English Local History

Surveying the Chetham Society aims, activities, and publications (since 1843):

◈ 𝐅𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐏𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬
Biographies, Autobiographies, and Genealogies; Family Deeds, Papers, and Letters; and Heralds, Visitations, and Wills.

◈ 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐇𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲
Gentry, Jacobites, and Civil War; Charters, Rolls, and Cartularies; and Parishes, Churches, and Chapels.

◈ 𝐋𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐲 𝐇𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲
Administration, Justice, and Taxation; Rolls, Rentals, and Surveys; and Towns, Districts, and Townships.

◈ 𝐒𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐜 𝐇𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲
Economies, Industries, and Societies; Agriculture, Trade, and Transport; and Schools, Pupils, and Education.

"A mineralogical thriller!" says, Peter Stucley, the youngest son of Sir Hugh Stucley and the Great-grandson of George Wentworth Warwick Bampfylde, 4th Baron Poltimore (1882-1965)

What you are about to read is an extraordinary detective story about the gold mines of North Molton, where one hundred and fifty years ago extensive mining operations took place and where hundreds of people were employed.

During my investigation we will meet incredible people whose parents and grand-parents were involved in the mines and who tell extraordinary stories of what happened there. Conspiracies, intrigue, fraud and gold fever - it is all here and more. But what about the gold? Was gold ever found at the mines or were the tales of nuggets and reports of gold discoveries all part of an elaborate scheme designed to entice would-be investors to part with their money on false hopes of rich rewards. And if the stories of gold are true, what about today?

Can we still find gold there now? A four day survey was carried out in 2013 and confirmed that commercial quantities of gold existed in the spoil heaps of the mines, but then...

Upon first reading my book Peter Stucley wrote to me and said: "You have done a really marvellous job! It was a fascinating read. Over the last 30 years or so I have gleaned various snippets of information from the family archives, but this is the first time (that I am aware of) where somebody has pulled everything together in such a detailed and concise manner. It is a mineralogical thriller!" It was that good that he put his name to the book and agreed to write the FOREWORD. What better accolade could their be than that?

