Search results for ""author katie carmichael""

Although perhaps best known today as the home of Vauxhall Motors, Luton’s industrial roots run much deeper. Long before it became associated with motor cars, Luton was the centre of ladies’ hat production in this country – a success founded upon the earlier regional industry of straw-plaiting. Many surrounding towns and villages fed into the industry and helped to make the region globally renowned. At its peak in the 1930s, the region was producing as many as 70 million hats in a single year; however, it entered a rapid decline following the Second World War from which it never recovered. This has left Luton, Dunstable and a number of other local towns with a challenging inheritance of neglected and decaying fragments of a once vital industry. This book is intended to be an introduction and guide to the area’s historical depth and to its distinctive and varied character, seeking to explain the development of the region as the centre of the hatting industry in the south and exploring the lives of the people working there during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The historic links between the surviving building stock and the hatting industry are assessed and the book highlights the significance of the surviving fabric and the potential of the historic environment within future conservation and regeneration plans.

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This book examines the history of Boston in Lincolnshire as reflected in its buildings and townscape from medieval times to the present day. Boston has a position as an important market from medieval times and as a major port with links with Europe and America. The homes and warehouses of its citizens show the evidence of this. Boston’s religious and public buildings are discussed, and its physical expansion throughout the 19th and into the 20th century are examined. Other important influences on the town’s development include fen drainage, the role of agriculture and manufacturing, and transport links. Bringing the story up to date, problems created by the town’s remoteness from large centres of population, a low-wage agricultural economy and the impact of 1970s redevelopment are discussed, where they have affected the physical appearance of the town. A final chapter looks at how successful regeneration projects have been in Boston and how these can be built upon to promote a more prosperous future for the town that recognises the important role heritage can play in achieving it.

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