I am delighted to tell you that my second local history book, Sudbury, Long Melford and Lavenham Through Time, has now been published by Amberley Books and is available in “all good bookshops”.

Suffolk is an incredibly beautiful county with a very rich heritage, so I was absolutely delighted when Amberley agreed that three towns/villages within the county would make an excellent addition to their phenomenally successfully Through Time local history book series. Thus my book Sudbury, Long Melford and Lavenham Through Time was born. This is my second Through Time book for Amberley – my first Bishop’s Stortford Through Time was published in 2014.

In common with all books in the Through Time series, each page of my book contains:-

• A “then” picture. An historic photograph of a building or street dating from between the early 1900s and the 1920s, for example a vintage postcard or old photograph.

• A “now” photograph. This had to be an (almost) exact replica of the vintage view. So I had to locate and stand in the same location as the early 20th Century photographers, and capture a replica modern-day view. This in itself caused quite a few challenges; the main one being that Edwardian photographers did not have to contend with lorries and cars hurtling through the streets, but I did! As a consequence, many of my photographs had to be shot early in the morning; more often than not, on a Sunday. But even photographing early Sunday morning didn’t stop cars taking a prominent role in some of my images.

• A short caption and narrative about the view, detailing the view/building and setting it in its historic context.

Writing such a book is a great delight for me, and encompasses some of my life-long hobbies; local history and postcard collecting. I have answered some questions below about my book and hope this q&a session inspires my readers to consider writing their own local history book.

 

What was your catalyst that inspired you to write your book?
I have collected postcards ever since I was a small child – inspired by my father’s own love of collecting postcards. I suppose I was somewhat quirky as a teenager; at an age when most of my contemporaries were involved in normal teenage activities, I was haunting postcard fairs buying postcards of fluffy cats and images from children’s story books (I have a fabulous collection of Louis Wain and nursery-rhyme postcards dating from my teenage years.) But as I grew older, I became more and more interested in history and genealogy. As a consequence, as an adult, my postcard collecting tastes turned to postcards with views of the towns and villages I’d lived in. So three years ago, when I started to blog East Anglian local history on this website, it was a very natural progression to start to blog articles about my very eclectic collection of vintage postcards. I never dreamed that I could turn my childhood hobby into a book, until a Commissioning Editor from Amberley Publishing stumbled across my blog and contacted me. Amberley’s Through Time series of books was right up my street, and after a very short negotiation period, we settled on me writing several Through Time books, including my new book on Sudbury, Long Melford and Lavenham.

Why Sudbury, Long Melford and Lavenham? Well, these are three towns and villages that I know very well. Although I live in north Essex, my son goes to school in a tiny village a few miles from Lavenham. My driving route from Essex to this village regularly takes me through Sudbury, Long Melford and Lavenham. I had already fallen totally in love with each place and, even before Amberley had commissioned me to write my book, had spent extensive periods walking and cogitating each place’s history.

How did you decide what images to include / exclude?
Amberley have a very strict criteria that there can be no more and no less than 96 pages to each of their Through Time books. As I was covering three towns/villages, this gave me roughly 30 pages per place; plus room for the normal pages of any book (such as title and copyright pages, introduction, contents page and bibliography). These restrictions, in themselves, gave a certain amount of guidance as to what images I could and could not include. I had to be very strict with myself and with a limited number of pages per place could only include images which would add to the overall story of each town/village. I became very ruthless with my own cutting of images/pages. For example, by the time Amberley’s editors had produced their publisher’s typeset near-final draft, my book had spilled over their limit, so they cut a random page from my manuscript. I objected to the page they had cut and insisted another one was removed and their deleted page reinstated. It took me two seconds to choose what page I wanted deleting. The page the editor had cut was far too important to not be included; so another page/image just had to go. I won’t tell you what was nearly deleted and what was removed in its place! But suffice to say I am more than happy that I took the action that I did. My deleted page still remains in my “those that got away” folder on my computer; perhaps one day I’ll publish all “those that got away” on this blog!

What resources did you consult to in order to write the details which accompanied each page?