ISBN-10: 1503165639

This study about the comedy The Merry Devil of Edmonton and the tragicomedy The Witch of Edmonton was initially suggested by a comparison between their titles. This very simple operation immediately underlines two elements in common: a place, Edmonton, a rural village a few miles north of Elizabethan London, and two figures, a devil and a witch, which belong to two strictly connected thematic fields: demonology and magic. This approach led to foresee the possibility of reconstructing, through the study of these plays, a picture of witchcraft and magic in early modern England, taking into account also the perceptions and experiences of country people, and therefore the manifestation of these beliefs in the everyday life of those who lived far away from the intellectual circle of the Court.
A deeper approach, then, allowed to single out other links between the two plays. First of all, the period, as they doubtless belong to the Elizabethan drama in an extended sense and, perhaps, both of them belong to the Jacobean period, as The Witch of Edmonton was certainly written and performed in 1621, while the less positively dateable Merry Devil of Edmonton might have been written and performed in the very first years of the reign of James I. Secondly, maybe, the author, as among the authorship hypotheses about the comedy,  which was published anonymously, there is the name of Thomas Dekker, who was coauthor and, probably, the chief plotter of the tragicomedy, written in collaboration with John Ford and William Rowley. Furthermore, some themes, as both plays feature, in addition to magic, the portrait of rural life, with rich references to folklore (a subject which was not much treated at that time), and the more typical subjects of the connections between marriage and money and of the individual and social values. Finally, the textual links, as the very text of The Witch of Edmonton clearly mentions The Merry Devil of Edmonton twice.
Starting from these premises, the two plays are analyzed together, by mainly surveying the places that are in the background of the plots, and the characters that move there. These topics can be considered both from a realistic, historical angle, and from a representational, imaginative one. The first point of view is interesting as most of the places and characters mentioned in the plays refer to reality, and to a reality that was probably known to contemporary theatregoers. A consideration of these elements points out a net of relations, now often uncertain and arguable, but suggesting a hidden and subterranean dialogue between stage and audience, fiction and reality. This well-orchestrated exchange is made of implicit references and responses which, though almost unfathomable for us, reveal the playwrights' expertise and awareness of the likings of their audience, who actually judged these plays with enthusiasm. Besides, the realistic connotation of both plays contributes to offer one of the most complete extant descriptions of country life and of the mechanisms and strains within rural communities in early modern England.
The first chapter is the result of a survey of the places mentioned in the texts. The fact that they were real places gave the possibility of visiting their still extant remnants, and some photographic evidence are included in the final part of the appendix. Most importantly, being on the spot made it possible to gather information about the past of this area, also thanks to the local historian, Mr Graham Dalling. A comparison between the data collected and the topographical references contained in the texts revealed the care the authors took to recreate a theatrical setting true to reality, promoting an exchange between countryside (a fictitious place that reflected a model familiar to the audience), and town, naturally represented by London, where the plays were due to be performed.
As far as characters are concerned, the second chapter contains an attempt to reconstruct the biographies of those real individuals who are more or less directly mentioned in the plays. This research proved particularly useful in the case of the eponym of The Witch of Edmonton, the witch Mother Sawyer, as the numerous biographical data maintained in the play emphasized, and made significant, the omissions and modifications.
On the other hand the play-world does not merely refer to but also transcend reality, and it transfigures the real people in many-sided figures. These figures epitomize some elements that, in the Elizabethan age, were generally perceived as peculiar to magicians, devils, and witches. The third chapter deals with this set of themes, by analyzing the characters of the magician-devil Peter Fabell, of the witch Mother Sawyer, and of her devil-dog Tom in the light of witchcraft literature. Between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this peculiar kind of writings gave expression to a lively debate which split the intellectual world into upholders of the witch persecution and advocates of the people accused of witchcraft. From this point of view, the interpretation of the characters' role and ideological implications becomes necessarily composite. Thus, for example, in The Merry Devil of Edmonton, the character of Peter Fabell seems to result from a complex construction where, besides an unquestionable pleasantry, the prerogatives of both the magician and the devil come together.
This male and winning figure contrasts itself to the female and losing one of the witch of Edmonton, whose personal and sociocultural characteristics, as already hinted at, do not always exactly follow the biographical data of the real model. This gap between source and play could apparently be explained as an adaptation of the character to that stereotype of the village witch that the most enlightened writers of the period were repeatedly describing in their works. Therefore, the portrait of Mother Sawyer presents, on the one side, a series of social, physical, and psychological connotations which are typical of the victims of the witch-hunt, and, on the other one, a number of specifically magic attributes, which refer to many of the most widespread beliefs at the time of James I, on both a popular and learned level, both in England and on the continent. The most striking of these beliefs is the typically English one of the alliance, sanctioned by a formal pact, between the witch and her familiar, a demonic spirit in form of an animal, which, in the play, becomes a key character, the dog Tom, whose construction stresses its dual, domestic and devilish, nature.
On the other hand, the occult and supernatural themes concern not only demonology, but also folklore, since some superstitions about spiritual creatures, such as pucks, elves, fairies and ghosts were deeply rooted in popular mind. These creatures were thought to be not necessarily devilish, but however able to interact, even perniciously, with human lives and activities. So, in the fourth chapter, the plays are considered from the viewpoint of the references to these entities - numerous and corresponding to the descriptions contained in contemporary works - and also to those places, such as forests, churchyards and church porches that in the Elizabethan period were believed to be particularly propitious to the contact between the world of human beings and the world of spirits and that are the setting of some significant scenes in The Merry Devil of Edmonton. The influence of the beliefs about spirits on people's imagination, in the comedy, brings about the transformation of these geographically defined localities into strongly evocative and symbolic places, which, together with inns, are also characteristic of another context that has close connections with folklore: the festive one. This context is widely present in both plays, though with differing shades. As for the comedy, it brings to life the anxieties that often arise in the moments of licence and amusement, but it also ends by a very joyful marriage party, which sanctions the triumph of the traditional and convivial values. The tragicomedy sets the same values, but in a more ambivalent light, as an ambiguous demonic participation casts its shadow on the cheerful atmosphere in which a morris dance is organized, and one of the characters, Carter, seems to incarnate a new way to look at the fundamental stages of life, which shrinks from the typically traditional ritualization. In this way, the village setting of the plays becomes the mirror of an anxious age of transition.
The dissertation comes to the conclusion that a reading in parallel of The Merry Devil of Edmonton  and  The Witch of Edmonton appears useful because it both enriches the comprehension of the plays themselves and enable us to reconstruct the Elizabethan society, with its likings and its beliefs, not only in London but also in the countryside. It's just this possibility of reconstruction that attests the masterly skill of the two plays' authors, who successfully depicted the notions of both the educated, ruling class and the common people, by artfully using the cues given by their sources to meet their audience's inclinations and their not always homogeneous convictions.

