Local & Community

In the UK millions of people volunteer to support activities in their local area and communities. The preservation of historical places, artefacts and sites is a valuable part of that community volunteering, while the research and promotion of local history to the communities that it can affect is an important way of connecting people to history and to each other. In this section articles and information will be included on local history activities such as ‘Local History Month’, the activities and concerns of local history societies, and community action and engagement projects around particular aspects of history.

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  • Homes fit for heroes? James Cecil and the public interest

    Article

    Hugh Gault reminds us that the provision of adequate and price-accessible housing stock has been a matter of public debate and concern for over a hundred years. Economics and financial priorities have continued to undermine the methodologies and good intentions needed to solve the problem. This year is the hundredth...

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  • Local Community and History Month 2024: Students’ local history stories

    Multipage Article

    One of the strengths of the HA is our broad interest in all areas of history. So many history themes and narratives focus on the big issues, but for many of us, history starts in the local. That is why we introduced Local History and Community Month for each May...

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  • Local History Online

    Article

    Local History Online is a useful resource to find out about local history societies in your area. It has an extensive directory of local societies which has direct links to over 650 society websites and contact details for an additional 560 societies, as well as links to local speakers and...

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  • Look Back - But Not in Anger? A Manchester Boyhood

    Article

    The following is an extract from A Manchester Boyhood, the recently-published autobiography of Professor Donald Read, a past-president of the Historical Association. His book seeks to set his personal experience during the nineteen-thirties and forties within the troubled history of the time. His opinions, some of which may be found...

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  • Memories of Croydon Airport - Film (Bursary Project)

    Multipage Article

    The Historical Association was left a legacy by Joan Lewin which became the Joan Lewin Education Bursary Fund. Each year, applicants apply for grants for education projects surrounding aspects of teaching and learning, resources, or education research. A Film by students of John Fisher School, Croydon, looking at the history of Croydon's...

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  • My Favourite History Place - Barnard Castle

    Article

    Paula Kitching invites us to look at Barnard Castle with new eyes. Over the summer there was a lot of talk about Barnard Castle – I won’t go into the politics, but it did make me reflect on the actual town of Barnard Castle. Growing up, it was one of...

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  • My Favourite History Place: A Short History of Brill

    Article

    In this article Josephine Glover discusses the long history of her ‘favourite history place’, the Buckinghamshire village of Brill. She explains how there has been a human settlement there since Mesolithic times. Using various fragments of evidence, she pieces together the extent to which the village was important to early...

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  • My Favourite History Place: Edinburgh's Royal Mile

    Article

    Maggie Wilson whets our appetite for exploration of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. Edinburgh’s Royal Mile runs between the Castle and Holyrood Palace. In addition to these and other well-known sites such as St Giles Cathedral, John Knox’s house, the Canongate Tolbooth and Canongate Kirk, and stories of Deacon Brodie, David Hume, James Boswell, Robert Burns and, obviously,...

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  • My Favourite History Place: Lord Street, Southport

    Article

    Trevor James introduces an international dimension to local history, revealing how a future French Emperor interpreted his affection for Southport’s Lord Street into the extensive redesign of Parisian streets.

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  • My Favourite History Place: The Beguinage at Bruges

    Article

    Richard Stone introduces us to a quiet neighbourhood in Bruges which has played its part in the development of women’s independence.  Close to the Minnewaterpark, on the fringe of the bustling historic centre of Bruges, with its medieval buildings and atmospheric cobbled streets, the Beguinage is a tranquil haven. Cross the...

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  • My Favourite History Place: The Guild Chapel

    Article

    Trevor James highlights a very important building to visit and celebrate during the HA's Annual Conference in Stratford-upon-Avon in May 2018.

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  • Newspaper Collection

    Article

    Richard Heaton's collection of newspapers consists of over 800 free searchable extracts and full transcripts of English and Irish, Georgian and early Victorian Regional newspapers. It is one the largest free collections on the web full of unique material bringing you one step closer to your ancestors and their world,...

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  • Norfolk and Suffolk Churches: The Domesday Record

    Article

    Norfolk and Suffolk Churches: The Domesday Record, David Butcher, Poppyland Publishing, 2019, 369p, £14-95. ISBN 9781909796614. This is a very specialist book with a seemingly rather local potential audience. However, those who, in the distant past, were much influenced by H. C. Darby’s examination of various aspects of Domesday Geography...

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  • Out and About in Derry/Londonderry

    Article

    Jenni Hyde was out and about in Derry in 2016 and describes how the sights of the city tell the story of a history which is so much more than just the legacy of the Troubles.

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  • Out and About in Hull’s Old Town

    Article

    Sylvia Usher explores a hidden gem in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Wenceslaus Hollar’s map of seventeenth century Hull can be a street guide for the Old Town even today. Modern Hull sprawls along the Humber estuary with residential areas fanning out for three miles or more. Hull as it was...

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  • Out and About in Oxford

    Article

    The Sheffield Branch of the Historical Association is a very active one. In addition to our monthly meetings we organise a range of study visits, from one-day trips to longer residential tours in the UK and occasionally in mainland Europe. In recent years, these have included visits to Portsmouth, Lincoln and Newark, Newcastle and Northumberland, and the battlefields of Waterloo....

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  • Out and About in South London

    Article

    In an unusual Out and About feature, the Young Historian Local History Senior Prize winner Flora Wilton Tregear shows us what her local area can tell us about the history of public health. Taking the DLR out from Lewisham you pass through Deptford Bridge station towards Greenwich. Here my father...

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  • Out and About in Upper Weardale

    Article

    Tony Fox introduces us to two battlefields and the work of the Battlefields Trust. Stanhope takes its name from the ‘stony valley’ in which it sits. It is the most significant town in beautiful Upper Weardale. Like many towns in this area Stanhope’s growth accelerated in the nineteenth century as...

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  • Out and About in ‘The most Loyal and Ancient City of Taunton’

    Article

    The Somerset town of Taunton featured prominently in the highly significant political and religious conflicts of the seventeenth century. Isabella Peach examines Taunton’s role in these events and the impact they had on the town. Her article is based on her winning entry in the 2023 Young Historian Post-16 Local...

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  • Out and About: Kennington and the Elephant and Castle

    Article

    The HA's very own Martin Hoare takes us on a tour of Kennington and Elephant and Castle, to some lesser-known gems that ought to be higher on the London tourist trail. Over the years of working for the HA I’ve quite often used my lunch break to take walks around the areas...

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