And today we launch our latest VCH #PartnershipPublication, in association with @hobnobpress.bsky.social, ‘Chippenham, Our History’ which brings some of the research underpinning our forthcoming #BigRedBook to - we hope - a wider audience. 🗃️
#ComingSoon, our latest #PartnershipPublication with @hobnobpress.bsky.social.
We’re launching this in two weeks time on 12 March, and Chippenham, Our History will for a prelude to the #BigRedBook out later this year.
#Skystorians
Our VCH Herefordshire project - having produced a series of excellent paperback histories over the last 15 years - are working towards the first #BigRedBook for the county in over a century.
Learn more about the project, focussed on #Ledbury, and research, by following @lrylandepton.bsky.social. 🗃️
Happy New Year (again) from @vch-home.bsky.social!
The latest #BigRedBook (number 250), details the town of Towcester, defined by its Roman origins and place on Watling Street/Telford's coach road and later being bypassed by the M1.
Huge thanks to all involved.
Read more about the work that went into our 250th #BigRedBook, and our first ever publication for #Westmorland, 'Lonsdale Ward', by its editor, Dr Sarah Rose, courtesy of @balhnews.bsky.social.
Great news from our friends @boydellandbrewer.bsky.social this morning.
Our next #BigRedBook (no. 251), Northants vol. VIII, Towcester Hundred, has just gone to press, for publication early in 2026.
A brief teaser in the link.
#Skystorians
#ICYMI - we are celebrating the publication of our 250th #BigRedBook, and our first publication for the historic county of #Westmorland.
In September we had an event to mark this and to place the volume in the context of the series and to showcase the extraordinary work behind it. #Skystorians
We suspect that an author has put this detail in on purpose. It's worked.
Just one of the details - along with huge scale medieval landscape management, the town of Pocklington, and the edge of the East Riding Wolds - will feature in the next #BigRedBook for Yorkshire, out next year. #Skystorians
#HistoryJob - just a reminder that our colleagues in VCH Herefordshire are looking for *two* contributing editors to bring their first #BigRedBook for over 100 years to fruition.
Details in the link, applications close on 10 October.
Our Co-General Editor, @adamchapman.bsky.social, joined us in 2013.
Since then, we have published just over 40 books and Adam has edited or co-edited 37 of them.
The most recent is our 250th #BigRedBook, Westmorland volume 1.
Join us on Wednesday to learn more.
Main focus for #VCHEssex is currently finishing off our #BigRedBook on Harwich, but I know we are starting to think about possible future projects (and funding for them), so will pass on the idea of Silver End (and possible Crittall support).
Why the @somersetccc.bsky.social museum?
As we'll show in a forthcoming #BigRedBook, the county cricket ground in #Taunton occupies the last surviving structure from the town's medieval priory complex.
The latest #BigRedBook exists and advance copies are arriving.
Note that (not a unique departure for VCH, but a policy change), this book contains *contours*!
Learn more from our friends @boydellandbrewer.bsky.social!
2025 is a big year for us with a first and a big milestone.
The first: Westmorland I, Lonsdale Ward is our first ever #BigRedBook on that county, and is out *soon* from @boydellandbrewer.bsky.social.
The milestone: Westmorland I is our 250th #BigRedBook
Learn more and join our celebrations! 🗃️
This is very exciting! This book is based on work towards out #BigRedBook on #Chippenham and its neighbours which, in between summer holidays, we are working towards for submission to @boydellandbrewer.bsky.social (for publication late next year).
This great little book builds on work from @wiltshistory.bsky.social towards their next @vchlondon.bsky.social #BigRedBook on #Chippenham and its envirions.
It followstwo others, an award-winning community-led history of #Bremhill, and a similar book on Kington St Michael & Kington Langley.
Coming soon? Some treats from #Westmorland (our first for that county and the 250th #BigRedBook), #Durham, #Leicestershire, more from #Hampshire and much, much more. #WatchThisSpace. 🗃️
For more about our new book on #Cradley, Herefordshire, see our friends @uolpress.bsky.social. #LocalHistory #Skystorians
This book will inform work towards the first #BigRedBook on #Herefordshire since 1908 which will focus on #Ledbury. [Cont.]
Just as well she's not on here or she'd be embarrassed, but this book, the first ever @vchlondon.bsky.social volume on the historic county of #Westmorland wouldn't exist without her.
It's our 250th #BigRedBook and it's special - out with @boydellandbrewer.bsky.social in August. Thanks to Sarah.
Heaven knows, even under #Modi's attempts at #SectarianNationalism, it's better and more stable to do business with members of the world‘s largest #Democracy, rather than the world‘s largest #totalitarian #dictatorship.
Fuck #Xi and his "party" with a rolled up paperback copy of the #BigRedBook!
@vchlondon.bsky.social is currently working on more than half of England's counties, more than at any point since the First World War.
In 2025 we celebrate the publication of our 250th #BigRedBook which represents histories of c.1/3 of England's places. 🗃️
Nothing very unusual about that in Essex - we've covered the histories of #Clacton, #Frinton, #Walton and more in our #BigRedBook series. Our friends @boydellandbrewer.bsky.social can supply those - but in #Southend, rapid expansion had lots of tensions... [cont.]