Medieval and early modern great houses had a three-fold identity as house, garden and farm. The manorial curia was made up of enclosures, buildings and rooms with residential, service, agricultural and horticultural functions. The enclosures can be defined by the nature of their perimeter, and by their situation in relation to the hall, which was central to the complex, and the line of approach to it. The layout of houses developed as fashionable new ones were built and older ones were modernised. The number of indoor and outdoor spaces with a specific function increased; houses become more outward-looking, symmetrical and compact, and extensive gardens were laid out. Subsequently the enclosures and low-status buildings surrounding great houses were swept away, leaving the domestic part standing alone, but often leaving little or no trace of their former existence.

CONTENTS
Obit: Mary Desborough Cra’ster, 1928–2008, John Pickles, Peter Gathercole, and Alison Taylor
A Fen Island in the Neolithic and Bronze Age: Excavations at North Fen, Sutton, Cambridgeshire, Leo Webley and Jonathan Hiller
A fen island burial: excavation of an Early Bronze Age round barrow at North Fen, Sutton, Aileen Connor
The Bartlow Hills in context, Hella Eckardt with Amanda Clarke, Sophie Hay, Stephen Macaulay, Pat Ryan, David Thornley and Jane Timby
Senuna, goddess of the river Rhee or Henney, Stephen Yeates
A Reappraisal of the Evidence for the ‘northern arm’ of the Fleam Dyke at Fen Ditton, Scott Kenney
An excavation at Station Quarry, Steeple Morden, Cambridgeshire, Laura Piper and Andrew Norton
Excavations at Scotland Road/Union Lane, Chesterton, Duncan Mackay
A Curious Object from Firs Farm, Caxton, Aileen Connor
A morphological analysis of Ickleton, Cambridgeshire: An admission of defeat, Christopher Taylor
Funerals, the final consumer choice? Ken Sneath
The ‘Age of the Windmill’ in the Haddenham Level, N James
Upware and Bottisham Sluices, K S G Hinde
Changes in the landscape of west Cambridge, Part V: 1945 to 2000, Philomena Guillebaud
The C.A.S. Collection of Cambridgeshire ‘Sketches’ J.D. Pickles
Fieldwork in Cambridgeshire 2007, Elizabeth Shepherd Popescu and Sarah Poppy
Reviews, Tim Malim and Sue Oosthuizen

The Military Order of the Knights Templar acquired property within English towns, established residences and chapels for its brethren there and developed new urban settlements and markets. This article argues that the role that the Templars played as urban landlords in England has been seriously understated, and that the Order made an impact through their urban property holdings, their privileges and their urban chapels, and in establishing new towns, which were integral to the wider exploitation of their rural resources.

