Harry Mount 
Harry Mount
At evensong in Trinity College, Cambridge last Sunday, Ann Widdecombe was preaching. The pews were packed, with many in the congregation bagging seats half an hour before the service began.… Read more
Springtime of the Renaissance: Sculpture and the Arts in Florence, 1400–1460
Sixty per cent of the best Renaissance art is said to be in Italy, and half of that is in Florence. So why bother going to Florence for a particular… Read more
An artistic rebirth: reopening the Rijksmuseum
Hallelujah! The minimalist fashion for dreary acres of white walls is coming to an end. During the long decade that the Rijksmuseum has been closed — it was only supposed… Read more
The Russian desecration of London
Now that his old arch-enemy, Boris Berezovsky, has bitten the dust, Roman Abramovich can devote his full attention to another bête noire — London’s terraced houses. In his £10 million… Read more
Following In The Fitzgeralds’ Footsteps
Stand on the north shore of Long Island, in the little town of Great Neck, and — with a little imagination and a few Martinis — you drift right back to the… Read more
The hate of the new
The title of the new show at the Palazzo Strozzi is a little confusing. Most of the artists in Italy in the 1930s weren’t beyond fascism; they were in it… Read more
Rural idol
Ronald Blythe, our greatest rural writer, remembers sheep being driven through Lavenham, the Suffolk wool town, before the war. Now he’s lived long enough to see the same street filled… Read more
Building on the past
London was an industrial city until remarkably recently. It seems extraordinary now, but Bankside Power Station was built in 1947, by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, to burn oil right on… Read more
This sheltered isle
This rainy weather has occasionally softened my rock-hard cynicism about climate change. I have bicycled around London for 25 years — and I usually get drenched about half a dozen… Read more
A sporting life
If you wanted a little more excitement in this year’s Olympic marathon, you could do worse than imitate the race in 1908 — the first time the Games were held… Read more
Continental drift
Why did Florence become a hotspot for Americans in the late 19th and early 20th century? Henry James, Edith Wharton, John Singer Sargent and a gang of other American artists… Read more
Travel – Norway: Northern light
In the constant light of summer, Tromsø is an extraordinarily civilised place from which to visit the wilderness, discovers Harry Mount ‘Why do the British look so ill?’ I was… Read more
Harry Mount
At last, 18 years after leaving university, the call comes to appear on the University Challenge Christmas Special. A wonderful boost for my intellectual vanity. Not so good for the… Read more
Remembering well
Extraordinary how potent cheap drama is. The latest season of Downton Abbey, which ended on Sunday, pulled off a rare double in its interpretation of the first world war —… Read more
An indispensable guide
It is 60 years since Nikolaus Pevsner published Middlesex, the first in ‘The Buildings of England’ series. It is 60 years since Nikolaus Pevsner published Middlesex, the first in ‘The… Read more
Junk, day and night
Travelling the 400 miles from Glasgow to London recently, Theodore Dalrymple noticed that the roadside was littered with food and drink packaging, flapping in the wind like Buddhist prayer flags.… Read more
St Oscar of Oxford
It was in his room in Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1875 that Oscar Wilde said, ‘I find it harder and harder every day to live up to my blue china.’… Read more
England, their England
Ian Fleming understood the attractions of an English summer. At the end of Dr No, James Bond is in Jamaica, his arch enemy dead, his knockout girlfriend, Honey Rider, about… Read more
Royal treasures
Some schoolboys used to know about Alexander the Great (356–323BC), how he extended the Macedonian Empire from Greece to India, cut the Gordian knot, and wept when there were no… Read more
Mayfair calling
No, I don’t own Mount Street, despite the name. The Duke of Westminster does, as part of his 100 acres in Mayfair; the street gets its name from Oliver’s Mount,… Read more
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