As a trained historian, I used many primary and secondary sources for my book. This included Victorian census returns and trade directories, reports from all Suffolk’s local newspapers along with other national newspapers. I also consulted The National Archives, Historic England’s Listed Buildings register and local authority/council’s archaeology/conservation reports. I also read many antiquarian books, journals, local historical society publications/websites, Victoria County Histories, and read transcriptions of the Domesday Book of 1086.

I also took to walking the streets of each town/village to look at street furniture such as plaques on houses/buildings. In particular, Lavenham is stuffed full of buildings with date plaques from the Georgian and Victorian period commemorating being built by local industrialists; Thomas Turner the woolstapler, W. W. Roper the horsehair manufacturer, Thomas Baker the miller and maltster. Each date plaque had to be investigated and researched and, if appropriate, a story written about that person and their buildings. I also talked to local people as I walked each town/village. Many people stopped me during my photographing trips, and from these nameless people I owe my gratitude for pointing me in new directions for my research.

One fascinating but underused resource I used was Suffolk County Council’s Suffolk Voices Restored. These are cds containing incredible eyewitness oral histories from men and women who grew up, lived and worked in Suffolk during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. I listened to these recordings of people (now sadly long dead) for hours and hours on end, with absolute fascination. The story of the creation of the cds comprising of Suffolk Voices Restored is remarkable in its own right (you’ll have to read my book to find out how/why they came about!). If you are interested in social history and live in Suffolk, then the majority of Suffolk County Council’s libraries will have access to these cds. Do ask the librarian for them, they are fascinating snippets of a bygone age.

I also watched many British Pathe short news clips.  To name a few; Lavenham in the 1940s, Lavenham’s weavers of 1949; a princess who operated Long Melford’s level crossing; and an incredibly moving film from 1946 showing how a religious shrine of the Virgin Mary (dating from the 1500s) was carried aloft through the streets of Sudbury.

I like to think that I looked through and researched every single source that I possibly could, to gain a full insight into the story of each town and village within my book.

Was there any images or stories that you simply felt that you had to include?
During the research for my book, strong stories for each town/village started to shine through, and it was these stories, along with any relevant images, that had to be included. I fell totally in love with each town/village; these are my favourite stories from each:-

• Sudbury: So many stories from this beautiful, but often overshadowed market town, emerged. Simon of Sudbury, the medieval archbishop of Canterbury who was viciously murdered in London during the Peasants’ Revolt. Charles Dickens’ caricature of the Rose & Crown Inn (and, indeed the town of Sudbury) in his acclaimed Pickwick Papers. Thomas Gainsborough’s inclusion of Sudbury’s All Saints Church in, arguably, his most celebrated of paintings Mr and Mrs Andrews.  (Click on the link to be taken to the National Gallery’s online image of this outstanding painting, and see if you can spot Sudbury’s church.) The list goes on for Sudbury. But above all, I was struck by the staggering beauty and serenity of the scenic water meadows of Sudbury’s Common Meadows. I was lucky enough to have researched my book during the winter months, so was able to spend a great deal of time walking through these picturesque lands, whilst frost and snow cracked under foot. I remember coming away from my photographing trips to the water meadows with freezing feet and icicles in place of my fingers, but with a very happy and full heart.

• Lavenham: Remarkably the historic medieval village of Lavenham was nearly lost to us during first quarter of the twentieth century. Many of the medieval buildings had fallen into disrepair and were near derelict by that time. Some of its most famous medieval buildings, such as the old Wool Hall (now part of the Swan Inn), De Vere House, and Schilling Grange, were in the process of being either totally demolished or taken down piece by piece, some to be sold elsewhere (possibly America). It was only the outcry by local people and societies which stopped the destruction of Lavenham’s medieval gems. The story of how the foresight of local people, along with more prominent people (such as Queen Victoria’s daughter, the Duchess of Argyll), saved Lavenham shone through my research. In particular, one local man F Lingard Ranson. Where ever I stepped, Mr Ranson had walked decades before me; both as Lavenham’s historian and its saviour. I didn’t have enough room to extol and give him the full credit he is due in my book, but I will do it here. Simply put, without F Lingard Ranson, our knowledge and understanding of Lavenham, along with the village’s very buildings, just would not exist today. Today’s Lavenham owes a huge debt of gratitude to Mr Ranson and his ilk.