The name of the Jewry Wall, Leicester, has never been satisfactorily explained. This paper reviews the several hypotheses which have been proposed for its origin, and argues, drawing on comparative evidence from elsewhere in England, for an interpretation based on the site's history as a quarry for building materials, and on late medieval and early modern folk attributions of enigmatic antiquities to Jews. An appendix outlines the history of the Jewish community in medieval Leicester.

This dissertation examines the artefact known as the London Stone, a monolithic fragment of limestone which has been part of the history of the Cannon Street area of London for upwards of a thousand years.  Taking an object biographical approach, a thorough examination of the historical and archaeological evidence is conducted, both of the Stone and the area immediately to the south of it, which appears to have formed an important complex of substantial buildings in the Roman City and has been claimed as similar in scale to official buildings in Cologne and Dura Europos.  The interpretations of previous archaeologists that the site was the palace of the Roman Governor or Procurator of the Province of Britannia are critically examined and ultimately rejected and an identification as a prostyle temple is instead brought forward.

The second part of the dissertation builds on this historical and archaeological analysis by forming a series of contentions drawn from the analysis stage, which are then evaluated and explored via a series of theoretical frameworks.  The Stone’s role as a reflector of post-colonialism is proposed and explored through the works of Bhabha and Fanon, and an examination of the agency of the Stone and the exchange of agency is explored through the theories of Alfred Gell.  Finally, the Stone’s role as an anchoring device in the cognitive geography of the City is explored via a discussion of Lynch’s theory of the Image of the City, concepts of a sense of place and ultimately Nora’s Lieux de Mémoire.

This note chronicles the attempt made in 1572 by Thomas Digges to claim 'inned' lands at Lydd, on Romney Marsh, for the Crown; and the legal arguments deployed against him by John Heblethwayte, the town clerk. Heblethwayte's case was that the lands were not newly inned, and that this could be shown by proving the antiquity of Lydd as a settlement. The episode provides a rare early insight into marsh residents' perceptions of the evolution of the local landscape.

This book tells the history of Cambridge from the earliest Roman and Anglo Saxon inhabitants through to the notorious Cambridge Spies, who actively spied for the Soviet Union in the 1950s. Told in an accessible manner, and illustrated throughout, the contents are:
1. Etheldreda: Born a Princess, Died a Saint
2. Vanquished by the Vikings: the sacking of Cambridge
3. Fire, Death and Murder at the Fairs: Stourbridge and Midsummer Fairs
4. Jousting Tournaments: history of jousts at Cambridge
5. The Black Death: death in Cambridge
6. Peasants' Revolt: attacks on Cambridge colleges during the revolt
7. Bloody Mary's Revenge on Cambridge
8. Burnt at the Stake: John Hullier, the Protestant Martyr
9. Bear-Baiting: cruel sport in Cambridge
10. Witches and Witchcraft: women killed for being witches
11. Bull-Baiting: more cruel Cambridge sports
12. The English Civil War: the fortification of Cambridge
13. Oliver Cromwell's Missing Head
14. Pressed for an Answer: Peine Forte et Dure
15. One in the Eye for Sir Isaac Newton
16. Highway Robbery: highway men in Cambridge
17. Branding: punishment for crimes
18. Bloody Burwell Fire: the death of 70 innocent people
19. Dick Turpin: his time hiding in Cambridge
20. Cockfighting: history of cockfighting at Cambridge
21. The Resurrection of Tristram Shandy - death of Laurence Stearne: grave robbers steal his body for dissection in the university
22. Cambridge Gallows: the tragedy of those hung at Cambridge
23. The Tragical Death of the Revd Samuel Reeve
24. The Chimneysweep Burglars: thefts from colleges
25. Elizabeth Woodcock and the Curse of the Three Tuns Inn
26. General Tom Thumb Causes a Riot
27. Sister Act: The Cambridge Arsenic Poisoners
28. The Three Tuns Inn: Den of Thieves
29. Burned Alive
30. Bloody Students: The Battle of Town and Gown
31. Fatal Bumps: death on the river Cam
32. Suffragette's Protest
33. The Great War: the role the university played in WWI
34. The Judases Who Betrayed from Within: the story of the Cambridge spies: Blunt, Burgess, Philby, MacLean, and others
35. The Enigma of the Second World War: the role Cambridge played in cracking the German enigma codes at Bletchley Park

Also attached are reviews of the book in the Cambridge News by Emma Higginbotham and a piece about Oliver Cromwell's Head, taken from the book.

