From the archive / Places & Buildings
The long room at Fernwick station
Built for passengers who seldom arrived, a station waiting room found its purpose after the timetable had moved on.
Read the storyThe first collection
Small histories.
Long shadows.
Rooms that changed their purpose. Objects that outlived their makers. Events remembered differently by everyone who was there.
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Three more to begin with
Ruth Fenner and the double hinge
An improvement to a folding chair travelled further than the workshop that devised it, largely because it made one familiar task less awkward.
Thursday's milk tokens
In Carswell End, a prepaid delivery round left behind a small collection of metal discs and a surprisingly detailed map of household habits.
Elsie Varr's unfinished streets
A printer's views of a growing town found their subject in temporary fences, blank walls and the spaces between completed buildings.
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Every articleFurther into the record
Objects, episodes & afterlivesPlaces & Buildings
A warm afternoon in Harvenby
A modest glasshouse gave a northern town somewhere green to go when its public gardens were at their least inviting.
Interwar yearsRead
Inventions & Industry
A broader wheel for Elderwick
One bicycle maker's answer to rough streets achieved a devoted local following and very little agreement beyond it.
Turn of the twentieth centuryRead
Customs & Daily Life
The last seat on the Halverne omnibus
A short rural route developed a seating order that was understood by its regular passengers and almost invisible to anyone travelling for the first time.
Early twentieth centuryRead
Arts & Letters
The ceramic map at Halverne library
A wall of individually made tiles turned a familiar district into a public artwork that rewarded disagreement about small details.
Post-war decadesRead
Coast & Navigation
The winter ropewalk at Bellscar
A long covered passage supplied rope, winter employment and an awkward division through the back of a village.
Nineteenth centuryRead
Sport & Pastimes
The red-bag cycling club
The most recognisable object on a Sunday run belonged to no rider in particular.
Early motor ageRead
Two reports from the coast
20 & 22 September 2020Coast & Navigation
Leonard Bibby reported overdue
Concern grows after Morrow fails to reach Eastbourne when expected, with no arrival message from Leonard Bibby.
Archive dateline 20 September 2020Read
Coast & Navigation
Leonard Bibby: reports suggest he may not be dead
Bibby's reported appearance in Eastbourne on 21 September has complicated the account of his loss at sea.
Archive dateline 22 September 2020Read