The 14th April 2026 is World Puffin Day. To mark this, and the 350th anniversary of the publication of Francis Willughby’s Ornithologia, this post will focus on part of the description of the Atlantic Puffin from Ornithologia. In Francis Willughby’s time, the bird that is known as the Puffin today was not known as it in England. Confusingly, what was known as the Puffin in England in his time is today known as the Manx Shearwater. Ornithologia provides many British folk names

The 11th April 2026 is National Board Game Day and to mark this day we are providing details of a board game from Francis Willughby’s Book of Games: Nine Men’s Morris. This game has been played in England since the Middle Ages, but is believed to date back much further to at least the Roman Empire. It has always been an internationally played game. It had numerous other names in English such as merels, mills and ninepenny marl. The board consisted of three squares drawn insi

The chimneys of the Tudor Barn at Middleton Hall are an important visible remnant of the first stage of the construction of Middleton Hall on its current site. This construction phase began in about 1220, during the de Marmion period of ownership and shortly after their lands had been returned to them following the First Barons’ War. This construction phase is very obvious at Middleton Hall because it used a very specific red sandstone to create sandstone plinth foundations.

The 22nd–26th March 2026 is World Osprey Week. To mark this, as well as the 350th anniversary of the year of the publication of Francis Willughby’s Ornithologia, this post will focus on part of the description of the Osprey provided in Ornithologia. The Osprey is particularly problematic in Ornithologia. The size and other characteristics of the Osprey caused significant problems for Willughby, Ray and other later naturalists because it was an intermediate species that did no

The 20th March 2026 is World Sparrow Day. To mark this, as well as the 350th anniversary of the year of the publication of Francis Willughby’s Ornithologia, this post will focus on part of the description of the House Sparrow provided in Ornithologia. World Sparrow Day aims to raise awareness of the declining population of the House Sparrow, which has declined by over 60% since the 1970s in the UK and has faced a similar decline worldwide in the same time period. The cause of

The 19th March 2026 is National Poultry Day. To mark this and the 350th anniversary of the year of the publication of Francis Willughby’s Ornithologia, this post will focus on the various medicinal uses for chickens that were detailed in Ornithologia. It is known that Francis Willughby and John Ray prepared medicines using the stills in the Stone Building at Middleton Hall. PLEASE NOTE: none of the medicinal uses detailed in this post are advised today. However, a few do bear

The 18th March 2026 is World Eagle Day and to mark this, as well as the 350th anniversary of the year of the publication of Francis Willughby’s Ornithologia, this post will focus on part of the description of the Golden Eagle provided in Ornithologia. Willughby wrote that the English countrymen called this bird simply the Eagle, without any epithet of distinction, as if it were the Eagle of Eagles. It came to England yearly to build its nest and breed, especially upon the hig

The 2nd February 2026 is World Ostrich Day and to mark this, as well as the 350th anniversary of the year of the publication of Francis Willughby’s Ornithologia, this post will focus on some of the description of the ostrich provided in Ornithologia. Francis Willughby and John Ray had actually seen an ostrich. They saw it on their European Tour, on 30th April 1663, when they were in Brussels, in what is today Belgium. They wrote that between Coudenberg Palace and Bruxelles Pa

The 17th January is World Waterfowl Day, the purpose of which is to raise public awareness, knowledge and interest in various species of waterfowl such as ducks, swans and geese. Therefore, in this post, we will be raising awareness of one species of waterfowl mentioned in Francis Willughby’s Ornithologia that is known today as the Mute Swan. In Ornithologia, Willughby called the Mute Swan the Tame Swan or Cygnus mansuetus . Furthermore, in his earlier Catalogue of English Bi

The 5th January is National Bird Day! Birds are a very important historic topic at Middleton Hall and in 2026 they are especially so because it is also the 350th anniversary of the first publication of Francis Willughby’s Ornithologia. In 1672, John Ray made a deathbed promise to Francis Willughby to finish Willughby’s work on natural history. With the publication of Ornithologia (Ornithology), which he compiled whilst still at Middleton Hall, Ray fulfilled part of his promis

