Where is Laxton? The village is in north Nottinghamshire, formerly called Lexington (Lexitune). The village is based around the Church of St Michael and, of course, its hostelry, the Dovecote Inn. Most of the farms are properties which are long and thin and they have "closes" which stretch back from...

The ruins of Swansea Castle stand at the edge of Swansea's shopping centre and are generally ignored by shoppers and passers-by who just ... well ... pass by. But this was to change to some extent in 2012, and the HA's Swansea Branch adopted a very close relationship with the...

Paula Kitching demonstrates how to interpret and understand the memorial features of the Somme landscape. One hundred and five years ago, a piece entitled ‘Out and about on the Somme’ would have been a travel piece for would-be tourists to the French countryside. The rolling hills and valleys provide a...

What do the bronze statues of Isambard Kingdom Brunel reveal of the man? In ‘Brushstrokes', his essay on biography, Ben Pimlott wrote: ‘A good biography is like a good portrait: it captures the essence of the sitter by being much more than a likeness. A good portrait is about history,...

Alfred in Wantage - Dave Martin takes to his bike to explore statues of Alfred the Great. Alfred the Great, the name speaks for itself, was a hero to the Victorians so it is no surprise to find that there are three statues commemorating him. The earliest one was erected...

Nicolas Kinloch guides us round the fascinating city of Cairo. Cairo has always been a traveller’s destination. That indefatigable explorer, ibn Battuta, arrived there in 1326, and declared that it was ‘boundless in its multitude of buildings, peerless in beauty and splendour...extending a friendly welcome to strangers’. Most of this is...

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.

The 150th anniversary of Halifax Town Hall in 2013 provides an opportunity to explore the rich heritage of this Pennine town as did its first British royal visitor in 1863. It was unusual for the national press to descend on Halifax, as they did on 3 and 4 August 1863,...

Kimberley Braxton takes a tour of Brontë country, through Haworth and onto the iconic Yorkshire Moors that were central to Wuthering Heights. Haworth is a place for walkers; even before you reach the breathtaking moors it is likely your legs will already be burning from climbing the steep Yorkshire terrain....

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...

In a previous edition of The Historian (110, Summer 2011) we highlighted the midnineteenth century achievement of the industrialist John Dodgson Carr in creating the holiday resort of Silloth as a place of resort and recreation for his workers, and the wider workforce in Carlisle. So the seeds of trying...

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...

David Pearse takes us to the historic heart of France’s fourth-largest city. Looking at the street plan Bordering the River Garonne, medieval  Toulouse extends as far as the Basilica of St Sernin but is concentrated in an area bounded approximately by the Jacobins’ Church to the north, St Etienne Cathedral...

John Painter explores a strategically-important French boundary town, over which neighbouring powers have competed for over 1,200 years. Montreuil in Picardy is one of the most interesting small towns in northern France and a good base for visiting the battlefields of Crécy and Agincourt as well as the Somme Western...

It is at Newark that the River Trent turns northwards. Running parallel to the river are the Great North Road (now the A1) and the East Coast Mainline railway. The easily missed village of Norwell lies seven miles north of Newark and one and a half miles west of the...

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....

Trevor James introduces the extraordinary archaeological remains from Greek and Roman occupation to be found at Paestum. Paestum is the more recent name of a location originally known as Poseidonia, named in honour of Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea. Poseidonia was a Greek settlement or colony on the west...

The Runnymede area is rich in historical associations. Nigel Saul looks at other places of interest near where King John gave his assent to the Charter in 1215. The birthplace of our democratic heritage is a broad meadow on the banks of the lower Thames near the meeting-point between Surrey...

Shaftesbury in North Dorset is one of the highest towns in England, standing as it does at 750 feet above sea level. As with many high points in the area, the first settlement was established around 8000 years ago in the middle of the Stone Age. The town went on...

When Désirée Clary – wife of French Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte – arrived in Stockholm in 1811, she was appalled. It was true that she would eventually become Queen Desideria of Sweden and Norway, her husband having been elected heir-presumptive to the throne the previous year. But she left her new capital...