Search results for ""Victoria County History""

An in-depth historical study of the Cotswold market town of Chipping Norton and of half a dozen surrounding rural parishes, including Hook Norton and the Rollrights.

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The history of the town of Bolsover and neighbouring parishes, from prehistory to the present day. The history and topography of the small market town of Bolsover in north-east Derbyshire and four parishes immediately to its north (Barlborough, Clowne, Elmton - including Creswell - and Whitwell) are covered in this volume. Alllie mainly on a magnesian limestone ridge, rather than the exposed coalfield, and therefore only became mining communities late in the nineteenth century. Since the end of deep mining in Derbyshire all have faced a difficult period of economic and social adjustment. As well as the general development of the five parishes, the book includes detailed accounts of the medieval castle at Bolsover, the mansion built on the site of the castle by the Cavendish family of Welbeck in the seventeenth century, and Barlborough Hall, a late sixteenth-century prodigy house built by a successful Elizabethan lawyer. Philip Riden teaches in the Department of History at the University of Nottingham; he has been the editor of the Victoria County History of Derbyshire since 1996, when he re-established the VCH in the county.

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Tracing the history of Darlington from its beginnings as a small Anglo-Saxon settlement right up to the present, this volume marks the rebirth of the Victoria County History of Durham. This latest volume in the Victoria Country History of Durham (the first for over eighty years) presents a study of the township of Darlington, part of the parish of the same name. It traces the history of Darlington from the earliest times: a small Anglo-Saxon settlement becoming a flourishing bishop's borough in the middle ages; its growth as an important staging post on the Great North Road during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; and the town'sprosperity during the nineteenth century, reinforced by its situation on the railway network. The story is taken up to the present time, with accounts of Darlington's social, political, topographical and economic history. The latter includes thorough accounts of major industries, including iron and engineering, leather, and the little-known but highly significant worsted and linen manufacturing industries. GILLIAN COOKSON is County Editor, VictoriaCounty History of Durham.

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Comprehensive and authoritative history of Corby and Great Oakley, charting their growth and development from the early medieval period to the present day. Lying in north Northamptonshire, close to the borders with Leicestershire and Rutland, the neighbouring parishes of Corby and Great Oakley were formerly part of the ancient administrative division of Corby hundred. Both remainedagricultural villages, typical of much of rural Northamptonshire before 1932 when the landscape of the area was dramatically altered by large-scale industrialisation associated with the production of iron and steel following the discovery of rich ironstone deposits to the north and east of Corby village. Corby was most directly affected by these changes, with the parish experiencing a dramatic rise in population after the Stewarts & Lloyds Company chose toconcentrate their entire steel producing operation there. Between 1932 and 1950, the increasing population resulted in the hasty construction, firstly by the Stewarts & Lloyds Company and later by the Corby UDC, of housing estates on former agricultural land adjacent to the steelworks, before Corby was designated a New Town in April 1950 and responsibility for it passed to the Corby Development Corporation. From this point on, Great Oakley was inexorablydrawn into the expanding new town as it spread southwards, eventually being incorporated firstly into Corby urban district in1967 and in 1993 into Corby Borough. Although Corby is perhaps best known for the social problems or"New Town Blues" that blighted it after the steelworks (the town's principal employer) closed in 1980, this volume documents the lesser known medieval and early modern history of Corby and Great Oakley; it shows how generations of inhabitants utilised the rich natural geology and the abundant woodland to supplement the local agrarian economy, before examining in detail Corby's industrialisation, physical and economic growth, post-industrial decline and 21st-century regeneration. Mark Page is Assistant Editor, Victoria County History, Oxfordshire; Matthew Bristow is Research Manager, Victoria County History.

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Cleley comprises a dozen parishes in the south on either side of Watling Street, and includes the royal estate, the honor of Grafton. This new volume, the first to be published for Northamptonshire since 1937, deals with a group of a dozen parishes in the south of the county, on either side of Watling Street between Towcester and Stony Stratford. Essentially a group of typical Midland open-field parishes, the main interest of the area lies in the creation of a great royal estate, the honor of Grafton, in 1542, which occupied about half the hundred. In 1706 the honor passed to the secondDuke of Grafton under a grant made by his grandfather, Charles II. The dukes remained the principal owners in the district until a series of sales just after the First World War.Researched with the thoroughness for which the Victoria County History has long been well known, and illustrated with numerous maps and plates, this volume will be of great interest to local residents who wish to know about the past history of their community, and also to a widerange of academic readers, especially historians interested in landed estates between the sixteenth and the twenty-first century.

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Meticulously-researched and detailed survey of Somerset parishes, from prehistory to the present day. A comprehensive account of the ten parishes comprising the southern half of the Catsash hundred, an area rich in its archaeology and history, is presented here, in the authoritative detail which is the hallmark of the Victoria County History. To the north, the Barrows, of which Queen Camel, North Cadbury and Sparkford (home of the Haynes Motor Museum) are the largest and most populous, lying in an area rich in archaeology and history. To the south, prominent hills include Cadbury Hill, crowned by Cadbury Castle, an Iron Age hill fort dating from 600-400 BC. In South Cadbury and the surrounding parishes there is much evidence of prehistoric activity such as Bronze-Age finds. From alater period, the manor at Queen Camel is recorded in 1066, though decimated by fire in 1639 and subsequently rebuilt in local Blue Lias stone; and the sites of abandoned medieval homesteads are visible at Sparkford, Weston Bampfylde, Sutton Montis and Maperton. Later still, Compton Castle in Compton Pauncefoot was constructed in 1821 while North Cadbury's medieval manor house still survives today. M.C. Siraut is a historian and archivist; she is the county editor for the Victoria History of Somerset.

