Before the village pub, there was the village forge. You couldn't have a working village without one: the smith made the ...

The brightly coloured little beach huts at the seaside have a rather curious Victorian ancestor: the bathing machine. Designed to preserve modesty and dignity, these little huts on wheels rolled into ...

Mary Tudor, favourite sister of King Henry VIII, was feted around Europe for her pale skin and good looks. Henry arranged for Mary’s marriage to the aging and gouty King Louis XII as part of a peace ...

It can be argued that no single event in history has sparked more worldwide fascination than the sinking of the RMS Titanic. The story is ingrained in popular culture: the largest, most luxurious ...

Throughout the Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian eras the Royal Navy boasted the largest and most powerful fleet in the world. From protecting the Empire’s trade routes to projecting Britain’s ...

On Monday 17th October 1814, a terrible disaster claimed the lives of at least 8 people in St Giles, London. A bizarre industrial accident resulted in the release of a beer tsunami onto the streets ...

The Battle of Prestonpans was the first significant conflict in the second Jacobite Rising. The battle took place on September 21st 1745. The Jacobite army loyal to James Francis Edward Stuart and led ...

Over the centuries the county of Yorkshire in the north of England has produced some very famous people. The Brontë sisters, Captain Cook the explorer, William Wilberforce and Chippendale the ...

Offa, his Dyke and his legendary hospitality! Offa was King of the Mercians, a warrior tribe from central England, from 757 – 796, and is best remembered for his Dyke, which he had built to act as a ...

Between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries the wool produced from the English County of Wiltshire was known and prized all over Europe because of its superb quality. Dutch and Flemish merchants ...

Coats of arms, those colourful trappings of medieval chivalry, are still very much part of our modern world and those with an interest in family history very often find them increasingly alluring, if ...

The very idea of a day that would …“remind children that they formed part of the British Empire, and that they might think with others in lands across the sea, what it meant to be sons and daughters ...