Listen to the biography of Sir Charles Isham and answer the questions. You may want to check the vocabulary (lexis) before listening.

Sir Charles Isham

1 What is the web address for the biographies mentioned?
2 Who publishes these?
3 How many entries of British men and women are there?
4 What phrase describes the people chosen?
5 How many centuries do the podcast biographies span?

Sir Charles Edmund Isham

1 What were the dates of Charles Isham’s life?
2 Where was he educated before going to Brasenose College?
3 Where is Brasenose College?
4 Why did he become a baronet earlier than expected in 1846?
5 What was Isham’s wife’s first name?
6 Since what date had the Isham family owned Lamport, in Northampton?
7 What did he rebuild when carrying out improvements?
8 Where did he concentrate his energy?
9 What did he embark on in 1847?
10 What did he say inspired him?
11 Who built the high wall, and what was it made of?

12 What did he plant behind the wall, in the rockery there?

13 What has happened to the dell now? (dell – a small natural hollow or valley)
14 Did he plant colourful plants in the rockery?
15 What were two other interests of his?
16 Who or what did he think lived in mines?
17 How are they described, and what did they do, according to Sir Isham?
18 Were these ideas of Sir Ishan’s ever published?
19 Where did he buy his garden gnomes, and how were they made?
20 What tools did they carry, usually, and how were they arranged?
21 When did he put poems (verses) in their hands?
22 At one point Lamport Hall became the scene of what has been described as the most important literary find of the 19th century – what was the date of this?
23 For how long had the important trunk remained unopened?
24 Who offered him money for it and was it a lot?
25 What did it contain, when it was opened at a later date?
26 Was anyone interested in these books?
27 When did he give the garden away?
28 What phrase is used meaning ‘he gave the garden to’?
29 What did his two surviving daughters think of the gnomes and what happened to them (the gnomes!) at that stage?
30 What did the 12th Baronet (Sir Gyles Isham*) do and when?

*Gyles Isham was an actor and historian

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