In his provocative 1975 essay ‘Property, Authority and the Criminal Law’ Douglas Hay declared: ‘The private manipulation of the law by the wealthy and the powerful was in truth a ruling-class conspiracy, in the most exact meaning of the word. The king, judges, magistrates and gentry used private, extra-legal dealings among themselves to bend the statute and common law to their purposes.’ A doctoral candidate who studied under the direction of E.P. Thompson, architect of the Marxist-oriented ‘Warwick School’ of English social history, Hay’s inflammatory rhetoric narrowed the perspective of the English legal system down to a sweeping generalisation. He echoed his adviser’s belief that eighteenth-century English law ‘favoured those with power and disadvantaged those without.’ This essay presents the work of subsequent historians who disproved his assumption—most notably John Langbein—and which culminated in Peter King’s assessment that during this transitional period ‘the law held different meanings for different people and its pluralistic nature meant that each individual or social group might have a range of often contradictory experiences of legal institutions’.

Andrew Boorde, writing in the 1540s, advised the builder of a new house to choose a site which was close to supplies of water and wood but also had a good view. He further recommended having a garden and orchard, while a park full of deer and rabbits was ‘a necessary and a pleasant thing to be annexed to a mansion’. Boorde was emphasising the importance of both practical and aesthetic factors in the siting of a great house, and the interplay between these factors also influenced the evolution of houses, their gardens and parks over time. This developmental journey - from medieval manor house in a village to Georgian country house in a landscaped park - forms the subject matter of this important new book.

Drawing on a wide range of source materials - architectural and topographical, written and pictorial - historian Jane Croom explains how new houses were built, existing houses were remodelled and their immediate surroundings were redesigned between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries. The book starts with a thematic overview of great houses and their settings and then examines their development chronologically. Consideration is given to the: layout and appearance of new houses, gardens and parks at different periods; development of houses to become more outward-looking, symmetrical and compact; updating of older houses to be, or appear to be, more modern; changing arrangements and uses of rooms, and the transformation of gardens and parks into appropriate backdrops to houses. Changes to the wider landscape of fields and settlements are also explored, including the consolidation of estates, enclosure of open fields, and creation of parks.

Reference is made to some 100 different case studies and the book is extensively illustrated with over 300 photographs of extant houses and reproductions of paintings, engravings, maps and plans depicting earlier or lost buildings and landscapes. There are also informative appendices, a glossary of terms and a comprehensive bibliography. This work will appeal to anyone with an interest in historic houses or designed landscapes, whether as a scholar, heritage professional, member of the National Trust or English Heritage, or general reader.

The Essex village of Earl’s Colne boasts one of the most comprehensive collections of historicaldocuments in Britain, and has been the subject of an intensive and ongoing research project tocollate and computerize the surviving records. As such, Earls Cone is undoubtedly one of the most studied parishes in England. Yet whilst much is now known about the village and its inhabitants, little work has been done on the social relationships that bound the community together within itsmental and physical landscape. As such, scholars will welcome Dr MacKinnon’s investigation intothe social, political and cultural world of early modern England as represented by Earls Colne.
The book provides a fresh approach to the study of the landscape of a seventeenth century villageby focusing on the relationships between political power and cultural artefacts. It examines howprivate, public and communal spaces within society were generated, gendered and governed, and how this was recorded and perpetuated in the records, names, monuments of the parish and surrounding landscape. Yet whilst the ‘elites’ tried to represent a select social landscape throughtheir control of the local records and documents, these attempts were always counterbalanced bythe less powerful members of the community who occupied and contested these spaces.
By reconstructing the dynamics of Earls Colne through a careful reading and cross-referencing ofthe surviving documents, buildings and place names, this book offers a fascinating insight into howthe sights and sounds of early modern society were imbued with the social relations of parish politics. As well as deepening our understanding of Earls Colne itself, the book offers historians the potential to revisit other local studies from a fresh perspective.

