Julia Gander

England’s great Gothic cathedrals were among the most ambitious buildings ever attempted in medieval Europe. Rising above cities and fields alike, structures like York Minster, Canterbury Cathedral, Salisbury Cathedral and Lincoln Cathedral were built not just to serve the Church, but to express faith, order, and astonishing engineering skill. But how do these vast buildings actually work? In this thread, we’ll walk through the structure of a Gothic cathedral, from the soaring nave to the flying buttresses that hold the walls aloft. Stone, light, mathematics, and belief, all working together to create some of the most extraordinary architecture England has ever produced. 🧵 1/10

Most people think England “just happened”. It didn’t. Alfred the Great stopped the Viking hordes and lit the fire of a shared English identity. His grandson Æthelstan finished the job. In 927, Æthelstan crushed the last Viking kingdom at York and became the first true King of all the English. At the Battle of Brunanburh in 937, he destroyed a massive coalition of Scots, Vikings and Britons who tried to break his new kingdom. That victory secured England as a sovereign nation of our own people. This is our history. England was forged by blood, steel and the courage of our Saxon ancestors. We do not need permission to exist in our own homeland. England. True Grit. Restore. My England for the English.

Activist: "Drinking milk is for baby cows, not humans." Farmer: "Humans have been drinking it for 10,000 years." Activist: "We're the only species that drinks another species' milk." Farmer: "We're also the only species that cooks food, wears clothes, and writes books. Should we pack those in too?" Activist: "It's unnatural." Farmer: "So are antibiotics. Refusing those next time you get pneumonia?" Activist: "That's different." Farmer: "How? Both are things humans do that other animals don't." Activist: "Milk is meant for calves." Farmer: "Wheat is meant to reproduce the wheat plant. And yet here you are eating bread." Activist: "Most humans are lactose intolerant." Farmer: "Most humans of European descent aren't. We evolved the trait. That's how evolution works." Activist: "It's still weird." Farmer: "Weirder than flying across continents in a metal tube? Weirder than arguing with a stranger on a phone you didn't build, charged by electricity you can't generate, about food produced by a farmer you've never met?"

A leaked 2004 Home Office memo to the Telegraph shows Tony Blair’s team admitting mass migration was a growing concern for people, so they hatched a secret plan to make it more “popular.” Blair’s team pushed a different PR approach, to reframe dissent as racism… in order to smother debate and complaints. They knew, they did it anyway… even when you voted against it repeatedly🔥

Churches across Britain are being torched at a disturbing rate. These fires are no accident… they are not burning themselves down. We are witnessing the active destruction of a nation.

Police are taught to kick people with lethal weapons in the head because it's a natural instinct to protect your head, leading them to drop the weapon. Don't carry lethal weapons, don't get kicked in the head. Simples.

I have no interest in Palestine when I cast my vote—but I do care about Portsmouth. No interest in Gaza—but I do for Gloucester. No interest in the West Bank—but I do for Wolverhampton. My vote is for home, for our towns, for our future. 🇬🇧

Lychgates are one of the most distinctive features of old English churches. Yet most people walk through them without ever knowing what they were built for. The word comes from the Old English lich, meaning “corpse”. They began appearing in England during the medieval period, particularly from the 13th century onwards. For hundreds of years, funeral processions would pause beneath the gate before entering the churchyard. Here, the priest would meet the funeral procession and begin the first part of the service beneath the shelter of the gate. Many were built from heavy oak, with tiled or timber roofs designed to protect mourners from the weather. The tradition slowly declined during the late 19th and early 20th centuries as funeral practices changed and hearses became more common. They are simple structures, but deeply symbolic, a threshold between village life and sacred ground. Next time you pass through an old church gate, look up. You may be walking beneath centuries of English history. Does your local church have a lychgate? #England #EnglishHistory #EnglishHeritage #EnglishChurches

My collie adored fox poo and dead fish on the beach, she hated the bath!!!

