Caroline Shenton

Archivist, historian and writer

A Room of My Own

By

I write in the cellar, which also doubles as a dining room.  I also share it with the washing and the hoover.  Here is the view this afternoon as I finish off chapter 11.  Of particular note is the ubiquitous diet coke can, and my cat in a warm spot by the radiator.  The cat also likes to walk on the keyboard at crucial moments and to stick its nose into buttered toast.

About Caroline Shenton

Dr Caroline Shenton is an archivist and historian. She was formerly Director of the Parliamentary Archives in London, and before that was a senior archivist at the National Archives. Her book The Day Parliament Burned Down won the Political Book of the Year Award in 2013 and Mary Beard called it 'microhistory at its absolute best' while Dan Jones considered it 'glorious'. Its acclaimed sequel, Mr Barryís War, about the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster, was a Book of the Year in 2016 for The Daily Telegraph and BBC History Magazine and was described by Lucy Worsley as 'a real jewel, finely wrought and beautiful'. During 2017 Caroline was Political Writer in Residence at Gladstone's Library.