About the Author: Dr Dolly MacKinnon is a Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at The University of Queensland. Her research background spans both history and music, and her publications focus on analysing the mental, physical and auditory landscapes of past cultures.

To order this book visit www.ashgate.com or email orders@ashgate.com

REVIEWS:

The American Historical Review 120 (3), (2015): 1109-1110. 
http://ahr.oxfordjournals.org/content/120/3/1109.extract

The Local Historian (UK), vol 44 no.3 (2014), BALH
www.balh.org.uk/.../the-local-historian-volume-44-number-3-july-2014

Reviews in History  2014 (Institute of Historical Research, University of London). http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1659

"1.Second Interim Report, 1997 Andrea Cox, Jonathan Fox, Gabor Thomas.................

7. Democratic Archaeology at Sedgeford Neil Faulkner..................

11.The Smugglers of Sedgeford Linda Nudds of the Local History Group..................

17. By Shank's Pony, Bike & Train - They Got There Somehow Oral accounts of Sedgeford transport in the first half of the twentieth century Sue Crump & Diana Lewton Brain of the Oral History Group..................
.
22. Round-Up 1997-1998 Neil Faulkner.................

26. Last season's achievements, ideas for the year ahead Calendar of Events For 1998 Janet Hammond."".................

This paper is an edited version of a public lecture delivered 11 March 2017, at a symposium on Dartmoor. It explores writing about the large English county of Devonshire in the 'long nineteenth century: costly early-19th century illustrated county guides for gentlemen's libraries, cheaper mid-century guidebooks produced by John Murray and other publishers for a middle-class readership on tour, and William White's White's extensive mid-century guidebook which reflected the proliferation of statistical information. It briefly considers the Devon presented through poetry and fiction, before summarizing the 'general knowledge' (geological, meteorological, economic and demographic) on a county which became commonplace through print media.

The speculative development of the village of Leamington Priors into the town of Royal Leamington Spa took place during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in conscious imitation of spa towns such as Bath and Cheltenham. Leamington Priors had been renowned since medieval times for the waters of its Old Well situated outside the parish church of All Saints. Following the discovery of a second spring in 1784 local landowners scrambled to find water on their own property south of the river Leam in what is now Old Town and to exploit the nascent spa financially. The sale of a sixty-five acre farm north of the river for building in 1808 by Bertie Greatheed of Guy’s Cliffe, Warwick (1759-1826), led to the development of the New Town. A grid-pattern of streets, of which the Parade is the main thoroughfare, was established by Greatheed between the Leam and Clarendon Avenue. The surrounding land, owned by the Willes family of Newbold Comyn, was developed after 1820. By the mid-1820s the development of Willes’s land was spreading westwards towards the Bins Brook which marked the parish boundary between Leamington and Milverton. This presented an opportunity for landholders in Milverton to profit from the town’s growth. One of the main landowners here was Greatheed whose holdings included a field called Long Close which was bounded by Rugby Road, Guy's Cliffe Road, Warwick Place and the Bins Brook and covered the sites of Albany Terrace, Beauchamp Hill, Heath Terrace, Milverton Crescent West, Strathearn Road and Union Road. Greatheed sold this land in 1824 and 1825 to two speculators who were relative newcomers to the area: George Goodin Barrett, who purchased the eastern half, and Joseph Bradley, who acquired the western.

George Goodin Barrett (1792-1854) was a member of a prominent family of Jamaican sugar planters and slave owners and was a first cousin of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s father, Edward Barrett Moulton (later Barrett). He built Comber House, Milverton Crescent & Strathearn House.

