All articles in Local & Family History
21st November, 2019 in Local & Family History
London: Vanishing ads and fading innocence
Having studied the psychology of advertising and subsequently secured work as a copywriter in my early writing career, I was more than aware of the manipulative edge to the media messages we consume every day. My work on Fading London: The City’s Vanishing Ghost Signs however, un…
9th October, 2019 in Local & Family History
A brief history of Waterford city
Waterford, Ireland’s oldest city is believed to have been established by the Viking Ragnall (the grandson of Ivar the Boneless) in 914 AD. Situated on the River Suir, the area is the only Irish city to retain its Viking name, Veðrafj?rðr which we previously believed to mean eithe…
3rd October, 2019 in Local & Family History
Merseyside in the 1960s
Turn the clock back sixty years in Wirral and take a bus ride on a Birkenhead Corporation bus in its blue and cream livery between Bebington and Birkenhead. This was a road journey of roughly three miles but was also a virtual journey through time – or at least one through the tw…
22nd August, 2019 in Local & Family History, Society & Culture
The English village fête
Spring follows winter, summer follows spring and with it the English village green comes to life. On May 1st the village Maypole is bedecked with flowers and ribbons, the village children and, occasionally Morris dancers, dance around the pole and the May Queen is crowned. The Ma…
22nd August, 2019 in Local & Family History
Yorkshire’s spookiest spots
Yorkshire, the county that gave the word the cat’s eyes, the White Rabbit featured in Alice in Wonderland and stainless steel. A county that boasts the birth of Marks and Spencer and is home to the biggest maze in the UK. It’s surrounded by beauty, endless fields of green and bro…
15th August, 2019 in Local & Family History
Leith: The creative heart of Edinburgh
Next time you visit Edinburgh don’t miss out on a visit to Leith. You’ll find it by taking an easy meander down Leith Walk from the city centre, past a multi-cultural array of shops, bars and restaurants that service this bustling neighbourhood that’s the most populated area of E…
1st August, 2019 in Local & Family History
20 things you never knew about Coventry
If becoming the UK’s City of Culture in 2021 does anything for Coventry, it ought to dispel the notion that the city that sits astride the centrefold of England is a shadowy, dull place that has contributed very little to the nation’s history. On the contrary, Coventry holds plen…
30th July, 2019 in Folklore, Local & Family History
Buckinghamshire: Where old and new sit side-by-side
Buckinghamshire is an ancient county with flowing rivers, Iron Age trackways, Roman roads, and the Chiltern Hills cutting their path across it. Where its woods once hid outlaws and highwaymen and its proximity to London made it popular with royalty, now busy motorways and new tow…
17th July, 2019 in Local & Family History
Kerry: A kingdom worthy of the name
Kerry is the most westerly county of Ireland, in the far south west and it has long played an important role in Ireland’s history. Although humans arrived in Ireland some six thousand years earlier, the earliest clear evidence of farming in Ireland was found at Ferriter’s Co…
5th July, 2019 in History, Local & Family History, Society & Culture
History matters in Ireland
At present Ireland is in the middle of what has been called the decade of centenaries. This relates to the period 1913-23 and includes anniversaries of the First World War, the 1916 Dublin Rising, the Anglo-Irish War, the founding of Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State, and…
11th June, 2019 in Local & Family History, Society & Culture
Fitzrovia: The other side of Oxford Street
What and where is Fitzrovia? Londoners know it as a busy and densely-packed quarter of the city tucked between Euston Road and Oxford Street, with Tottenham Court Road running along its eastern edge. ‘Fitzrovia’ is the modern upmarket label for an area which used to be any thing…
6th June, 2019 in Biography & Memoir, Local & Family History, Women in History
Tracing bigamy, dishonesty and intrigue in Victorian marriage records
One of the unforeseen and fascinating by-products of the internet age is the uncovering of a web of intrigue and downright dishonesty among the Victorians when it came to getting married. It was impossible for vicars or registrars to check that the information people gave on offi…