Recent decisions to cancel a celebration in Hampshire of the bicentenary of Rural Rides by William Cobbett on grounds of historic antisemitism and racism have raised questions about the practice...
Sherfield English straddles what had been the mid 19th century turnpike road, and consists of scattered dwellings with two clusters on the main road, one at the Mill Lane junction,...
Stoney Cross today consists of a handful of dwellings, a filling station, a Travel Lodge hotel, and a Little Chef restaurant; all alongside the modern A31 road between Ringwood and...
Christmas is a time of good cheer, but in 1852 a cold blast of austerity struck the country, nowhere was spared, not even Romsey. Local traders had commonly distributed gifts...
It’s only when you examine an area’s historic houses carefully that you realise that those charged with deciding which should be given statutory protection don’t have a very easy job....
Historians owe much to a poet, a workaholic and a “placeman UNTIL the beginning of the nineteenth century the Rickman family of Hampshire lived in comfortable obscurity. Then one of...
Lack of money should be no barrier to researching the past THERE are probably more unfinished books on local and family history than any other subject. Add to these the...
The National Motor Museum is unique in that our collection includes four cars that have held the outright Land Speed Record. While all are remarkable, for many people it is...
Poole Pottery was founded by a builder’s son from the Itchen valley ENTREPRENEURS give their eye teeth to acquire names that are household words. It saves a fortune in advertising,...
As tuneful a thing as I ever heard Thomas Hardy’s words could be about a Hampshire group that has honoured village musicians for 45 years. When Christina Pritchard won a...
An international business sparked by a Hampshire shepherd A company that started in Hampshire and spread around the world has stepped up to lend its hand in the fight against...
The Wallop family, earls of Portsmouth, has been associated with Hampshire since at least Domesday. There are no less than four places in the county which contain the name of...
View Hampshire Archives Trust first on-line talk ‘Tales from the Tower’ by Dr Cheryl Butler, held on Tuesday 2 June at 7pm. Despite the talk being the first on...
Physician Dr John Latham (1740-1837) retired to Romsey in 1795 to be near his son, a brewer with a chain of inns. For 20 years he immersed himself in the...
Today the story reads like colonial bullying. The campaign medal shows pith-helmeted men bludgeoning native Africans. But in a vote of thanks in parliament a month later Disraeli, fresh from...
Romsey and its waters enthral local researchers Romsey has one of the most active and best organised local history societies in the county. Twice a week in the basement of...
At a time when the world is being ravaged by the Covid-19 coronavirus, it is interesting to look back at previous diseases that have changed the world order. A...
To discover that history is an inspiration for drama is hardly surprising. Just think of Shakespeare (who, incidentally, faced outbreaks of plague by taking his plays to the shires). What...
In 2024, the Flowerdown military base, Winchester, at present home to the Army Training Regiment, is scheduled to close after 110 years of military occupation. Over the years, thousands of...
A tiny scrap of paper in a filing cabinet in a church hall has solved a mystery that has long puzzled local people. Behind the altar of Peartree Church, Southampton,...
A Lucky Strike in the Poor Law Records For a long time I have been researching my family history, doing my own Who Do You Think You Are, writes Mike...
In Herefordshire, close to the Welsh border, an aeroplane is being restored that was first built and flown above the Hampshire countryside 90 years ago. This is the Blake Blue...
Sources, which are the bedrock of history, predominantly consist of documents, though film, sound recordings and increasingly digital files are also important. There are, however, some areas of history which...
Building works often awake interest in the history of the place in question. The congregation of the St Andrew’s United Reformed Church in The Avenue, Southampton, have seized the opportunity...
Stern expressions, dark clothes, rectories the size of small palaces – these are all clues to what life was like for the middle class in Victorian England. No place was...
Bishops Waltham’s Debt to a Victorian Reformer and Social Entrepreneur In the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, and the Metropolitan Museum, Fifth Avenue New York, are some rare terra-cotta objects...
Letters sent by Royal Mail have always been paid for, but not by the privileged few. From 1652, Members of Parliament could send official letters free, providing they wrote their...
Recent experience by a Hampshire group funded by HAT has highlighted the importance of preserving the humble postcard. In attics, cupboards, garages and other places where hoarders store their treasures...
The evolution of the idea of a chantry, where prayers for the departed are said and the liturgical ritual of mass is celebrated, to a collegiate church with similar aims,...
The influence of faith and religious movements on social and political events is a fertile subject for archival research. Education is one area where the role of what are now...