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Somerset's Polden hills divide the county's central marshlands, Sedgemoor to the south and the Brue Valley to the north. Traces of human activity there include wooden trackways built across those marshes six thousand years ago. Most of the written sources tell the story of men from settlements on the nearby hills or isolated 'islands' who looked to those low-lying lands for food and fuel for themselves and food for their stock. Those sources, dating from the late Saxon period and particularly rich in the middle ages, derive largely from the archives of the former abbey of Glastonbury, main landowner in the eighteen parishes of this volume. Pastoral farming dominated and still dominates, its early progress due to successful drainage and flood-prevention schemes, one of the largest dating from the late twelfth century. Each parish has its own long story: of Glastonbury-planned origins at Shapwick and perhaps also at Catcott, Edington, and Chilton Polden; of trade along the tidal river Parrett at Huntspill and Puriton (Dunball); of the gradual expansion of the 'island' farmers of Westonzoyland, Middlezoy and Othery into the surrounding marsh; of the long-enduring common arable fields at High Ham; of the rise and fall of peat digging. ROBERT DUNNING is County Editor, Victoria County History of Somerset. Forthcoming: IX: Glastonbury and Street

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Classic VCH account of the famous town of Glastonbury and its environs. The ancient religious settlement of Glastonbury, with its many legendary associations stretching back into the Dark Ages, and the manufacturing town of Street, the creation of the late 19th century, are curious neighbours. They lie at the centre of the mysteriously-named Twelve Hides Hundred, the core estate of Glastonbury Abbey in the early Middle Ages. Around them, spreading into the low-lying moors of the Somerset Levels, are parishes which produced forthe abbey, after continuous improvement of drainage, most of its economic riches - meat, milk, cheese, fruit, wool, wine, cider, fish, stone, timber, and fuel. The suppression of Glastonbury under unusually tragic circumstances ended the dominance of a single lord and a coordinated economic system, and the eventual inclosure and drainage of the moors took two more centuries to achieve. Glastonbury, meanwhile, faced a century and more of depression but in the 18th received a charter of incorporation and became a centre of the stocking industry; while the fortunes of Street also rose, both through the shoe industry but also of the role of the Clark family in education and social improvement. ROBERT DUNNING is County Editor, Victoria County History of Somerset.

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Comprehensive and authoritative history of north-west Staffordshire, including Keele, Trentham and Audley. Covering the hilly north-west part of the county from the Cheshire border to the valley of the river Trent south of Newcastle-under-Lyme, this volume treats parishes that lie mostly on the North Staffordshire coalfield and where both coal and ironstone mining and iron-making became important, especially in the nineteenth century. A rich archive has been used to illustrate the origins of this industrial activity in the Middle Ages, when the area was characterised by scattered settlements, with an important manorial complex and a grand fourteenth-century church at Audley, a hunting lodge for the Stafford lords at Madeley, a small borough at Betley, and at Keele and Trentham religioushouses which became landed estates with mansion houses after the Dissolution. In the nineteenth century Trentham gained fame for its spectacular gardens created by the immensely rich dukes of Sutherland, and Keele rose to prominence in 1950 as the site of Britain's first campus university. After coalmining ceased in the twentieth century several villages and mining hamlets acquired large housing estates, which in Trentham parish were absorbed into Stoke-on-Trent. Nigel Tringham is a Senior Lecturer in History at Keele University, with special responsibility for researching and writing the volumes of the Staffordshire Victoria County History.

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The book comprises the history of a major part of the Essex coastline in Tendring Hundred before the development of seaside resorts from the mid 19th century onwards (the resorts were covered in VCH Essex Volume XI, to which this is the second part of a companion volume). It includes analyses of how the economy of the coastal communities from agriculture through fishing to smuggling was moulded by proximity to the sea. It includes a major exploration of the history of the Soken, a significant area of special legal jurisdiction (a liberty or soke) and of administrative and social organization. The Soken was owned in the Middle Ages by the Dean and Chapter of St Paul's Cathedral, London, and later passed to lay owners, notably the Catholic-leaning Darcy family of St Osyth priory, the Savage family, and the Earls of Rochford (Nassau de Zuylestein) and their descendants. Additionally, it includes the first full modern accounts of the large parishes of Kirby-le-Soken, Thorpe-le-Soken and Walton-le-Soken (later the site of the seaside resort of Walton on the Naze). Before the Norman Conquest these had once formed a large 'multiple' estate owned by St Paul's Cathedral, and only gradually developed into separate parishes and manors over the course of the Middle Ages. All had coastlines to Hamford Water or the North Sea, and contain many important marshland nature reserves and SSSI. The London Clay cliffs on the open coast at Walton, especially the large promontory known as the Naze with its cap of Red Crag, form a unique coastal landscape of international geological and biological importance. It served as an important coastal landmark for sailors and a Trinity House navigation tower built in 1720 still stands.