• Long Melford: Many modern-day tourists who flock to Long Melford are seeking antiques, shops, along with the Tudor heritage of Kentwell Hall and Melford Hall. But nestling alongside Tudor manor houses are the remains Melford’s industrial past; D. Ward’ ironworks, Chestnut Terrace built for the Victorian workers of Long Melford, and the Scutchers Arms celebrating the village’s part in making Irish Linen. But more extraordinary is the story of Long Melford’s riot of 1 December 1885, when villagers fought a violent and bloody battle with men from the neighbouring village of Glemsford. The Riot Act had to be read by a local big-wig, which still didn’t stop the riot, and it only ceased when troops from the barracks in Bury St Edmunds were brought in by train (on a rail line that no longer exists) to quell the riot. The soldiers marched into the village in square formation with fixed bayonets, and cleared out all the pubs and beer-houses in their path. You will have to read my book to learn more about this, one of the most bloody riots in Suffolk’s history, in this picturesque sleepy village.

If you purchase my book Sudbury, Long Melford and Lavenham Through Time, I hope you enjoy reading it and this blog post gives you some understanding as to how the finished book came about.

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Newspaper article about my book

 

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About the author, Kate Cole
I have a Masters in local and regional history from Cambridge University, a BA in history from the Open University, and an Advanced Diploma in local history from Oxford University – all studied whilst a mature student. Amberley have commissioned me to write 5 books in their Through Time series, and a further book on the First World War. I also give talks about various aspects of East Anglian history (such as the English Reformation in Tudor Essex and the Essex Witches from the Tudor period) to local history societies and groups. I live in Maldon, Essex, and regularly write about the local history of Essex and East Anglia on this blog. Before starting my second career as a local historian, for over 30 years I was a business technologist and computer consultant working in the City of London.

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This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe to it.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do click Like button and/or leave a comment below. I read every single comment and value the thoughts of my readers.  Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in the following
– Henry VIII and the looting of the monasteries
– Saffron Walden and Long Melford: Reading the Riot Act

You may also be interested in the following posts, written during a book tour of my first local history book

– Bishop’s Stortford Through Time: The postcards that got away
– Bishop’s Stortford and Local history
– Vintage postcards and local/family history
– Correlation between local and family history
– Teaching history to children
– Bishop’s Stortford Through Time: How to get your local history book published
– Bishop’s Stortford Through Time: The process of writing a local history book

© Essex Voices Past 2015.

It is widely known that following Henry VIII’s break with Rome in 1533, he went on to forcefully dissolve and destroy all the numerous religious monasteries across England. This he achieved by the end of the 1530s. Dissolved religious houses included priories, abbeys, and friaries from all the religious orders; the Augustinians, the Dominicans, the Cistercians, the Franciscans, the Carmelites. The monasteries were a massive medieval mechanism with houses and institutions all over England. From large and complex abbeys such as Furness Abbey in Cumbria, to smaller houses such as Little Dunmow Priory in Essex.

Whether the hundreds-years old medieval monastery-system was a corrupt and decaying hulk deserving to be destroyed, or a network of religious houses who gave much needed relief to the poor and sick, is still widely debated today.

What isn’t so widely known is that there was mass whole-scale looting of the religious houses as each shut its doors. During my research on Great Dunmow (Essex) and for my two new local history books on Sudbury (Suffolk) and Saffron Walden (Essex), I came across two instances of looting which had been carried out, quite openly, by parish churches from dissolved religious houses.