The V&A. The Science Museum. The Natural History Museum. The Royal Albert Hall. The Royal Colleges of Art and Music. Imperial College London. 🏛️ None of them were built by the government. They were built by the public, coin by coin, in 1850. Parliament refused to fund the Great Exhibition. The press mocked it. Most people thought it would fail. So Albert and Henry Cole asked the British public instead. Shopkeepers. Clerks. Factory workers. Wives putting aside housekeeping money. 💷 Coin by coin, they paid for it themselves. They built the Crystal Palace in nine months. Three times the size of St Paul's Cathedral. Then six million people came to see it. A third of the entire population. 🚂 Working men's clubs pooled their wages for excursion tickets. Churches sent their parishioners. Employers sent their workers. Mary Callinack, eighty-five years old, walked two hundred and seventy miles from Penzance to London on foot, just to see it. People too poor to make the journey at all walked to the railway tracks instead, and lined up just to watch the trains go by. When the books closed, there was £186,000 of profit. Twenty-five million in today's money. They could have kept it. They didn't. They bought eighty-six acres in South Kensington and built the museums and colleges that still teach the country today. 🎓 The Royal Albert Hall still pays them one shilling a year in rent. There are 850 years left on the lease. The surplus has funded 3,000 British scientists, engineers and designers since 1891. Thirteen of them won the Nobel Prize. 🏅 A hundred and seventy-five years later, British research is still being paid for by a coin a shopkeeper put in an envelope in 1850. That's the bet the British people keep making. Pool what they have. Back something bigger than themselves. Leave it for whoever comes next. This channel runs on the exact same bet. ⏳ No sponsors. No advertisers. No one pays for this except ordinary British people who think it matters. Coin by coin. Just like 1850. Be Part Of Us 🙏 👉proudofus.co.uk/support 👈 Be Proud Of Us 🙏🇬🇧

Myth: "I only wear vegan fabrics. Better for the animals, better for the planet." Let's check in on Doris's annual contribution. Once a year, in late spring, Doris is sheared. The procedure takes approximately three minutes. Doris does not enjoy it. Doris does not, by any visible measure, suffer from it. Doris is, immediately afterwards, a noticeably more comfortable animal in the British summer. The fleece weighs approximately 3 kilograms. It is sold to the British Wool Marketing Board for, depending on the year, between £0.40 and £2.50 per kilogram. The shearing costs more than the wool fetches. Brian is shearing Doris at a loss. The wool is then: - Naturally flame-retardant - Naturally antibacterial - Moisture-wicking - Biodegradable - Renewable, annually - Carbon-storing while in use The replacement, in performance fabrics: - Polyester - Polyamide - Acrylic - Polypropylene - All petroleum-derived - All shedding microplastics on every wash - All requiring fossil fuel inputs to produce - All non-biodegradable, with a typical landfill lifespan of 200-500 years A single wash of a polyester fleece can release up to 700,000 microplastic fibres into the water system. These fibres are now in: every tested water source on earth, every tested human placenta, every tested rainfall sample, the deep ocean, the Arctic ice, and the lungs of marine mammals. A single wash of a wool jumper releases: nothing. The wool, when eventually disposed of, returns to soil within a few years. The fabric being marketed as the "ethical" alternative to wool is plastic. The plastic is "ethical" because nobody has been asked to slaughter the polymer. The polymer also has not been asked. Doris, by being a sheep on a fell, is producing the most thoroughly sustainable performance fabric humans have ever made. Brian is selling it at a loss. The fashion industry, meanwhile, is selling petroleum at a profit and calling it ethical. Reject plastic. Wear wool. Doris is, this morning, growing next year's batch.

Very Important Message!! Do NOT, and I repeat do not buy plants treated with Neonicotinoids. Bees take the pollen back to the hive and feed it to the brood. This is a number one cause of the colony collapse. It's important to NOT buy these plants! Make sure to share this post!