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Authoritative and comprehensive history of the town of Tamworth and its environs. In the centre of a parish with several townships, Tamworth was important for the rulers of pre-Viking Mercia and became a burh in 913 under Æthelflæd, "lady of the Mercians", who may also have installed relics of St Edith in the church there. Although a castle was built after the Norman Conquest, its lords did not control the town, which became a corporation under Elizabeth I and is now the head of a district council. Throughout its history Tamworth has functioned as a market centre, with some cloth-working and paper-making, although cotton mills, opened by Robert Peel (the later Prime Minster's father), just outside the town in the 1790s were soon moved to a canal junction to the south in Fazeley, where tape-making survived (as also in the town) until the late twentieth century. Deposits of coal and clay exploited from the nineteenth century resulted in mining villages at Glascote and Wilnecote inthe eastern half of the parish, which lay in Warwickshire, as did half the town until transferred to Staffordshire in 1890. The Warwickshire part of the parish was added in 1965 in connection with the decision to take in a Birmingham overspill population, which together with private developments created vast housing estates, the population of "greater Tamworth" more than doubling by the early 21st century. The volume also includes the adjoining parish of Drayton Bassett, which had close links with the town and where Peel built a mansion house, demolished in the earlier twentieth century: its site is now part of a major amusement park.

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An authoritative and comprehensive account of an important area centred around the town of Howden. This is the first part to be published of a two-part volume on the East Riding liberty and wapentake of Howdenshire. It deals with the nineteen civil parishes and townships which made up the liberty outside the town of Howden itself. Until 1836 Howdenshire was one of the bishop of Durham's exempt franchises in Yorkshire, enclaves which survived the Reformation and Civil War. Its special nature, which is mostly ancient wetland reclaimed in the twelfth century, is explored via in-depth sections on drainage and river defence, with a reconstruction of the unique medieval and early modern scheme developed to contain the River Ouse and empty the drainage dykes.

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Authoritative account of villages on the edge of the Chilterns, including the historic settlement of Ewelme. Occupying a varied landscape in south-east Oxfordshire, the fourteen rural parishes covered in this volume extend from the river valleys of the Thames and Thame up onto the Chiltern hills. Nucleated villages and open fields dominated the vale, while the uplands feature dispersed settlement, early inclosure, and extensive wood-pasture. The two zones were closely linked by economic interdependence and, in the late Anglo-Saxon and early medieval period, by the influence of an important royal estate focused on Benson, which extended across the hills and formed the nucleus of Ewelme (formerly Benson) Hundred. Benson later became a coaching stop on the Oxford-London road, and is now widely known for its neighbouring RAF station. The area remained predominantly agricultural until recent times, despite some rural crafts and services and an important pottery and brick-making industry around Nettlebed. London and surrounding towns exerted important influences throughout. Notable buildings include the fifteenth-century brick-built almshouse complex at Ewelme, co-founded by Chaucer's granddaughter Alice de la Pole, and the now largely demolished Tudor mansion at Rycote, while more recent additions include Nuffield Place, remodelled in 1933 for the Oxford car manufacturer William Morris.

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An important contribution to the social, cultural and economic history of seaside resorts and their hinterland in Essex. The nine Essex parishes lying in a coastal district between St Osyth and the Naze headland at Walton encompass a number of distinct landscapes, from sandy cliffs to saltmarshes, recognised as environmentally significant. The landscape has constantly changed in response to changing sea levels, flooding, draining and investment in sea defences. Inland, there was an agriculturally fertile plateau based on London Clay, but with large areas of Kesgrave sands and gravels, loams and brickearths. Parts were once heavily wooded, especially at St Osyth. The district was strongly influenced by the pattern of estate ownership, largely held by St Paul's Cathedral from the mid-10th century.About 1118-19 a bishop of London founded a house of Augustinian canons at St Osyth, which became one of the wealthiest abbeys in Essex. Most other manors and their demesnes in the district were small and their demesne tenants were of little more than local significance. After the Reformation all of the former church lands in the district were granted to the royal servant Thomas Darcy, 1st baron Darcy of Chiche (d. 1558). Darcy built a great mansion, St Osyth Priory, on the site of the former abbey, which became the centre of his new estate. The area's economy was strongly affected by the coast and its many valuable natural resources, including the extraction or manufacture ofsand, gravel, septaria, copperas and salt, and activities such as fishing, tide milling, wrecking and smuggling. However, it remained a largely rural district and its wealth ultimately depended upon the state of farming. Until the eighteenth century it specialised in dairying from both sheep and cattle, but afterwards production shifted towards grain. The coastal area has produced significant evidence of early man and was heavily exploited and settled in prehistory. The medieval settlement pattern largely conformed to a typical Essex model, with a complex pattern of small villages, hamlets and dispersed farms, many located around greens or commons. The largest settlement wasthe nucleated village or small town at St Osyth, located outside the abbey gates, which had a formal market and wool fair in the Middle Ages.In the 19th and 20th centuries the coast witnessed the development of seaside resorts atWalton, Clacton and Frinton. Some overspill affected the surrounding more rural parishes, and from the 1920s new types of resort developed in the form of seaside camps, chalets and caravan parks.

