How to: get a volunteering placement in heritage Rachel Clark, Volunteering Adviser, National Trust  has written a useful mini guide to getting a volunteering placement which can be found here... Volunteering with Heritage Organisations There are many different organisations across the UK dedicated to preserving our cultural heritage. If you want to...

What is Public History? Public History is about understanding how the past has affected, and is used by, the present. It brings history to life and helps us understand the relationship between the past and the public at present. Public History can involve history in the community, and a Public...

1. Nottingham Trent University MA/PGCert/PGDip Museum and Heritage Management There is a need for multi-skilled, quality staff who combine a broad vision of the field in which they are working with practical expertise in the care and presentation of heritage. Their postgraduate heritage management courses combine the conceptual framework necessary...

Reading List for those interested in research methods in heritage, museums and galleries from Newcastle University... Essential Reading Dicks, Bella, From Mine to Museum: The Evolution of Heritage in the Rhondda in Heritage, place, and community by Dicks, Bella University of Wales Press, 2000  Dicks, Bella, Heritage and Local Memory in...

In the Tudor and early Stuart period most towns and villages had a legal obligation to store arms and armour in case of a national emergency. Here Shona Rutherford-Edge tells the story of the parish armoury in the Suffolk village of Mendlesham, which was kept in the local church and from which many...

It has been assumed for a long time that sub-Roman Britain, the period between the Romans leaving the island in the early fifth century and the settlement of the Anglo-Saxons in the sixth century, was a period of rapid cultural and economic decline. Recent archaeological discoveries at Chedworth Villa in...

Major archaeological projects can be complex affairs, in terms of their funding, governance and the wide range of historical and technological expertise they require. Here National Trust archaeologist Kathy Laws describes the intricacies and successes of a multi-organisational project at an Iron Age site in north Wales. The challenges of the...

The Kingdom of Nabataea was an important independent entity in the Arabian desert from the third century B.C. to the early second century A.D. Written records are very sparse, so historians need to draw their conclusions from surviving buildings, archaeological excavations and a study of coins. Here Tom Dunstan analyses the extent to which...

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...

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...

The city of Lancaster has many important historical landmarks from both the medieval period and the time of the Industrial Revolution. In this article Sunita Abraham and Christopher Donaldson describe the thinking behind a guided historical tour they have devised for the city. This involves engaging with modern technology, placing Lancaster within a...

Joanne Allen reveals a fundamental structural and architectural development in Italian churches in the Renaissance era, demonstrating that careful observation of structures and archives can substantially inform our appreciation of all church buildings.  In the opening to The Decameron (c. 1350), Boccaccio described how the ten young people who would become storytellers...

We pay tribute to one of Britain’s finest poets, at the centenary of his birth, and celebrate his sensitive recognition of the spiritual tradition to be found in parish churches. There have been various tributes this year which have commemorated the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of the celebrated poet, Philip...

Glimpsed from the window of a speeding train, as it hurtles north across the Royal Border Bridge and towards Edinburgh, the modest station at Berwick-upon-Tweed would seem an unlikely spot for one of the most momentous episodes in British history; but step off the train, walk up the stairs, and allow...

“For lust of knowing what should not be known— We make the Golden Journey to Samarkand.” So wrote poet James Elroy Flecker in 1913, who had perhaps an unduly romantic view of what motivated many of Uzbekistan’s earlier visitors. A more realistic explanation was proffered in the thirteenth century by the Persian...

Steve Illingworth highlights the importance of a remote Lancashire ruin which might have changed the course of history. Sawley Abbey in east Lancashire can appear to be an unassuming and insignificant place at first sight. Its main attraction appears to be aesthetic, with the Cistercian abbey being surrounded by fields and hills...

History Abridged: This feature seeks to take a person, event or period and abridge, or focus on, an important event or detail that can get lost in the big picture. See all History Abridged articles We live in a seemingly iconoclastic age. Statues that were once part of the established...

Millie Punshon is a sixth form student in North Wales and was one of this year's finalists in the HA's Great Debate public speaking competition.  It is no unknown fact that the Victorian city-slickers adored the north coast of Wales, and without them towns such as Llandudno, Beaumaris, and Betws-y-Coed may not have...

History Abridged: This feature seeks to take a person, event or period and abridge, or focus on, an important event or detail that can get lost in the big picture. Think Horrible Histories for grownups (without the songs and music). See all History Abridged articles Royal majesty is buttressed by...

Madagascar is one of the world’s more intriguing destinations. If it is famous for anything – apart from sharing a name with a truly terrible film franchise – it is probably for its wildlife, much of which is found nowhere else. But whereas most people have at least an idea of...