Joseph Bradley (c.1760-1830) was a civil engineer. He possibly lived in Leominster and Bloxwich near Walsall earlier in life, but later resided at Rushwick near Worcester, where he was manager of the Gas Works. By 1824 he was living in Warwickand managing the Gas Works at Saltisford. He developed ‘Bertie Circus’.

Ely, Cambridgeshire, is known to tourists as an incredible city steeped in myth and legend and dominated by the Norman Cathedral, a masterpiece of medieval architecture. There have been many popular books written about the Isle, but in 'Ely: A Hidden History' the approach is to look at the longue duree of life on the isle focusing on continuity and change in cultural practices.  The work combines the latest archaeological discoveries to tell the story of the settlement of the Isle from its earliest beginnings through to the seventeenth century. With vivid illustrations, the authors trace the origins of life in Ely, and bring the most recent archaeological excavations alive.

Topics covered include: the geological origins of the Isle of Ely, the first prehistoric settlement, including important archaeological sites at Haddenham, Wilburton and Barway. The foundation of the monastic centre by St Etheldreda, and the archaeological evidence for the Anglo Saxon foundations of the city, together with current thoughts on the site of St Etheldreda's first settlement. The story of Hereward the Wake, and his resistance against the Norman invaders. The Norman foundation of the cathedral and castle.

Key features of the book are discussion and synthesis of the latest research on the nationally important later Bronze Age hoard from Wilburton, and the Iron Age bog body from Soham, which highlight the importance of the Isle of Ely to British archaeology. The findings from Channel 4’s Time Team excavation of the medieval Broad Street are included, with illustrations, as are the stories of Hereward the Wake. Richly illustrated and extensively researched, this is a fascinating look at the early history of an amazing city.

In this paper I propose a tripartite model for understanding the organization of local history studies in England. The aim is to review the current state of local history studies, using Cambridgeshire as a case study to illustrate local history studies in action. The advantage of the tripartite model is that it enables a more nuanced study of the different elements that constitute local history studies, such as the local archaeology, allowing for study of the interaction between different elements and evaluation of each.

Southern History is a peer reviewed academic year book published by the Southern History Society covering the historic counties of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Gloucester, Wiltshire, Dorset, Hampshire, Oxford, Buckingham, Berkshire, Surrey, Sussex and Kent. It contains articles and reviews. Prospective authors are requested to email the editor (aspicer@brookes.ac.uk) for copies of Notes for Contributors. Outlines of proposed submissions are welcome and articles should be submitted in electronic form.

The Military Order of the Knights Templar acquired property within English towns, established residences and chapels for its brethren there and developed new urban settlements and markets. This article argues that the role that the Templars played as urban landlords in England has been seriously understated, and that the Order made an impact through their urban property holdings, their privileges and their urban chapels, and in establishing new towns, which were integral to the wider exploitation of their rural resources.

Southern History is a peer reviewed academic year book published by the Southern History Society covering the historic counties of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Gloucester, Wiltshire, Dorset, Hampshire, Oxford, Buckingham, Berkshire, Surrey, Sussex and Kent. It contains articles and reviews.
Some of the articles in this issue were initially delivered as papers at the Southern History Society's 'Anglicanism and Dissent in Southern England, c. 1662-1829' conference on 13 April 2013. As several other contributions were received relating to similar themes, it was decided to restrict this volume to articles on urban politics and religion in the late seventeenth- and early eighteenth centuries.

Prospective authors are requested to email the editor (aspicer@brookes.ac.uk) for copies of Notes for Contributors. Outlines of proposed submissions are welcome and articles should be submitted in electronic form.

"The Third Interim Report Edward Biddulph.................

Sedgeford Church - rediscoveries by resistivity Janet Hammond .................

Roodstairs and Doorways - Some Food for Thought Shelia Medlar.................

The Reformation as seen through the willsof the villagers of Sedgeford Linda Nudds Local History Group.................

Church and Chapel a village account of twentieth century activities Sue Crump & Diana Lewton Brain of the Oral History Group.................