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Authoritative account of the history of villages in the western parts of Oxfordshire, including Kelmscott, famous for its pre-Raphaelite associations. Located on Oxfordshire's western fringe between the rivers Leach and Thames, the nine rural settlements covered in this volume are typical Cotswold villages, with their limestone-built farmhouses, their former open fields, and their extensive former sheep pastures. All belonged to a sizeable late Anglo-Saxon estate whose break-up gave rise to the later parish structure: Langford church, with its celebrated late eleventh-century tower, may have begun as a small minster. Excavations at Radcot have revealed much about the settlement's early character, including the discovery of a twelfth-century castle. The area as a whole is predominantly agricultural, though milling, malting and quarrying have all been significant. Woodland at Bradwell Grove was important from the middle ages. In later years the villages developed in diverse ways, displaying contrasting closed and open characteristics. The most famous village is arguably Kelmscott, where the designer William Morris rented Kelmscott Manor as a summer home from 1871; but Filkins was home to the Labour politician Sir Stafford Cripps, who worked with local craftsmen to build severalCotswold-style houses and community buildings there. Gentry houses include the nineteenth-century Gothic mansion at Bradwell Grove, which became the centre of a substantial estate and later of the Cotswold Wildlife Park.

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Like so much of Middlesex, Chelsea was swallowed up by Greater London. Here its history restores its lost identity. Chelsea was a desirable riverside residence for wealthy merchants, lawyers, and courtiers from the fifteenth century, and a pleasure resort for all ranks of society from the eighteenth; it is now one of the most expensive and desirable places to live in London. This new volume relates all this and more, including a re-examination of the location of Sir Thomas More's house, a reassessment of Henry VIII's relationship with the manor house, the history of a major estate not previously identified, and a survey of the farm-gardening which gave prosperity to some local inhabitants. Facets of Chelsea's more recent history covered include the rebuilding of eastern Chelsea, which removed alarge lower middle- and working-class population and replaced their accommodation with houses for the well-off; the artistic community which grew up in the late nineteenth century from which Chelsea derived its bohemian reputation; and the cultural and commercial changes of the Swinging Sixties.

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An authoritative and comprehensive account of an important area centred upon Great Driffield. Great Driffield, a thriving market town serving an extensive agricultural hinterland, stands at the junction of the Yorkshire Wolds and Holderness. The centre of an important Anglo-Saxon manor, in royal hands in the early middle ages, the main settlement was transformed from a large village into a boom town following the opening of a canal in 1770 that linked it to the expanding markets of Hull and the West Riding; its social, religious and political lifeflourished in the Victorian period particularly. This volume covers its history and that of its adjoining rural townships of Little Driffield, Elmswell and Kelleythorpe, from the Neolithic period to the beginning of the twenty-first century; it provides the first detailed account of the town's trades and industries, as well as exploring landownership, local government, and social, religious and political life. The editors are former staff of the University of Hull.

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The history of Calne, a market and industrial town in north Wiltshire, and the places around it. Calne, a small town in north Wiltshire, stood on a large royal estate, and the witan met there - St Dunstan survived the partial collapse of a building at one meeting. It sent members to parliament from the thirteenth century, andit became a pocket borough in the eighteenth. The town stands on what until 1971 was the main London to Bristol road; markets and fairs were held, and inns flourished. It was also industrial: water-powered mills were used for fulling, and from the sixteenth century to the 1840s it was a centre for cloth making. The topography of the town, its growth, government and cultural life are fully explored, and churches, chapels and schools discussed. In Calne's hinterland most settlement was in small villages with open fields and commonable pastures. Bowood park was inclosed from the forest c.1618 and Bowood House was built in the park c.1727. The house, the changes to it by Robert Adam and others, and the redesigning of its park by 'Capability' Brown are fully described. In the nineteenth century many estate cottages were built. For the places around Calne the history of the settlement and churches in each village, the manorial descents, and the evolution of farming and farms are all traced, and there are architectural descriptions of the churches.D.A.CROWLEY is County Editor, Victorial History of Wiltshire.

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First of two volumes covers general history and topography. This is the first of two volumes providing an authoritative and detailed treatment of Chester's history, meticulously researched from the original sources. It provides an account of the city from its Roman foundation to the year 2000, arranged by chronological chapters and covering economic, social, political, administrative, military, religious, and cultural history. Special attention is given to topographical development. Six chronological chapters coverthe history of Chester by period: Roman, Early Medieval (400-1230), Later Medieval (1230-1550), Early Modern (1550-1762), Late Georgian and Victorian (1762-1914), and Twentieth-Century (1914-2000). The topographies of Roman and 20th-century Chester form integral parts of the first and last chapters. A separate chapter deals with Topography 900-1914. The illustrations, many of which have rarely been seen before, are arranged as a pictorial essay.CheshireV.ii: Chester covers individual buildings, institutions, and aspects of Chester's history. There is a full index to the whole volume, including subjects. V.i. contains an index only of persons, places, and buildings mentioned in this part.

