From My Blog

‘In the closet with Lucy Worsley’. I let The Express poke around in my wardrobe.

In the closet with Lucy Worsley, article in The Sunday Express The TV historian takes her pick from fashion’s back catalogue – whether it’s Sixties shift dresses or Anglo Saxon armour from The Sunday Express ‘S’ Magazine, 9 January 2012 Words and styling by Charlie Wells Author and presenter Lucy, 38, is Chief Curator at

An Intimate History of Your Home – a new article from the History Today blog

Hello there.  As my latest book is out in paperback this week, I thought you might enjoy an article explaining what it’s all about.  This was published yesterday on History Today’s blog. Do check the rest of their site out too, heaps of interesting things. ‘My everyday routine as Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces takes me

Nicknames for the Four Georges – my favourite of your answers

You had some nice ideas! I think my favourites are: 1 – ‘Loveless’, 2 – ‘Lucky’, 3 – ‘Loopy’, 4 – ‘Licentious’ Or maybe: 1- ‘German’, 2 – ‘Grumpy’, 3 – ‘Ga-Ga’, 4 – ‘Gargantuan’ ‘Ga Ga’ and ‘Gargantuan’ came up more than once, so there’s def. something there.  I also quite like: 1 – ‘The Unlikely’ 2 –

Nicknames for the four King Georges – I challenge you!

A fun problem at work today – what accurate and memorable monikers can we come up with for the four King Georges to help people remember which was which?  (Think Scary, Baby, Ginger, Sporty and Posh…)  The ‘mad, bad, sad and fat’ of the Horrible Histories song ‘Born To Rule’, which although brilliant, doesn’t really

An interview about ‘Courtiers’ for the History Today Book Club

Extract from History Today, January edition, 2012 Each month we recommend a work of history recently published in paperback.  We discuss the book with its author and invite readers to contribute to the dialogue on our website.  The History Today Book Club recommendation for January is Courtiers; The Secret History of Kensington Palace (Faber & Faber) by

Dead robins and other festive cheer in my article in today’s Telegraph

The makings of a modern Christmas Cooked peacocks and dead robins have come and gone, but today’s festival draws on many other unlikely tastes and rituals.  Lucy Worsley in The Telegraph, 22.12.2011 ‘Take a peacock, break its neck and cut its throat,” the recipe begins. Then “flay him”, being careful to “keep the skin and

The curator’s curator

Four curators nominate their favourite living expert in the field.  Article in The Guardian, 7 December 2011, by Anna Tims Lucy Worsley on Ros Savill Ros Savill, the recently retired director of the Wallace Collection in London, is an old-school but totally admirable example of the scholarly director-curator. She was the Wallace’s first female curator, her

I am photographed as Marie Antoinette

It’s a big deal being photographed by Julia Fullerton-Batten, as I was recently for the New Yorker. (‘For the New Yorker’.  Note how coolly I toss that out?  Believe me, my nonchalance is feigned.) The first indication that something extraordinary was coming up was my being asked if I had a preferred make-up artist and

I eat George III’s dinner

Marc and Robert from Historia, the food historians who work at Hampton Court, were cooking dishes from a 1789 menu for George III for Lauren Collins of the New Yorker. Who could resist coming along for a taste? Certain not me and my fellow curator Susanne. Selecting just the highlights from the great list of

Can anyone help me with Dorothy Hartley? New TV project.

This is a plea for information about the food writer Dorothy Hartley (1893-1985) – please do pass it on to any foodies of your acquaintance… Her seminal book Food in England was published in 1954.  All true foodies know it and love it as a wonderful, if slightly random, collection of information about the history