For centuries, people across England marked the arrival of May by “bringing in the May”. Before sunrise on May 1st, villagers would head into the countryside to gather flowers, greenery and blossoming branches. Hawthorn, known as “May blossom”, became the great symbol of the season. Homes, churches and village streets were decorated with it to welcome the return of warmth, fertility and new life after winter. The tradition is ancient. Its roots stretch back well before the medieval period, later blending with Christian May Day customs across England. There were bonfires, dancing, songs, Morris dancers, garlands, and the raising of the maypole on village greens. By the Victorian era, many of these customs had begun fading in industrial towns, though some villages kept them alive. A few still do today. A small reminder that England once celebrated the changing seasons with remarkable enthusiasm. Do May Day traditions still survive where you live? Follow @oaksandlions for more posts about English history. #EnglishHistory #EnglishHertiage #FolkTradition #MayDay

Its a bit gauling for us Brits, to be honest. Over 3.8k churches were vandalised or set fire to in 2025. We've had our children blown up in concerts, hacked to death at dance clubs, our soldiers beheaded, bombs on trains and buses, white British men murdered in parks, and on dog walks, and upwards of 250 thousand little girls violently raped, sold, tortured and some murdered - the list is endless. And, our, understandable outrage, fear and anger has been met with nothing but accusations of racism, arrest, imprisonment, and more abuse. Absolutely, Jews in the UK, should not be being attacked, but neither should anyone. Nobody's place of worship should be set alight, nobody should be stabbed in the street, but the endless public outrage by MPs, only seems to be when its another minority group that effected. Do they think we're not entitled to anger? Do they think we dont care about our women and children and faith? Do they think we're just superfluous cattle, with no other purpose than to work to death to pay taxes to those that *really* matter? Why are we bothering to work and pay taxes? We, and our children, clearly do not matter to anyone in parliament, do we?

RIP dear Sadie Quinlan 'Yankee Wally' A legend in the community. She will never be forgotten.

Left behind in Kabul. Alone. He waited 47 days. K-9 Chaos was not a dog who did his job. He was a dog who had DECIDED, completely, permanently, without reservation, that Lieutenant Marcus Webb was coming back for him. No matter how long it took. At Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, on the morning of August 30th, 2021, a three-year-old Belgian Malinois sat in an empty aircraft hangar. The last American plane had left six hours ago. The evacuation was over. Chaos had been left behind. Not intentionally. The chaos of the withdrawal. The panic. The rush. Webb had been separated from Chaos during the final evacuation. Put on a different plane. Told Chaos would be on the next flight. There was no next flight. Chaos survived the first day alone. Waiting at the hangar where Webb had left him. Chaos survived the first week. Scavenging food from abandoned military supplies. Chaos survived 47 days in Taliban-controlled Kabul. Alone. Hiding. Waiting. Because Chaos survived on the belief that Webb wouldn't leave him forever. Back in the United States, Webb was losing his mind. Filed reports. Called congressmen. Contacted rescue organizations. Went on the news. "I left my dog in Afghanistan," he said on CNN, his voice breaking. "I left my brother. And I'm going to get him back." The military said it was impossible. Kabul had fallen. Taliban controlled the airport. No way to extract a dog. Webb didn't care about impossible. He contacted Pineapple Express, a veteran-run extraction operation. Gave them Chaos's last known location. Sent photos. Videos. Anything that could help. For 47 days, Webb didn't sleep. Didn't eat properly. Just waited for news. On October 16th, 2021, his phone rang. "We found him," the voice said. "We found Chaos." A rescue team had infiltrated Kabul. Used Webb's intel. Found Chaos still at the hangar. Still waiting. Forty-seven days later. Chaos was emaciated. Dehydrated. Traumatized. But alive. The extraction took three days. Smuggling Chaos out of Taliban-controlled territory. Through checkpoints. Through danger. But they got him out. On October 19th, 2021, Chaos landed at Dulles International Airport. Webb was waiting on the tarmac. When they opened the crate, Chaos didn't move. Stared at Webb like he was seeing a ghost. "It's me, brother," Webb said, kneeling down. "I came back. I promised I'd come back." Chaos stepped out slowly. Walked to Webb. Collapsed into his arms. The reunion video went viral. Seventeen million views in three days. But what people didn't see was what happened after. For six months, Chaos wouldn't sleep unless Webb was in the room. Wouldn't eat unless Webb fed him. Wouldn't go outside unless Webb went first. "He's terrified I'll leave him again," Webb said in an interview. "And I don't blame him. I left him once. In the worst place. At the worst time. He waited 47 days for me. And I'll spend the rest of my life making sure he knows I'm never leaving again." Three years later, Chaos still sleeps with his head on Webb's chest. Still follows him everywhere. Still making sure Webb doesn't disappear. K-9 Chaos. Survived 47 days alone in Kabul. Extracted by heroes. Reunited with his handler. Home. facebook.com/share/1HLX9dCv… #LostAndFound #doglover #seniordogs #animalwelfare #militarydog #k9hero #dogrescue #Kabul #47Days #LeftBehind #BroughtHome