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Unique multi-disciplinary study of a key part of the Oxfordshire Chilterns over a thousand years, based on intensive new research and exploring landscape, settlement, farming, and social and religious life. Drawing on intensive new research, this volume covers a dozen ancient parishes straddling the south-west end of the Chiltern hills, set within a large southwards loop of the Thames close to Reading, Wallingford, and Henley-on-Thames. London, connected by river, road, and (later) rail, lies some 40 miles east. The uplands feature the dispersed settlement and wood-pasture typical of the Chilterns, contrasted with nucleated riverside villages such as Whitchurch and Goring. Caversham, formerly "a little hamlet at the bridge", developed from the 19th century into a densely settled suburb of Reading (across the river), while other recent changes have largely obliterated the ancient pattern of "strip" parishes stretching from the river into the hills, which bound vale and upland together and had its origins in 10th-century estate structures. The economy was predominantly agricultural until the 20th century, with woodland playing a significant role alongside rural crafts and industry. Crowmarsh Gifford (near Wallingford) had an early market and fair. Gentrification and tourism gained momentum from the mid 19th century, accelerated by the arrival of the railway from 1840 and especially affecting riverside villages such as Goring and Shiplake, which saw extensive new building by wealthy incomers. Goring was earlier the site of an Augustinian nunnery and (probably) of a small pre-Conquest minster, while Mapledurham and several other places became foci for post-Reformation Roman Catholic recusancy, with Protestant Nonconformity expanding from the 19th century. Major buildings include mansion houses at Hardwick (in Whitchurch) and Mapledurham, alongside timber or brick vernacular structures and some striking modernist additions.

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Comprehensive survey of the history of Shrewsbury. This volume examines the county town of Shrewsbury, which boasts a largely unaltered medieval street plan, and over 600 listed buildings, including some of the finest timber-framed buildings in England, Ditheringon flax mill (thefirst iron-framed building in the world), a Norman castle, Shrewsbury abbey and the remains of the medieval town walls. It recounts the history of the town from the early medieval period until the twenty-first century in a seriesof chapters written by experts. They include the archaeologist Dr Nigel Baker and Professor Richard Holt on Shrewsbury before 1200; Alan Thacker, Robert and the late Dorothy Cromarty on the town between 1200 and 1350, when Shrewsbury was of national importance; W.A. Champion on developments between 1350 and 1780 when the town within the walls achieved its current physical shape and character; and Barrie Trinder on modern Shrewsbury, its industrial development and suburban spread. There are also sections on individual religious congregations and their buildings, institutions and their continuity, and topics particular to Shrewsbury such as the common lands, its county institutions,the town walls and castle, and the liberties and municipal boundaries. This is the first of two volumes devoted to Shrewsbury, presenting a survey of its history; the second volume will focus on individual topics and themesin detail.

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Authoritative and comprehensive account of one of Somerset's leading towns. Castle Cary is a relatively unspoilt town deep in the Somerset countryside, its narrow streets rich in high-quality late eighteenth and nineteenth-century buildings. Its most famous industry, horsehair weaving, still flourishes. This volume explores its history from the original castle and its lords to its rebirth as an industrial town. It also covers many villages, among them Ansford, early home of Parson Woodforde; Kingweston, virtually recreated bythe Dickinson family; Keinton Mandeville, once famous for its paving stone quarries and as the birthplace of Henry Irving; tiny Wheathill, almost obliterated by a golf course; and West Lydford, the family home of the early eighteenth-century diarist John Cannon. Other places of note include Barton St David, home of Henry Adams, the reputed ancestor of two American Presidents, and Lovington, whose small primary school traces its origins back to an eighteenth-century charity school. M.C. Siraut is a historian and archivist; she is the county editor for the Victoria History of Somerset.

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The Littlehampton volume focuses on 12 parishes with particular emphasis on seaside development from the 18th century onwards. Covers the parishes of Angmering, Burpham, Ferring, Goring, Kingston, Littlehampton, Lyminster, Poling, East Preston, Rustington, North Stoke and Warningcamp, assessing their history from the earliest times to the present day. There is a particular emphasis on seaside coastal development from the eighteenth century onwards.

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Authoritative account of Cricklade and neighbouring towns, in an area immediately west of Swindon. Cricklade, the Anglo-Saxon borough fortified by Alfred against the Danes, is the market town at the heart of this volume. As a notorious rotten borough, its corruption influenced the passing of the 1832 Parliamentary Reform Act. The town and the surrounding parishes described here are bordered by Gloucestershire to the north and Swindon to the East. They extend along the upper Thames valley and over the Wiltshire claylands to the limestone ridge in the south. The royal forest of Braydon covered much of the area in the middle ages and provided extensive grazing for livestock. Although disafforestation took place under Charles I, agricultural exploitation was limited by poor soils and parts were later returned to woodland or nature reserve. The settlements of traditional limestone buildings were remote until canal and rail transport increased trade in dairy products and the expansion of employment opportunities in Swindon resulted in their residential development, and an annexation of a small part of the area by the growing town.

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Classic VCH account of the important town of Tutbury and its environs. Tutbury and Needwood forest have a rich history, fully explored here from the earliest times to the present day: the former with its great medieval castle, the heart of a major feudal honor held from the 13th century by the royalearls and dukes of Lancaster, and the latter with its medieval parks and hunting lodges. The volume also covers the important early Anglo-Saxon monastic and royal site of Hanbury, the burial place of St Werburh, a Mercian princess; and offers accounts of the mansion houses built in and around the ancient forest area by members of the Bass brewing family and others, and the magnificent late 19th-century church of Hoar Cross, one of Bodley's masterpieces. NIGEL TRINGHAM is County Editor for VCH Stafforshire and lecturer in history at the University of Keele.

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Published by Boydell & Brewer Inc.

