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Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.

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1483
The Tragedy of Hamlet by Clay Lane

The Prince of Denmark is bound to avenge his father’s murder.

The Danish Prince came home to find his father mysteriously dead, and his uncle ready to marry his mother the Queen, and claim the crown.

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1484
The Tanfield Railway by Clay Lane

Opened in 1725, the Tanfield Railway is one of the oldest railways still operating anywhere in the world.

Dating from 1725, the Tanfield Railway formed part of an extraordinary network of horse-drawn wagonways in North East England that became the basis of the railway revolution.

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1485
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Clay Lane

Is an old family legend being used as a cover for a very modern murder?

Local superstition about a family legend going back to the English Civil War (1642-1651) blames the death of Charles Baskerville on a giant, ghostly hound, but Sherlock Holmes doesn’t seem to be able to take it seriously.

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1486
A Nation’s Wealth by Richard Cobden

It is not politicians and their policies that create wealth, but the hard work and ingenuity of ordinary people.

Richard Cobden MP led the fight in the House of Commons to repeal the Corn Laws, which taxed imports of grain in order to shore up Britain’s agriculture industry. The laws caused the price of bread to rise, making the poor poorer; after the laws were repealed, Britain became the manufacturing centre of the world.

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1487
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Clay Lane

A knight issues a bizarre challenge to King Arthur and his court.

One New Year’s Eve, a knight rode into King Arthur’s hall. He was green, all over, and he made a strange offer.

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1488
The Legend of Beowulf by Clay Lane

The oldest surviving heroic legend in English begins with a wild creature of the fens that hunts men for prey.

‘Beowulf’ is the oldest surviving epic in English. Set in Scandinavia, it tells of a hero who pays off a debt of honour, by helping a family friend to rid his neighbourhood of a wretched but deadly enemy.

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About Clay Lane nicholas@claylane.uk

© Nicholas Armitage / Clay Lane, 2025

June 10 NS

May 28 OS

Black Agnes Dunbar : When Edward III sent the Earl of Salisbury to take her absent husband’s castle, Agnes brushed his attack aside - literally.
The Battle of Glen Shiel : King Philip V of Spain sent a second Spanish Armada against Britain, but it suffered much the same fate as the first.
‘My English Joy’ : In 1837 William Sterndale Bennett, then regarded as England’s most exciting young composer, made history in quite another... field.
The Two Shakespeares : Arthur Clutton-Brock complained that idealising Shakespeare had made him dull.
Fairway : Use each noun below in two sentences, first as the subject, and then as the object of a verb.
England Expects : Lieutenant John Pasco not only flew the most famous signal in British history, he helped write it.
Running Late : Use these adverbial clauses in your own sentences.
Peggy’s Dog : Some lines from the comic verse of Thomas Hood, for reading aloud.
An Interruption : Report this conversation without using direct speech.
Tender Plants : Prince Albert regretted the destructive power of the Art Critic.
Lost for Words : Join these ideas together into a single sentence, using ‘although’ or ‘though’.
Loan Words : Match these words to the language they come from, whether Old Norse, Malay or Welsh.
Evidence : Join these ideas together to form a single sentence, using the relative pronoun ‘who’.
Fatal Vow : Robert Pierrepont called heaven to witness that he would never pick a side in the Civil War.
Lost and Found : What would you in these difficult situations?
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