Yesterday I was at Heaton Park Synagogue, remembering Jews murdered by a terrorist. Today, Jews are stabbed on a London street. More terrorism. This does not come out of nowhere. It follows months of poison that downplays antisemitism, treats Jewish fear as suspect and turns public space into a place where that hostility feels normal. We’re told “antisemitism has no place in our society.” Then act like it.

Okay, X trolls, I'm just going to say it… The police officers seen kicking the knifeman in the head were absolutely correct in their actions. I was trained by the police and the British Army as part of my deployment for Operation Temperer a few years ago. Using their hands to keep control of their weapons while using their feet to deal blows to the head and body is completely standard. I also wonder if you’d be so “outraged” and quick to “condemn” those heroes if it were your child that had just been stabbed by that terrorist.

1/ In January 2008, PC Neil Sampson walked towards a man with a knife. He took seven stab wounds doing it. His dog Anya, already bleeding, kept hold of the attacker so her handler could live. That same man, Essa Suleiman stabbed two people yesterday in a terror attack in Golders Green. Here’s what happened next. 🧵

The wheat in your supermarket loaf is not the wheat your great-grandmother ate. It is barely the same plant. In the 1950s, an American agronomist named Norman Borlaug crossed wheat with a Japanese dwarf variety called Norin 10. The result was a plant half the height of traditional wheat, with a thick stem that did not collapse under synthetic nitrogen fertiliser. Yields tripled. Borlaug got the Nobel Peace Prize. Famines in India and Pakistan were averted. None of that is in dispute. None of that is the point. The point is what came after the harvest. The new dwarf wheat was selected for one thing. Yield. Not flavour. Not minerals. Not digestibility. Studies comparing modern wheat with the heritage varieties grown a century earlier consistently find lower zinc, lower iron, lower magnesium, lower selenium per gram. The plant got shorter. The food got thinner. Then came the Chorleywood Bread Process, developed in 1961 in a Cheshire town that should have known better. Mix, proof, bake in three and a half hours instead of overnight. The fermentation that broke down the harder gluten fractions and the phytic acid binding the minerals was simply skipped. The loaf was, by structure, harder to digest and lower in bioavailable minerals than its slow-fermented predecessor. Then came the glyphosate. From the 1980s onwards, farmers in wet northern climates began spraying their wheat with glyphosate roughly a week before harvest. Not for weeds. To dry the crop down. The active ingredient of Roundup, sprayed directly onto the grain that becomes your flour. Global glyphosate use rose roughly fifteen-fold between 1996 and 2016. So this is the wheat sold to you as a staple food. A plant bred for yield, fermented for ninety minutes instead of overnight, sprayed with a probable carcinogen the week before it became your toast. Then you are told you are gluten intolerant. Possibly. Or possibly you are intolerant of what we have done to wheat in the last sixty years. Bred down, rushed through, and chemically dried for the convenience of an industry that does not eat its own product. Heritage varieties exist. Spelt. Einkorn. Emmer. Khorasan. Tall, slow-growing, lower-yielding, longer-fermented. Grown by a small number of stubborn farmers who refuse to use the dwarf seed. The bread takes eighteen hours instead of ninety minutes. It costs more than the supermarket loaf. Your grandmother would have recognised it. You may now connect the dots yourself.