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An important contribution to the social, cultural and economic history of seaside resorts. From the 1820s the Essex seaside towns of Walton, and later Clacton and Frinton, were promoted as high-class residential and holiday resorts. After a slow start, hampered by poor communications and low demand, growth was stimulated by steam-ship companies which landed visitors on newly built piers in Walton and Clacton and by the railways that reached Walton in 1867, Clacton in 1882 and Frinton in 1888. The contemporary emphasis upon the health advantagesof the seaside also led to the establishment of many convalescent homes. However, working-class excursionists newly attracted to Clacton, and to a lesser extent Walton, then irrevocably changed the social tone of the resorts. By the 1920s and 1930s Clacton was a commercialized holiday destination and the funfair-style facilities of its pier rivalled those of any other resort. Nearby Jaywick was established as a cheap and cheerful chalet development. While Walton remained popular with families, Frinton continued as a "select" resort, with building development and commerce strictly controlled. The town remains famous for its wide unspoilt greensward facing the sea and its resistance to any threats to its exclusive character. Camping, caravanning and holiday camps replaced the traditional seaside holiday after 1945, but from the later 1960s the increase in overseas holidays led to a steep decline ofthe seaside resorts. The economy has, however, since diversified with large dormitory-style housing developments, light industry and new shopping centres, and the coast becoming increasingly popular for retirement homes. Thisvolume presents an authoritative account of the growth and development of these towns on the so-called "Sunshine Coast".

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This volume covers the town of Burton-upon-Trent on the county's eastern boundary, along with its suburbs and satellite villages on either side of the river, including Stapenhill which was formerly in a separate parish in Derbyshire. Best known as a major centre for brewing beer from the earlier nineteenth century, Burton first came to prominence in the early eleventh century as the site of a Benedictine monastery which later promoted the cult of its own saint, the legendary St Modwen. Part of the monastic infirmary survives in the present Abbey inn, and a house called Sinai Park on the high ground to the west of the town was used by the monks as a rest home and hunting lodge. Alabaster carving developed as a specialist industry in the middle ages, and clothworking was important until the nineteenth century, with fulling and then cotton mills on the river Trent. The breweries were concentrated in the historic town centre near the river, and in the later nineteenth century a more respectable centre was created to the west around the imposing St Paul's church and the present town hall, both paid for by members of the Bass family. Other Anglican churches built by leading brewers in the town and its suburbs remain a major feature in the landscape. NIGEL TRINGHAM is VCH county editor for Staffordshire, and lecturer in history at the University of Keele.

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The latest volume for Oxfordshire is devoted to eight parishes between the market towns of Burford and Witney in the west of the county. The area is predominantly rural, the only urban centre being Carterton. Founded in 1900 as acolony of smallholders, it became one of the county's fastest growing towns after World War II due to its proximity to Brize Norton's military airbase. Oxfordshire: Volume XV is a richly detailed history of these parishes, covering everything from Anglo-Saxon settlement to 20th-century urbanisation, agriculture to rural industry, religious influences to famous residents.

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Authoritative and detailed account of the history of important Somerset parishes, from prehistory to the present day. This volume, the twelfth in the Somerset series, describes the history of the eastern part of Carhampton Hundred. Bounded by the Bristol Channel and Exmoor with steep hills forming a backdrop to a coastal plain, the area is now dominated by the seaside town of Minehead whose port overtook its neighbour, Dunster, from the early 15th century. The picturesque village of Dunster is one of the county's most enduring tourist attractions, with its castle formerly home to the Mohuns and their successors the Luttrells, the area's dominant landowners. Earlier, the royal estate of Carhampton dominated the whole area and in the Iron Age, the uplands were controlled by a grouping of defensive enclosures. Minehead thrived on trade with Wales, Ireland, Europe and the West Indies and -from the 19th century - tourists, brought to the area first by steamer and from 1871 by the railway. In the early 21st century Minehead, the genteel seaside resort enlarged in 1962 following the construction of its holiday camp, serves as the commercial hub of the area. Carhampton includes the small resort of Blue Anchor and on the higher ground to the south, the parishes of Timberscombe, and most of Rodhuish and Withycombe lie within the boundaries of Exmoor National Park.

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An authoritative and comprehensive account of an important area centred around the town of Howden. This is the second part of a study of Howdenshire, containing a history of the town of Howden and its ancient minster, the least known of the great medieval churches of Yorkshire. The volume also deals with the lordship and civilunit of which the town was the heart, the area called Howdenshire, one of the more complicated regions of England. The book offers a history of the origins and development of the liberty of the bishop of Durham, its ruler until 1836. The liberty of Howdenshire covered all the bishop's possessions in the East Riding, and the book looks at the liberty's scattered exclaves across it, offering a full township and parish study of the most important of them, Welton with Melton, a distant and detached part of Howdenshire until 1894. Finally, the book deals with the two ancient commons associated with Howdenshire. The first is Bishopsoil, a common of 4,000 acres within the bishop's lordship. The volume also contains a study of the administration, drainage and ecology of the great 4,500 acre wetland common of Wallingfen, east of Howdenshire, which from around 1280 until 1781 was governed by the gentry and freeholders of the surrounding parishes, an area of England unique in its history, governance and economy.