Great Dunmow’s parish church and Tilty Abbey
Tilty Abbey in North West Essex was surrendered to the king’s commissioners on 3 March 1536.  It had been present in Essex since the middle of the twelfth century and was probably founded in September 1153.  By the time of its surrender, it had a net yearly value of £167 2s 6d with a gross value of £177 9s 4d.  This was considered to be a small house, so would have been forcefully dissolved under the First Suppression Act of 1536 if its abbot hadn’t voluntarily surrendered it. On the same day, an inventory was taken; the abbey had goods to the value of £19 19s 0½d, along with forty-three ounces of plate valued at £7 18s 8d.  [1]

This was just the tangible goods which could be carried away and sold off. The abbey also had valuable building material in its very structure.  In the churchwardens’ accounts for St Mary’s Great Dunmow, it can be determined that both the vicar and the churchwardens openly took advantage of the nearby dissolved abbey which was just four miles away.   Sometime in the months between April 1537 and September 1538, Richard Parker sold 24 paving tiles from Tilty Abbey to Great Dunmow’s churchwardens for 2s 8d.  He also sold lime sand for the tiles and charged the churchwardens 7d to bring them from Tilty Abbey to St Mary’s.  Another person, Richard Barker, was paid 6d for laying the paving tiles in the church.  To put this into context, at this time, the average day’s wage for a labourer was approximately 4d.

Item payd for lyme sande & for fecchyng
24 pavyng tyle from Tyltey ——————————————————7d
Item payd to Rychard P[ar]ker for the sayd 24
pavying tyle———————————————————————————2s 8d
Item payd to Rychard Barker for laying the
[a]forsayd pavying tyle in the church ——————————————6d

The accounts are silent as to how and why the 24 paving tiles were in Richard Parker’s hands in the first place. However, between 1525 and 1533, Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts had documented several times that Richard Parker was a “tyler” living in Windmill Street (now Rosemary Lane).  How many other paving tiles did Richard Parker, the tiler, sell off to nearby churches?  Did he also sell paving tiles to Great Easton church? Little Easton church? Thaxted church?  There were enough churches in the immediate area of Tilty Abbey for him to have furnished them all with fine tiles from Tilty Abbey.  We will probably never know how many he did manage to sell, as the relevant records have not survived in other nearby parish churches.  Also, we don’t know what type of tiles these were, but perhaps they were hard-wearing stone slabs worthy of 11d per dozen.  I like to think that this is the first recorded instance of the Tudor equivalent of an Essex man in his white-van doing dodgy door-step trading.…

There is some excellent unwitting testimony about the paving tiles. Firstly, the churchwardens had very openly disclosed that they had bought the tiles by documenting them within their financial accounts for the church. Secondly, at this time, churchwardens’ accounts were open documents available to the scrutiny of not just the parish clerks, vicar and churchwardens, but also any king’s commissioners who just happened to be passing by (remember, this was the late 1530s – troubled times for parish churches within England).  Finally, churchwardens’ accounts were read out in church to the entire parish after evening service at the end of each accounting year – probably by the vicar himself.  Therefore the whole parish (from the local elite to the paupers) would have heard for themselves that 24 paving tiles from Tilty Abbey had been bought from Richard Parker. So this was not a hidden transaction but had been openly declared and was probably considered to be of good positive benefit for the church in Great Dunmow.  This really was not “dodgy dealings”.

In a similar manner, but less detailed in the churchwardens’ account, St Mary’s church in Great Dunmow bought a tabernacle from the recently dissolved Hatfield Regis Priory.  The tabernacle was an ornate vessel which was used to hold the Eucharist when it was not in use during mass.  Hatfield Regis’ tabernacle cost the churchwardens 20 shillings. This was a considerable amount of money.  It is likely, therefore, that the priory’s tabernacle was very ornate and probably made of silver.  Ironically, this “loot” was likely to have been given up to Henry VIII’s son, when church plate had to be handed over to the king’s commissioners during Edward VI’s reign.

