Visits

‘Every holiday, trip to the adjacent town, country walk is a learning experience’ – or at least it could be. Have a read of the articles in our visits section, these articles are from our publications and explore the history of particular areas and how particular sites can be put into historical frameworks and interpreted.  The articles form ‘my favourite place’ – a regular feature in the historian can open up places as you reflect on how the simplest place can become a site for affection and reflection once you know something about it. Additionally they just make you want to get out and explore the world around you – trip to Magdeburg or Swansea Castle anyone?

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  • Cambridge

    Article

    Elisabeth Leedham-Green reflects on reality in the famous university town of Cambridge. This is a sharp place, best encountered when, as surprisingly often, the sun is shining and there is frost in the air. Then the stone sparkles and seems to float a few inches above the gleaming grass —...

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  • Cheshire Country Houses

    Article

    The popular image of Cheshire is of a flat green landscape dotted with cows, of black and white houses, a county remote from the great events that have shaped the nation's history. This reflects the endurance of the old manorial class that maintained its hold on the land and ensured...

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  • Dickens' Kent

    Article

    Although he was not born in Kent, Charles Dickens spent the happiest and most settled part of his childhood in Chatham and chose to return to the same area when, as an established author, he could afford to buy the house1 he had admired as a boy. It is said...

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  • Durham

    Article

    Emeritus Professor G. R. Batho a personal perspective on the city of the prince bishops. We all have highly personal impressions of the towns and cities with which we are familiar. Few readers of The Historian are likely to emulate the good lady who hearing that I was leaving the...

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  • Exploring the Cornish Religious Landscape

    Article

    The Cornish religious landscape shares one particularly significant feature with its Welsh neighbour to the north. The Celtic tendency to dedicate churches to very local saints is very strong in both Cornwall and Wales, with the church dedications frequently being mirrored by the place name. This similarity is, to an...

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  • Flowers Block the Sun

    Article

    As Northern Ireland begins to hope for a long and hot summer, there is one famous landmark in Belfast that can be guaranteed to be ready for a six month summer, regardless of rain or shine. Reg Maxwell, veteran of over thirty years in Belfast City Council Parks Department and...

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  • From Ashes to Icon

    Article

    Charles Stirton reflects on Middleton Hall and the creation of the National Botanic garden of Wales. Something significant is stirring in the gardening world. This year Wales will make history by opening the first national botanic garden in the third millennium. When visitors enter the new garden on the 24th...

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  • Herbert Art Gallery Coventry - History Centre

    Article

    Herbert Art Gallery and Museum's brand new History Centre is a treasure trove of information on the history of Coventry and its citizens from medieval times to the present .The huge range of original documents includes books, maps, newspapers, electoral registers and building plans. Photographs, oral history, microfilms and internet sources...

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  • Jerome K Jerome and other travellers in the Thames Valley

    Article

    Travellers and visitors have streamed to, and through Oxford, for centuries. Its name conveys its very functional origin as a fording point on the River Thames. Obviously these travellers and visitors came from a variety of directions, and by a variety of routes, using land and water transport. On this...

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  • Liverpool's revolutionary Old Dock

    Article

    If you want to get up close to history, Liverpool's revolutionary Old Dock - the world's first commercial enclosed wet dock - is opening in May 2010 as the city's latest historic attraction, with free ticketed tours for schools and members of the public starting from Merseyside Maritime Museum. For...

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  • My Favourite History Place - All Saint's Church, Harewood

    Article

    Harewood House, a few miles north of Leeds, attracts many historically-minded visitors to enjoy the work of Adam, Chippendale and Capability Brown but to my mind the real treasures of Harewood lie elsewhere. After negotiating the payment booths take the path immediately on your right, leading to the redundant church...

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  • My Favourite History Place - Barnard Castle

    Article

    Paula Kitching invites us to look at Barnard Castle with new eyes. Over the summer there was a lot of talk about Barnard Castle – I won’t go into the politics, but it did make me reflect on the actual town of Barnard Castle. Growing up, it was one of...

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  • My Favourite History Place - Cambridge City Cemetary

    Article

    The Commonwealth War Graves Commission maintains memorials to our war dead in large and small numbers in cemeteries across the world, and here Glenn Hearnden presents us with a detailed and informative case-study of Cambridge City Cemetery. Like many large towns and cities across the UK, there is a cemetery in...

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  • My Favourite History Place - Magdeburg

    Article

    Magdeburg (‘Magdeburg überascht') is situated on the banks of the River Elbe in the state of Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany. First mentioned by Charlemagne in 805, Magdeburgtoday attracts much attention by being a major historic venue on the Straße der Romanik or Romanesque Route that has opened up a large number of...

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  • My Favourite History Place - Nuneaton's Old Grammar School

    Article

    Near the centre of the largest town in Warwickshire, an oasis of calm encompasses the area of Nuneaton parish church, vicarage and Old Grammar School. Of the three  buildings, the Old Grammar School may be the least impressive but its history is just as eventful. Nuneaton’s Boys’ Free Grammar School,...

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  • My Favourite History Place - Poperinge

    Article

    Poperinge is a cheerful place. It is a cheerfulness which defies its location yet resonates with its history. It is a small town just ten kilometres west of Ypres and all around is the debris and memorabilia of slaughter. Yet somehow Poperinge is a cheerful place. It is a community...

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  • My Favourite History Place - Sackville College, East Grinstead

    Article

    Sackville College almshouse in East Grinstead, Sussex, was founded in 1609, by Robert Sackville, 2nd Earl of Dorset, when he wrote his will. He died 17 days later without seeing one stone laid, yet the College still stands, providing affordable accommodation for local elderly people of limited means. It is...

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  • My Favourite History Place - Weimar

    Article

    Neil Taylor explores the changing face and mixed fortunes of Weimar in the twentieth century. Weimar is a town to which many famous people came, but from which few then left. It is not hard to see why. The locals summarise its appeal in one sentence Weimar ist nur eine...

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  • My Favourite History Place: Berwick-upon-Tweed railway station

    Article

    Glimpsed from the window of a speeding train, as it hurtles north across the Royal Border Bridge and towards Edinburgh, the modest station at Berwick-upon-Tweed would seem an unlikely spot for one of the most momentous episodes in British history; but step off the train, walk up the stairs, and allow...

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  • My Favourite History Place: Brixham

    Article

    Paul Brunyee writes about a surprising link between Brixham in Devon, and Napoleon, and the impact the arrival of Napoleon in 1815 had on the townspeople.  The waters and cliffs of Brixham, on the south coast of England, have played small but significant parts in the long wars against France....

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