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The latest Yorkshire volume provides an authoritative and comprehensive account of an important area centred upon Sledmere. This volume covers seven parishes and some sixteen ancient settlements on the eastern dip-slope of the Yorkshire Wolds. Its rich and varied past extends from the important Iron Age settlements with their well-known chariot burialsto the great estate - at its high point one of the largest in England - built up by the Sykes family in the 18th and 19th centuries and centred upon the village of Sledmere. The volume includes a substantial introduction coveringthe history and archaeology of the area as a whole and analysing the impact of the Sledmere estate on local villages, churches and farmsteads. There are also detailed sections on the landscape and topography, economic, social andreligious history of the parishes and their settlements. The villages covered by the volume are Cowlam, Duggleby, Fimber, Fridaythorpe, Helperthorpe, Kirby Grindalythe, East and West Lutton, Sledmere, Weaverthorpe and Wetwang. DAVID and SUSAN NEAVE are former staff of the University of Hull.

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This latest volume in the history of Northamptonshire covers the history of its industry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including, of course, its most celebrated products: boots and shoes. Particular attention is givento the impact of industrial development upon the infrastructure, topography and environment of the county.

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Authoritative account of villages on the edge of the Cotswolds. Until its partial clearance in the 1850s Wychwood forest, set in an undulating landscape on the edge of the Cotswolds, was one of the great royal forests of England, comparable with Savernake, Rockingham, or Whittlewood. This volume explores the history of the forest itself and of a dozen surrounding villages, of which Shipton-under-Wychwood was the centre of a large Anglo-Saxon royal estate and minster parish stretching across the area. Several villages were shaped by early woodland clearance, and most depended on the forest to varying degrees, supplementing traditional sheep-corn farming and small-scale industries such as pottery-making and quarrying. Neighbouring Cornbury park is well known for its nationally important 17th-century mansion house, and a slightly later country house survives at Bruern near the Gloucestershire border, on the site of a Cistercian abbey founded in 1147. Ascott-under-Wychwoodacquired national notoriety in 1873 as home of the so-called "Ascott Martyrs", reflecting local agrarian difficulties.

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Authoritative account of the history of Henley-on-Thames and its neighbouring parishes. Focused on the south-west Chilterns, this volume looks at the riverside market town of Henley-on-Thames, now famous for its annual Royal Regatta, and at the four neighbouring parishes of Bix, Harpsden, Rotherfield Greys and Rotherfield Peppard. Henley began as a planned town, probably in the late twelfth century, and became a major inland port, funnelling grain, wood and (later) malt into London. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it developed as a coaching centre, and from the nineteenth flourished as a fashionable resort and commuting area, following the belated arrival of the railway and the self-conscious promotion of the Regatta. The adjoining parishes stretch from the river to the Chilterns uplands, comprising a mixed landscape of wood pasture, small hedged closes, and (in the Middle Ages) small open fields. Settlement is characteristically dispersed, and as elsewhere in the Chilterns the balance between crops, grazing and wood exploitation varied over time. The area contains deserted or shrunken settlements, including Bolney and the newly-discovered site of Bix Gibwyn church; its important buildings include Greys Court, established probably in the eleventh century, while Henley itself contains a richness of eighteenth-century brick-built houses alongside medieval timber-framing, several examples of which have recently been dated by dendrochronology.

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Describes the area's varied agrarian history and industrial activity. This volume of the county history covers the part of north-west Gloucestershire extending from the foothills of the Malverns in the north to the distinctive feature of May Hill in the south. Centred on the parish and former markettown of Newent, it also covers the ancient parishes of Bromesberrow, Dymock, Huntley, Kempley, Longhope, Oxenhall, Pauntley, Preston, and Taynton. Over much of the area a pattern of scattered farmsteads and small fields emerged from the clearance of ancient woodland. That process continued after the Norman Conquest but with the consolidation of farms from the later middle ages the story became one of the abandonment of numerous farmhouses and farmsteads. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries road improvements facilitated the growth of outlying villages and squatter settlement on common and waste land created a number of hamlets, as on May Hill and on the Herefordshire border at Gorsley. The volume also describes the area's varied agrarian history, from sheep, dairy and arable farming to its orchards, and, more recently, viniculture. Industrial activity has included glassworks and ironworks,and charcoal production. Newent, the chief trading centre from the thirteenth century on, saw both a short-lived coalfield, one of the principal objects for the construction of Herefordshire and Gloucestershire canal, and a spa.

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Authoritative, comprehensive history of the City of Westminster. The City of Westminster is the seat of the monarchy and government of Great Britain and the centre of many aspects of British economic and cultural life, yet to date there has been no comprehensive history of the city. It is thisgap which this volume will fill. The book opens with an explanation of what makes Westminster unique and follows with detailed sections on landownership and religious history. The section on landownership treats the history and ownership of the manors, the large medieval inns, and the estates created from the 16th century onwards; that on religious history provides a general chronological introduction to religious life in the city, and detailed accounts of the history and buildings of all the Christian denominations and other Faiths. PATRICIA CROOT is at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London.

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First survey of the religious history of Cornwall, from the county's Romano-British origins to the sixteenth century. Religious history is the focus of this volume, which covers the development of Christianity in the county from its Romano-British origins up to the Elizabethan Church Settlement of 1559; it provides the first ever in-depth study of the county's religious history during the Middle Ages and the Reformation. The story it tells is a highly distinctive one, full of interest, covering the uniquely numerous local saints and founders, their legends and the parish churches, chapels, holy wells and religious sites associated with them, as well as the larger religious communities. The Cornish clergy are placed in a national context and the impact of their scholarship on the wider word is emphasised. Five general chapters are followed by detailed histories of the 35 monasteries, friaries, collegiate churches, and hospitals in the county. The book is well-illustrated throughout, with numerous maps, plans,and photographs. NICHOLAS ORME is Emeritus Professor of History at Exeter University and an honorary canon of Truro Cathedral. He has written some twenty books on English religious, cultural, and social history, including Medieval Children, Medieval Schools, and The Saints of Cornwall.