Saffron Walden’s parish church and Sudbury Priory
There is a legend that when John Hodgkin became the vicar of St Mary’s in Saffron Walden in 1541, he brought with him the chancel roof of the recently dissolved Dominican priory in Sudbury. John Hodgkin, who was made suffragan bishop of Bedford in 1537, had previously been a friar at Sudbury[3]. Lord Chancellor Thomas Audley (c.1488-1544) is alleged to have helped Hodgkin with the task of bringing the roof to Saffron Walden’s church. Whether this is true or not is open to debate. I have not seen any primary source evidence that it happened, and in my research for my book on Saffron Walden, I could not find any secondary source evidence that referenced Thomas Audley’s help. However, whilst researching my other book on Sudbury, I did find secondary source supporting this theory [4]. Of course, Thomas Audley himself was living at nearby dissolved Walden Abbey, which Henry VIII had granted to him in 1538 (now known as Audley End House). Therefore, if the roof from Sudbury’s priory had come to Saffron Walden’s church, then Thomas Audley would have been ideally placed to help.

Moreover, as we have seen in the case of Tilty Abbey, it is indisputable that looting by parish churches of former monastic buildings had happened. It is therefore possible that Hodgkin had taken the priory’s chancel’s roof with him. The involvement of someone as senior and influential as the Lord Chancellor in this “looting” and that Hodgkin was a suffragan bishop demonstrates that this was perfectly legitimate practise for the time.

Rich pickings from the monasteries
It has always been well known that extensive looting by locals for their own houses is the reason why former monastic buildings now stand in ruins.  However, it is often thought that this looting was carried out some years – or even centuries – later.  Townspeople taking stone for their buildings; eighteenth century gentleman touring Britain, taking home a little souvenir with them.  However, the evidence at Great Dunmow/Tilty and Saffron Walden/Sudbury shows that this looting happened as the monasteries closed their doors.  Moreover, this looting had occurred whilst Henry VIII was still alive and on the throne.  The King’s will had been absolute.  The monasteries had been closed by him.  And there was no going back.  The people were in no doubt that this was not a short lived whim of the king, but the new way of life and the new status quo.  Furthermore, this was not “looting” but was a legitimate business transaction between interested parties.  All open, and all above board.  The firm evidence of Tilty Abbey’s paving tiles used in St Mary’s church in Great Dunmow, along with the more circumstantial evidence of Sudbury priory’s roof used in St Mary’s church in Saffron Walden, both suggest that dissolved former monastic buildings were, at least in north Essex, “rich pickings” for entrepreneurs and local parish churches in the immediate aftermath of the dissolution of monasteries.

Footnotes
[1] ‘Houses of Cistercian monks: Abbey of Tilty’, in A History of the County of Essex: Volume 2, ed. William Page and J Horace Round (London, 1907), pp. 134-136 http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/essex/vol2/pp134-136  [April 2015].

[2] Great Dunmow’s Churchwarden accounts (1526-1621), Essex Record Office, reference D/P/11/5/1.

[3] ‘Dominican friaries: Sudbury’, in A History of the County of Suffolk: Volume 2, ed. William Page (London, 1975), pp. 123-124 http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/suff/vol2/pp123-124  [accessed April 2015].

[4] Dominican Priory of Sudbury, Sudbury History Society (March 2010), http://www.sudburyhistorysociety.co.uk/DominicanPriory.htm [accessed April 2015]

This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the Subscribe via Email button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do click Like button. Or like my page on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/KateJCole/. Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in the following
– Balancing your books in pounds, shillings and pennies
– Transcripts of Great Dunmow’s Churchwardens’ accounts – 1526-1621
– Medieval Catholic Ritual Year
– Tudor local history
– Building a medieval church steeple
– Henry VIII’s Lay Subsidy 1523-1524
– Images of Medieval Funerals
– The dialect of Medieval Essex
– A day on the River Blackwater, November 1891
– Kate J Cole – My books

© Essex Voices Past 2015-17

Where do common phrases and terms in the English language come from?  I asked myself this question recently whilst I’ve been researching my two new books Sudbury, Lavenham, and Long Melford Through Time and Saffron Walden and Around Through Time (both books due out from Amberley Publishing in the next few months).

During the writing of my books, I have been avidly scouring newspaper archives for reports and articles about all the towns I am researching.  I came across the newspaper report below of a riot in Saffron Walden.