Results and Prospects for 1999 Last season's achievements, ideas for the year ahead. Neil Faulkner Project Director .................

'and finally' A tale of endurance in the face of adversity. Janet Hammond.................

Calender of events for 1999".................

Law-related English local maps, especially those dating from the early-to mid-sixteenth century, remain in need of both extensive and close study. In this article, a hand-drawn sketch map in the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC, is re-contextualized in relation to documents connected with lawsuits in The National Archives in England. These lawsuit documents, concerning disputes brought before the court of the Star Chamber in the mid-sixteenth century, allow us to correct the accepted date of the map's creation, suggest its likely creator and identify its probable use at a time of expanding cartographic consciousness among the educated classes. The importance of the manuscript map to one English family's subsequent assertions of proprietary rights in a small stream running from Bradbourne to Ashbourne, Derbyshire, explains its provenance outside official court records.

The study shows how communal baking practices were used to establish a sense of community, and to establish and maintain feelings of mutual solidarity during the first half of the nineteenth century in the mill towns of northern England, taking the case of the Maudlands in Preston, Lancashire as an example. Two excavations of communal bakehouses set within terraced dwelling houses are presented, believed to be the first reported examples of this form of architecture. Combined with documentary evidence the study shows how food, and in particular baked bread, was deployed to ease the passage from rural to industrial life.
KEYWORDS
INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY, FOOD, BREAD, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, COTTON MILLS, BAKEHOUSE, OVEN, SOCIAL HISTORY

Southern History is a peer reviewed academic year book published by the Southern History Society covering the historic counties of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Gloucester, Wiltshire, Dorset, Hampshire, Oxford, Buckingham, Berkshire, Surrey, Sussex and Kent. It contains articles and reviews.
Some of the articles in this issue were initially delivered as papers at the Southern History Society's 'Anglicanism and Dissent in Southern England, c. 1662-1829' conference on 13 April 2013. As several other contributions were received relating to similar themes, it was decided to restrict this volume to articles on urban politics and religion in the late seventeenth- and early eighteenth centuries.

Prospective authors are requested to email the editor (aspicer@brookes.ac.uk) for copies of Notes for Contributors. Outlines of proposed submissions are welcome and articles should be submitted in electronic form.

Many brass bands have flourished in Britain and overseas over the last 200 years, but very few have documented records covering their history. For those wishing to delve into the history of brass bands there are various sources available, both primary and secondary. These are also published histories and individual bands’ memorabilia and records. In addition to British resources, I also include some relevant details about key resources in the USA and major commonwealth countries where brass bands were/are common.

This text is the substance of a paper given at the conference in memory of Prof. Margaret Spufford 'After Margaret Spufford:
English Local History Now' at University of Roehampton, 19th-20th June 2015. It aims to explore the hidden world of conformist religious practice in the Elizabethan church by focusing on the Essex parish of Earls Colne. While the rise of 'Puritanism' has been researched in Earls Colne by a number of historians (most notably Alan Macfarlane's study of the Puritan clerical diarist, Ralph Josselin), it is possible to read conventional evidence 'against the grain' to get a sense of how Josselin's conformist predecessor, William Adams, operated - despite the ways in which Adams and his contemporaries were criticized as inadequate by 'Puritan' opponents. I intend to publish this either as part of the conference proceedings or as a journal article in due course.

Between 1642 and 1660, the Church of England was directed and administered by centrally-appointed government committees, who oversaw the appointment of clerics, arranged generous salaries for many ministers, and undertook ambitious policies that would have revolutionised the medieval parochial structure of the Church. Yet these committees have rarely been discussed, largely because historians remain sceptical about the nature of the Church in this period, and have too often been distracted by doctrinal matters. This essay will analyse the key activity of these committees within Lancashire, the augmentation of clerical wages, and demonstrate that there was a functioning, national, established Church in existence during this period, and that, for some of the clergy at least, this was a golden age of doctrinal tolerance and financial remuneration.