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This volume contains the history of Dorchester and Thame Hundreds covering the parishes for Dorchester of: Chislehampton, Clifton Hampden, Culham, Dorchester, Burcot, Drayton St. Leonard, Stadhampton and South Stoke: and for Thame: Great Milton, Tetsworth, Thame and Waterstock. Also included are Tax Assessments for 1306-1523

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THIS volume is a supplement to the General Introduction published in 1970, which described the origins and progress of the Victoria County History and included lists of contents of the 150 volumes published by then, with indexes of the articles and authors included in those lists. Since 1970 a further 50 volumes have been completed, and the Supplement lists and indexes their contents. There is also a brief account of the progress of the Victoria County history over the last eighteen years.

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Boydell & Brewer are pleased to announce that as from 1 December 2001 they will be distributing the Victoria County History, which has an international reputation as a work of reference for English local history. Begun in 1899, the publication of about three new volumes each year is gradually creating an encyclopedic history of the counties, ranging from earliest times to the present. For each county there is or is planned a set of volumes, containing general chapters on subjects such as prehistory and ecclesiastical and economic history, and topographical chapters giving a comprehensive, fully referenced account of each city, town and village in the county. Fourteen county sets have been completed; work is in progress on a further thirteen.

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Boydell & Brewer are pleased to announce that as from 1 December 2001 they will be distributing the Victoria County History, which has an international reputation as a work of reference for English local history. Begun in 1899, the publication of about three new volumes each year is gradually creating an encyclopedic history of the counties, ranging from earliest times to the present. For each county there is or is planned a set of volumes, containing general chapters on subjects such as prehistory and ecclesiastical and economic history, and topographical chapters giving a comprehensive, fully referenced account of each city, town and village in the county. Fourteen county sets have been completed; work is in progress on a further thirteen.

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Boydell & Brewer are pleased to announce that as from 1 December 2001 they will be distributing the Victoria County History, which has an international reputation as a work of reference for English local history. Begun in 1899, the publication of about three new volumes each year is gradually creating an encyclopedic history of the counties, ranging from earliest times to the present. For each county there is or is planned a set of volumes, containing general chapters on subjects such as prehistory and ecclesiastical and economic history, and topographical chapters giving a comprehensive, fully referenced account of each city, town and village in the county. Fourteen county sets have been completed; work is in progress on a further thirteen.

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Boydell & Brewer are pleased to announce that as from 1 December 2001 they will be distributing the Victoria County History, which has an international reputation as a work of reference for English local history. Begun in 1899, the publication of about three new volumes each year is gradually creating an encyclopedic history of the counties, ranging from earliest times to the present. For each county there is or is planned a set of volumes, containing general chapters on subjects such as prehistory and ecclesiastical and economic history, and topographical chapters giving a comprehensive, fully referenced account of each city, town and village in the county. Fourteen county sets have been completed; work is in progress on a further thirteen.

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Boydell & Brewer are pleased to announce that as from 1 December 2001 they will be distributing the Victoria County History, which has an international reputation as a work of reference for English local history. Begun in 1899, the publication of about three new volumes each year is gradually creating an encyclopedic history of the counties, ranging from earliest times to the present. For each county there is or is planned a set of volumes, containing general chapters on subjects such as prehistory and ecclesiastical and economic history, and topographical chapters giving a comprehensive, fully referenced account of each city, town and village in the county. Fourteen county sets have been completed; work is in progress on a further thirteen.

Read more less

Boydell & Brewer are pleased to announce that as from 1 December 2001 they will be distributing the Victoria County History, which has an international reputation as a work of reference for English local history. Begun in 1899, the publication of about three new volumes each year is gradually creating an encyclopedic history of the counties, ranging from earliest times to the present. For each county there is or is planned a set of volumes, containing general chapters on subjects such as prehistory and ecclesiastical and economic history, and topographical chapters giving a comprehensive, fully referenced account of each city, town and village in the county. Fourteen county sets have been completed; work is in progress on a further thirteen.

Read more less

Boydell & Brewer are pleased to announce that as from 1 December 2001 they will be distributing the Victoria County History, which has an international reputation as a work of reference for English local history. Begun in 1899, the publication of about three new volumes each year is gradually creating an encyclopedic history of the counties, ranging from earliest times to the present. For each county there is or is planned a set of volumes, containing general chapters on subjects such as prehistory and ecclesiastical and economic history, and topographical chapters giving a comprehensive, fully referenced account of each city, town and village in the county. Fourteen county sets have been completed; work is in progress on a further thirteen.

Read more less

Boydell & Brewer are pleased to announce that as from 1 December 2001 they will be distributing the Victoria County History, which has an international reputation as a work of reference for English local history. Begun in 1899, the publication of about three new volumes each year is gradually creating an encyclopedic history of the counties, ranging from earliest times to the present. For each county there is or is planned a set of volumes, containing general chapters on subjects such as prehistory and ecclesiastical and economic history, and topographical chapters giving a comprehensive, fully referenced account of each city, town and village in the county. Fourteen county sets have been completed; work is in progress on a further thirteen.

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