Scarborough's gem of a church is perfect setting for historian Simon Heffer's Victorian treat

Another new setting was added to the repertoire when St Martin-on-the-Hill became a venue for the Books by the Beach annual literature festival.
Historians Simon Heffer and Allan Mallinson in St Martin-on-the-HillHistorians Simon Heffer and Allan Mallinson in St Martin-on-the-Hill
Historians Simon Heffer and Allan Mallinson in St Martin-on-the-Hill

The backdrop of windows and paintings of William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti was perfect for Simon Heffer's event based round his book The Age of Decadence: Britain 1880 and 1914.

It is one of Scarborough's true gems and a venue with the grafitas the event demanded.

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Host and fellow historian Allan Mallinson introduced Heffer and the book and hastened in a discussion of the period - from politics and Disraeli and poverty and opulence to music hall and Marie Lloyd and cricket and football.

It was a heavyweight event - full of intelligent insight and considered observation on past and present - shot through with the light of Heffer's wry humour.

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