The “Proclamation being read” and “timely Notice” are both referring to the fact that the Riot Act had to be read out to the crowds in Walden. This was a 1714 Act of Parliament which stopped a group of 12 or more people from being assembled. When the Riot Act was (literally) read out (normally by a local big-wig from the town), the crowd HAD to disperse otherwise face being forcibly dispersed and/or arrested. If the crowd didn’t disperse within an hour of the Act being read, then the authorities could take further action such as calling for troops and militia to be sent in. From the newspaper account, it would appear that Walden’s crowd dispersed once the Act was read to them (but still managed to carry away a trophy!).

Later on in history, the reading of the Riot Act caused the infamous Peterloo Massacre (Manchester) of 1819. One of the last times the act was used in East Anglia was in 1885 when it was read in the village of Long Melford. In this case, the reading of the Riot Act did not work and the people of Long Melford and nearby Glemsford continued to riot throughout the village of Long Melford. So the troops from nearby Bury St Edmunds came into Long Melford via the train and dispersed the rioters using brute force with fixed bayonets.  (My new book Sudbury, Lavenham and Long Melford Through Time looks at Long Melford’s riot of 1885 in more detail.)

As the Act was only repealed in 1967, the term is still used today. It is where we get the phrase “I will read you the riot act” – still used today by many to control unruly children!

 

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My book
My local history book on the historic East Hertfordshire town of Bishop’s Stortford is still available.  Please do click on the image below to buy my book.

This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the Subscribe via Email button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do click Like button and/or leave a comment below. Thank you for reading this post.

You may also be interested in
– Bishop’s Stortford Through Time
– Saffron Walden and Around Through Time
– Sudbury, Lavenham, Long Melford Through Time

© Essex Voices Past 2015.

I had a fantastic week last week, touring the internet and talking on various blogs about my life long passion for “all things history”.  I would like to thank all the wonderful bloggers who hosted my posts throughout the week. I have been truly overwhelmed by the response and lovely comments I have received on all the blogs.

As well as touring the internet, I was also busy researching my next two books for Amberley – Sudbury, Long Melford and Lavenham Through Time, and Saffron Walden Through Time.

Last week, I had considerable breakthroughs with both books, which hopefully I can share nearer the time of each book’s publication next summer.  However, for the moment, I would like to share with you a picture I bought on the internet some months ago.  This week, I managed to identify the lady and also, with the help of Google Maps, exactly where she is sitting in Long Melford.  The picture had puzzled me for some time, because the angle of photograph made the building in the top left corner seem like one of the maltings buildings still in existence within Long Melford.  But it’s not, it’s actually a large red-brick building from the 1860s.

Meet Kate Salter, Edwardian resident of Long Melford, taking a break in the roadside outside Daniel Spilling’s Saddlery shop in Hall Street, in summer 1907.

I look forward to bringing you tales about Sudbury, Long Melford, Lavenham and Saffron Walden Through Time in the run-up to my next two local history books being published next year.

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My book
My local history book on the historic East Hertfordshire town of Bishop’s Stortford has just been published.  Please do click on the image below to buy my book.

This blog
If you want to read more from my blog, please do subscribe either by using the Subscribe via Email button top right of my blog, or the button at the very bottom.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then please do click Like button and/or leave a comment below. Thank you for reading this post.

© Essex Voices Past 2014.

Do you believe in serendipity and synchronicity? The strange forces at play when various unrelated events appear to coincide with each other? As 2013 drew to a close, I had my own piece of inexplicable synchronicity.

In my last post, when I reflected back on two years of writing a blog, I told how it came about that my severely dyslexic son is now in a school for dyslexic children. This hasn’t just been a change for him but also for me as it’s meant the end to my career and working life in London. His wonderful school is in the wrong direction to London and there are absolutely no means by which I can do the school run both ends of the day whilst working in London. So, I’ve had to give up my London-based career of 30 years, and once he settled in his new school last term, I was about to start looking around for a new one.

Just as I was about to start making my plans, into my email inbox flew an unsolicited email from a commissioning editor from Amberley Publishing – a mainstream publisher of local and specialist history book. The editor had read my blog and wanted to talk to me about commissioning me to write a history book! Much toing and froing of emails went backwards and forwards between us until finally, just before Christmas, they agreed to commission not just one, but three history books from me.  I now appear to have a new career as a fledgling author of local history books.  A strange coincidence that just when, for the first time in my adult life, I had time on my hands to write and needed a new career, Amberley Publishing were looking for new authors and stumbled across my blog. Coincidence or synchronicity?

