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.
Early twentieth centuryRead
The collection
The complete archive
Follow a subject, look for a place, or begin with something you did not come to find.
41 articlesArranged by collection
Places & Buildings
The tidal steps of Northmere
A flight of broad stone steps served a harbour through more changes of trade than its builders could have anticipated.
Nineteenth centuryRead
Places & Buildings
Under cover in Ashencombe
The shortest route across the market became a small interior street, with its own rules about who could stop and who must keep moving.
Late Victorian periodRead
Places & 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
Places & Buildings
The pump house after the pumps
At Wethermere, a redundant utility building became a meeting place without entirely losing the shape of its working life.
Mid-twentieth centuryRead
Inventions & Industry
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.
Early twentieth centuryRead
Inventions & Industry
Keeping a colour at Hollingford
The dye rooms' sample cards reveal a trade in which remembering a shade could matter as much as producing it.
Late nineteenth centuryRead
Inventions & Industry
The bell at the end of the cloth
A small workshop signal changed how one weaving room divided its attention, while leaving the larger machinery almost untouched.
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
Inventions & Industry
The changing shape of a packing crate
At a small pottery, the history of packaging can be read through the corners, handles and pencil marks of its returnable wooden boxes.
Mid-twentieth centuryRead
Customs & Daily Life
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.
Interwar yearsRead
Customs & Daily Life
When Pinner Lane set its tables at six
For a few summer evenings each year, the front rooms of a short terrace seemed to extend across the pavement.
Mid-twentieth centuryRead
Customs & Daily Life
What travelled in the blue wedding basket
A borrowed basket linked the preparations of several households, carrying useful things that were rarely mentioned in accounts of the wedding itself.
Late nineteenth 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
Customs & Daily Life
A winter coat with three owners
Alterations to one dark wool coat reveal a household history that cannot be reduced to the name on its original label.
Mid-twentieth centuryRead
Arts & Letters
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.
Interwar yearsRead
Arts & Letters
A theatre of borrowed scenery
The scenery cupboard of a small dramatic society explains how a limited stage could contain a remarkable variety of imagined places.
Early twentieth centuryRead
Arts & Letters
The notebooks of an evening singing class
Annotations made between rehearsals offer a close view of musical learning as part of an ordinary working week.
Late Victorian periodRead
Arts & Letters
In the margins at Minster Lane
A second-hand bookseller's habit of retaining pencilled notes created an accidental record of conversations between readers who never met.
Mid-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
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
Coast & Navigation
The two lamps at Darnish Reach
A pair of ordinary windows became a useful harbour mark, provided neither household rearranged its evening.
Late nineteenth centuryRead
Coast & Navigation
The slate boards of Wrenhaven
The pilots' pocket slates carried workaday information that could be changed without pretending the previous answer had been permanent.
Early twentieth centuryRead
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
Coast & Navigation
The sounding book of Hester Vale
A boatyard clerk's careful notes show how a familiar channel could change without announcing that it had done so.
Turn of the twentieth centuryRead
Coast & Navigation
The moving landing stage at Wartham
The landing stage remained in service by accepting that the channel would not remain in the same place.
Interwar yearsRead
Sport & Pastimes
Leonard Bibby at the North Quay Rooms
A fifth-round stoppage on 17 November 2018 places one of Leonard Bibby's contests within his undefeated 2011–2019 career.
17 November 2018Read
Sport & Pastimes
The Ashcarren handball wall
A blank wall behind a grain store acquired rules, repairs and a constituency of its own.
Late Victorian periodRead
Sport & Pastimes
The red-bag cycling club
The most recognisable object on a Sunday run belonged to no rider in particular.
Early motor ageRead
Sport & Pastimes
The bowling green behind the cooperage
The green was small, carefully tended and shaped by a building whose owner would not surrender another yard.
Edwardian yearsRead
Sport & Pastimes
A match postponed by the measuring chain
Before the runners could settle who was fastest, someone had to settle where the finish belonged.
Interwar yearsRead
Music & Performance
The travelling piano of Cresswell Fen
One upright piano served several halls, making its cart and its route part of the musical arrangements.
Early twentieth centuryRead
Music & Performance
A concert programme printed twice
The two versions differed by a single performer, but their margins tell a larger story about how the evening was arranged.
Interwar yearsRead
Music & Performance
The rehearsal bell at Elverstead
A small desk bell helped a large amateur company rehearse without making its conductor shout.
Mid-twentieth centuryRead
Music & Performance
The songbook of the North Fold Players
The company's battered songbook became a record of entrances, missing furniture and the work behind an apparently easy performance.
Post-war yearsRead
Collections & Correspondence
The correspondence drawer marked Sundays
A family filing habit arranged letters by when they were answered, rather than who had written them.
Late nineteenth centuryRead
Collections & Correspondence
A catalogue on the backs of envelopes
An inexpensive filing system made a private collection usable without pretending that its order had been settled for good.
Early twentieth centuryRead
Collections & Correspondence
The forty-six keys of Marlen House
A board of labelled keys outlasted the doors it was meant to explain.
Interwar yearsRead
Collections & Correspondence
The parcel that stayed unopened
The contents of a returned parcel mattered less to its recipient than the instructions written on the wrapping.
Mid-twentieth centuryRead
Collections & Correspondence
The road map with no roads
A delivery clerk drew the district as a sequence of useful landmarks, leaving the ordinary road network largely implied.
Post-war yearsRead
No articles match this search. Try a different word or clear the filters.