For the first preview from our 250th #BigRedBook, Westmorland volume 1, see below - for more details, see our friends @boydellandbrewer.bsky.social and follow us for more. 🗃️
boydellandbrewer.com/978190435658...
Excerpt from a text: Livelihoods were threatened by foot and mouth disease in 1839. In response, farmers resorted to a need fire, a ceremony by which it was believed the magic of the fire would provide a cure. The brand was taken from farm to farm, spreading as far as Skirwith in Cumberland. This was the last known occasion this superstition was acted upon. The importance of dairy farming is also illustrated by the residency of the butter merchant, James Wilkinson, in 1829.
Killington Hall, Westmorland - a crenulated stone building of two storeys with a gable end and chimneys visible. The setting is a stone-walled lane with grass and trees rising above it.
The old Scotch road, Killington. A straight, undulating minor road bounded by stone walls heading towards plantation conifers on the hills rising at the back of the shot. This was the medieval route from Lancaster to Scotland via Carlisle. Despite its apparent straightness, the Roman road was elsewhere (and still visible in the landscape).
This latest excerpt from our next #BigRedBook, Westmorland, volume 1, is for #FolkloreFriday shows the range of our histories.
At #Killington in the Lune valley, and into Cumberland, 15 miles away, foot and mouth disease in 1839 was met with a 'need fire'. What's that? Read on!
#VCHRedBook250
![Text reads: 'By the 18th century, demand for service may have resulted in Black people being brought from slave plantations overseas. In 1753, the parish register [of Kirkby Lonsdale] recorded the baptism of Samuel, the son of a female slave, called Pwers. She had come from Caroline in North America. Unfortunately, it is not known where Samuel or his mother were based in the parish. Before buying Underley, London alderman William Thompson (1792-1854) presented a petition for the abolition of slavery, on 29 March 1831. Some residents of the town were more closely connected with slavery in the Caribbean. Richard Atkinson, a man of 'independent means'...](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:f553b2p43hru6mfxvcfitebh/bafkreie3jxazugdo7bpgnakg2m33gbk47ta4iukj2wzccvdzpsk44plb7u)
Text reads: 'By the 18th century, demand for service may have resulted in Black people being brought from slave plantations overseas. In 1753, the parish register [of Kirkby Lonsdale] recorded the baptism of Samuel, the son of a female slave, called Pwers. She had come from Caroline in North America. Unfortunately, it is not known where Samuel or his mother were based in the parish. Before buying Underley, London alderman William Thompson (1792-1854) presented a petition for the abolition of slavery, on 29 March 1831. Some residents of the town were more closely connected with slavery in the Caribbean. Richard Atkinson, a man of 'independent means'...
Over the next few months we'll be previewing highlights from our first volume for the historic county of #Westmorland - which happens to be a milestone for the project as a whole: our 250th #BigRedBook.
Here's the first, showing the impact of the slave trade in rural NW England. 🗃️
#VCHRedBook250
This work has come about in support of the research and publication of a milestone book for us: our first for Westmorland and our 250th #BigRedBook which will be published by @boydellandbrewer.bsky.social in the autumn.
More about that here: boydellandbrewer.com/978190435658...
#VCHRedBooks250
Crop from the title page: The Victoria History of the Counties of England, A History of Westmorland Volume I.
Map showing the area covered by the volume. The small towns of Burton-in-Kendal and Kirkby Lonsdale to the south, with Lancashire beyond. To the east is the West Riding of Yorkshire and to the west, Kendal Ward of Westmorland. The area covered is the Lune valley and - on a map, at least - forms a flat bottomed triangle. In case any geographers are watching, we'd love to know how t write Alt-Txt for maps...
Illustration from the proofs: three sheep atop a rocky outcrop. The outcrop is known as 'Fox's Pulpit' after the Quaker, George Fox, who preached at this spot, 300 metres up, for 3 hours, in 1652. The Anglicans had a chapel up there before that. No, we really don't know why: the medieval chapel was in a much more hospitable spot at the bottom of the valley.
Huge excitement in the office today at the arrival of the page proofs from @boydellandbrewer.bsky.social for a very special publication.
Lonsdale Ward will be the first ever volume we have produced for the historic county of Westmorland, and will also be our 250th #BigRedBook. 🗃️
@vchlondon.bsky.social Looks like someone's having one of yours away! I hope he's not using a Big Red Book to keep the rain off!
#BigRedBook
Crop from the front cover of a book. The book is red with an off white label. On the label, in black, is a shield with three lions and the following text: The Victoria History of the Counties of England A History of the County of Westmorland Volume I Lonsdale Ward
Artwork for a very special #BigRedBook, our 250th and the first ever publication for the historic county of #Westmorland, to be published in 2025.
A history of the Lonsdale Ward, the books records the Lune valley and the town of Kirkby Lonsdale, from the earliest times to the present. 🗃️
