Sea levels have risen by around 120m (400ft) since the last Ice Age, only stabilising at their current position around 3,000 years ago. Given how much human activity has taken place around the coast in that time, a huge amount…
In the world of fly fishing, trout dominate the headlines, but in the past grayling were considered to be the equal of trout for sporting appeal – hence Izaac Walton’s The Compleat Angler (1653) describes them alongside each other in…
On 9 February 1538, Abbot Thomas Rowland signed a Deed of Surrender, formally handing over his monastery to Henry VIII, and the 1,000-year history of Abingdon Abbey came to an end. As a reward for giving up their property voluntarily,…
Starting with the opening of the UK’s first science park in 1970, Cambridge has grown from the sleepy market town of 60 years ago into an internationally renowned centre of technical research and innovation at the centre of a metropolis…
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the creation of the Grade II-listed house and garden at Marsh Lane, Harlow, by the architect Sir Frederick Gibberd and his wife. He is remembered for designing Liverpool’s Catholic Cathedral, dedicated to Christ…
An ancient tree is one that is in the final stage of its life and is exceptionally old for its species. Such trees typically have a wide girth and a hollow trunk with decaying wood, holes, and cavities that provide…
Vanbrugh 300, presented by the Georgian Group and supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, marks the life and work of Sir John Vanbrugh (1664-1726), a man who managed to pack multiple careers into his 62 years. By the time…
By AD 150, the Roman road system extended for some 300,000km (more than 186,000 miles – 7.5 times the circumference of the earth). This comprehensive transport infrastructure underpinned the mobility and trade that characterised the Roman Empire. Later, it enabled…
Timber-framing is gaining momentum as a mainstream construction technique for new buildings in the UK because of its environmental benefits. Timber substantially reduces the carbon emissions and high energy costs associated with steel and concrete structures, and the use of…
Are letter boxes, postage stamps, Christmas and birthday cards, love etters, thank you notes, pen pals, and postcards all destined to become archaic curiosities, like telephone kiosks? Denmark’s national postal service, PostNord, ended traditional letter delivery on 31 December 2025,…
Reviled when they were first constructed, cooling towers are now admired for their gracious hyperboloid curves and sculptural presence, just as they are about to disappear from the landscape. The Twentieth Century Society has described the group of eight towers…
In his speech of thanks for the dinner that was given to mark his 70th birthday in 1927, the architect and designer C F A (Charles) Voysey (1857-1941) declared: ‘my work was never popular, therefore you must all see how…
To enter Cressing Temple is to step back from the hurly-burly of modern Essex into a remarkable haven of timeless tranquillity in the form of a former manor that was granted to the Knights Templar in 1136 and has remained…
the modernist society (the lack of capitals is deliberate, in line with the modernist philosophy of embracing innovation and seeking freedom from traditional forms and established rules) is the meeting place for all those who are interested in the often-derided…
Highgate Cemetery, consecrated on 20 May 1839, was created to provide a more hygienic alternative to ‘intramural’ burial (within church walls) or in overcrowded church- and chapel yards. Today, Highgate is known as one of the so-called ‘magnificent seven’ cemeteries…
The decade between the first successful powered flight – made by the Wright Brothers on 17 December 1903 – and the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 is known as the pioneer era for aviation, as research…
Ruperra Castle (Castell Rhiw’r Perrai; ‘pear-tree hill’) is garlanded with heritage designations, being a Grade II*-listed building and a Scheduled Monument, set within a Grade II Registered Park. Sadly, it is also on the Heritage at Risk Register for Wales,…
Formed in 1975 (and thus celebrating its first half-century this year), the Fortress Study Group (FSG) is devoted to the study and preservation of artillery fortifications. While early examples of these structures are found in Norwich and Southampton, it was…
Almost every TV costume drama begins with the sound of horses’ hooves and the rumble of carriage wheels as members of the cast arrive at some stately home or other, ready for the story to unfold. And no royal or…
The invention in 1900 by Eastman Kodak of the Brownie camera, selling for the equivalent in today’s money of £28, brought the watercolour age to an end. This too had begun, in the mid-18th century, with technical innovations, such as…
For this month’s ‘Odd Socs’, we cross the Atlantic to look at the work of Partners for Sacred Places (PSP), an organisation dedicated to finding creative ways to maintain America’s historic places of worship as civic spaces. These buildings face…
Glassmaking was introduced to Smethwick by Thomas Shutt, who started making crown window-glass on a site alongside the Birmingham Canal in 1814. When he died in 1822, his company was sold to Robert Lucas Chance, the business later changing its…
Fleam Dyke is a linear earthwork some 5km in length, built in phases between the mid-4th and the mid-7th centuries. The path along the top leads to Mutlow Hill, where the Dyke (now 8m/26ft in height) skirts a Bronze Age…
Sadly, trains no longer stop at Adlestrop, the station that is the subject of Edward Thomas’ best-known poem. That was lost to the Beeching axe in 1966, but there are plenty of other places where you can read his poems…
On Saturday 4 May 1471 the ‘Wars of the Roses’ came to a head at Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire. The Yorkist army commanded by Edward IV and his brother, the future Richard III, chased down and defeated the Lancastrian army of Queen…
There were nine sailmakers in West Coker at the start of the 19th century, and the bleaching fields around the Somerset village were white with canvas sheets laid out in the sun. ‘Coker canvas’ became the generic name for the…
Lord Lisvane, former Clerk to the House of Commons and Chairman of the Royal College of Organists, sparked a lively correspondence in The Times earlier this year when he asked whether he was alone in deploring the popularity of ‘All…
The people of Cornwall are so proud of their great engineer, Richard Trevithick, that when the Cornish Engines Preservation Committee and the Cornish Waterwheel Preservation Society decided to merge in 1971, they named the new organisation the Trevithick Society (Kowethas…
As the name suggests, this was originally a guild-like society, founded in 1921 by professional stained-glass artists to promote good practice and maintain high standards of design and workmanship. As regular church visitors will know, not every example of stained…
This month we are revisiting the subject of the very first ‘Odd Socs’ column (CA 211): the Milestone Society. The original idea for ‘Odd Socs’ was to adopt a tongue-in-cheek approach to the heritage sector’s hundreds of voluntary societies, presenting…
Historic Buildings & Places (HBAP) is the working name of the Ancient Monuments Society (AMS), founded in 1924 and thus celebrating its centenary this year. Giles Quarme, Chair of HBAP, explains in the spring edition of Heritage Now, the society’s…
Formerly known as the Historic Houses Association (HHA), Historic Houses has just marked its 50th anniversary, having been formed in 1973. A year after its foundation, a campaigning exhibition at the V&A drew attention to the loss of some 2,000…
The Pole Society is the delightful invention of a group of satirists who have taken to the internet to poke fun at Tripadvisor by championing the merits of a new tourist attraction in Gloucestershire’s Forest of Dean: the ‘Cinderford Rusty…
The British Sauna Society (BSS) qualifies for inclusion in our ‘Odd Socs’ column by virtue of its support for the bid to secure listed status for Britain’s oldest sauna, a wooden hut in Kent that is (in the words of…
This month’s ‘Odd Socs’ column pays tribute to the late Tony Rook, who died on 11 September 2023 at the age of 91. Tony and his wife Merle Rook (who died in 2012) jointly founded the Welwyn Archaeological Society (WAS),…
Thomas Hardy’s second novel – Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) – is a masterpiece of rural comedy with a tragedy at its heart: the usurpation of the centuries-old tradition of church music, represented by the loss of the west-gallery musicians…