Recently a special two-part documentary series has been shown on Channel 5 called Ice Age: Apocalypse. One might wonder why this show might have any relevance to Middleton. Over the last few years, we have been researching the much wider history of Middleton and the Ice Age has managed to make repeated and often unexpected appearances. The oldest archaeological discovery at Middleton is a Palaeolithic Acheulian ovate hand axe, which is thought to date to over 200,000 years ag

There is a partial solar eclipse visible in the UK on 29th March 2025 at 10am. To mark this event, we thought we would do a post about when one of the residents of Middleton Hall studied a solar eclipse all the way back in 1666! Francis Willughby FRS, is most renowned for his interest in nature, in particular zoology, but he was also interested in astronomy. On 22nd June 1666, he officially scientifically monitored and recorded a solar eclipse for the Royal Society. The Royal

It is often said at Middleton Hall that you are a bona fide Middleton historian when you cannot go on holiday or watch a television programme without coming across a connection to Middleton’s history! Recently Channel 5 aired a two-part documentary series called “Volcano with Dara O’Briain”. One may think that there would be little chance of connecting volcanoes with Middleton’s history but in 1664 two residents of Middleton Hall, Francis Willughby and John Ray, happened to b

In our previous post to mark British Tomato Fortnight, we mentioned that historically the tomato was viewed as poisonous. At Middleton Hall, this then invites the question of what did our famous resident botanist John Ray say about the tomato in the 17th century? John Ray’s masterpiece, Historia Plantarum , contains multiple entries that would be considered as synonyms of the tomato today. One that is particularly interesting is in the appendix to Historia Plantarum volume 2

20th May 2025 is World Bee Day! Did you know that there is a species of bee named after one of Middleton Hall’s residents? In 1802, the species Megachile willughbiella was named in honour of Francis Willughby FRS. It is commonly known as Willughby’s leaf-cutting bee and Francis was the first person to describe it and its life-cycle. On 5th May 1670, at a meeting of the Royal Society, some specimens were shown of what was thought to be worms wrapped in leaves and lodged in se

Anciently baron was a term given to the nobility but these barons were divided into two types. The first were the greater barons who held their lands by knight service directly from the king. The second were the lesser barons who were the lords of the manor. Despite being called it, the lesser barons could not use the term baron or lord as a title. The greater barons were offered the opportunity to attend the King’s Council, which evolved into Parliament and subsequently the

The 7th June 2025 is Butterfly Education and Awareness Day and, to mark this, we thought we would write about “Mr Ray’s Purple Streak Butterfly”. This was the English common name given by James Petiver in 1702 to the butterfly that is commonly known today as the Purple Hairstreak (Favonius quercus) . James Petiver was a friend and sometime assistant of John Ray. Petiver was subsequently described as “the father of British butterflies” as a result of his detailed work on the i

The 15th July 2025 marks the 350th anniversary of the death of an owner of Middleton Hall, Cassandra Ridgeway, the wife of Sir Francis II Willoughby. Cassandra was born in 1598 and was the daughter of Thomas Ridgeway, Treasurer of Ireland, Baron of Torrington and Earl of Londonderry, and Cicely MacWilliam, who had been a maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth I. Cassandra and Sir Francis were married in October 1610 at Rathfarnham Castle in South Dublin, Ireland. It was also writt

2025 is the 350th anniversary of the construction of a specific architectural feature at Middleton Hall: the brick corner fireplaces. We know that these were constructed in the year of 1675 because of the hearth taxes. This recorded that there were 26 hearths at Middleton Hall in 1674 and 30 in 1676. The difference was caused by the addition of the corner fireplaces. Corner fireplaces were first introduced and fashionable for a very short period in the late 17th century. The

The 26th September 2025 is European Day of Languages and we thought this a very opportune day to mark the 350th anniversary of the publication of John Ray’s Nomenclator Classicus or Dictionariolum Trilingue or, in English, Trilingual Dictionary. This was a comparative dictionary between English, Latin and Greek. John Ray developed this dictionary in order to teach Francis Willughby’s three children their languages and he first published it in 1675. At this time, the childre