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Read an interview with artist Mat Collishaw. He reveals the process of making the Mask of Youth, an animatronic portrait of Queen Elizabeth I.

In this blog we look at a practical astronomical work written by the husband and wife team of Walter and Annie Maunder. The Maunders worked in the Solar Department of the Royal Observatory Greenwich in the early 1890s.

Artist Mat Collishaw talks about his Mask of Youth and reflects on the masks Elizabeth I wore all her life.

Researchers working under the explorer William Parry in the far North sought to uncover the mysteries of the Arctic, but extreme cold and bizarre magnetic effects interfered in their research more than they had anticipated.

In what is often considered one of the most extreme environments on Earth, harsh conditions made work difficult not only for the scientists, but also for their instruments.

One of my recent cataloguing projects has been a collection of business records relating to Sir William Fraser, principal managing owner of several vessels in the service of the East India Company at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. The catalogued items all have the prefix FRS in the Archive Catalogue.

Discover the Tudor origins of some of today's well-known Christmas traditions including tales of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I at Greenwich.

If we were able to return to Victorian London and head down to the banks of the Thames at low tide, we could observe silent human figures aged from childhood upwards, bent over, wading (sometimes waist-high) in the wet mud

We all have traditions around Christmas time and for many this will include a flaming Christmas pudding triumphantly brought to the dinner table, presented to both family and friends. Not all of us though, like a slice of Christmas pudding to round off our Christmas meal. I have heard it described as "the dessert from the depths of hell itself", "a flaming delight; a feast for the eyes and mouth"; Both descriptions reminded me of a quote from Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol and made me wonder about the origins of the Christmas pudding.

Diaries written by English prisoners of war captured during the Napoleonic Wars frequently mention their clothing. Whilst the importance of appropriate clothing to the comfort and care of prisoners is obvious, prisoners frequently used clothing for their benefit in other, more creative, ways.