

So, I asked it silently, do you remember her?

Of course not. Surely that would be impossible. Scientists would snort with derision at the very idea.

But it was there. With her.

I am hatching plans to travel to a little village in Hampshire which sits on the River Meon as it flows enchanting for 21 miles through the Meon Valley. Because there, inanimate wood has retired after the most astonishing of pasts.

I speak of timber. Wooden beams, the humblest of materials, which…