So now, I’m officially researching for my books and will be writing each of them in the coming months and years.  If you have read my blog over the last two years, you will know that I am an obsessive collector of old vintage postcards – particularly those depicting our country’s rich past – moments in time captured by our ancestors through their camera lenses.  It will be no surprise to you, therefore, that each of my books is based around vintage postcards on a particular theme or subject.

Here are the titles and release dates for each of my books.

Bishop’s Stortford Through Time
(publication date: late 2014)
This book continues Amberley Publishing’s Through Time series of fully illustrated books which traces towns and villages of Britain by comparing vintage postcards to modern-day photographs.  My book will tell the story of this Hertfordshire market town through postcards dating from the first half of the twentieth century, compared to modern day photographs of the same locations. Bishop’s Stortford has a rich heritage and rural past before urban regeneration took place and transformed it into the large sprawling town it now is, with a growing population of just under 40,000.  I hope to capture some of its past in my book and show the town as it once was in its Edwardian and pre-First World War heyday.

Bishop’s Stortford – The Old Boar’s Head

Bishop’s Stortford – Cricket Field Lane

Bishop’s Stortford – The River Stort

Sudbury, Lavenham and Long Melford Through Time
(publication date: Summer 2015)
Continuing Amberley Publishing’s Through Time series of illustrated books about Britain’s towns and villages, this book will trace these three beautiful medieval  Suffolk wool towns through Edwardian, pre-First World War and inter-war postcards. It is ironic that the continuing existence of many of Suffolk’s outstanding medieval buildings bear testimony to the collapse of the wool trade in the area.  This collapse led to rural poverty, which, in turn, meant that many medieval Suffolk buildings were left in tact and were not “enhanced” or replaced by the enterprising Victorians. Many Edwardian postcards of these three towns show these medieval buildings – which were once homes and trading-places of fabulously wealthy merchants – but in the Edwardian period reduced to unsanitary and poverty-stricken living quarters.  Modern photographs will show how these buildings have been restored in modern times to their former medieval glory.

Lavenham, The Guildhall of Corpus Christi

Long Melford, The Green

Sudbury, Thomas Gainsborough’s birthplace

Postcards from the Front: Britain 1914-1919
(publication date: Summer 2016)
During the Great War (and in the years immediately afterwards), soldiers, sailors and nurses regularly sent home postcards to their loved ones. With the censors removing anything which could give away the sender’s location or military strategy, most soldiers posted simple messages sending their love to all at home. In amongst the hundreds of thousands (if not, millions) of postcards sent home from the Front, some postcards have short messages giving fuller testimony to experiences of war. This book recounts the stories of a few of Britain’s men and women who served in the Great War through their postcards home. This book was entirely inspired by my post Postcards from the Front – from you loving son.  I am so happy that I have been given the opportunity to turn this one post into a full book and so can retell the stories of some of the men and women who gave their today for our tomorrow.

Postcards from the Front: Christmas Day in the trenches 1916

The flag we are willing to sacrifice our lives for in order that they may continue to float over free peoples. What I tale I will have to tell you all later of a Xmas day in the trenches. Fred

The future of my blog?
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to persuade Amberley Publishing to commission a Through Time book on Great Dunmow as the population of the town isn’t big enough.  A shame in one respect because I have so many previously unpublished postcards of the town, but good in another respect because it means I can keep blogging my stories about Great Dunmow – which, for contractual reasons, I wouldn’t have been able to do, if I was writing a book about the town.  So my blog will continue… when I have time to write posts.

I would also like to find a publisher for a book retelling some of  my stories about Tudor Essex. For example: the witches of Tudor Essex; the assize judge who condemned many Essex people to death; and the (not so) invisible women of Tudor Essex.  If any publisher or e-publisher would like to commission me to write a book on Tudor Lives of Essex, I would love to hear from you.  In the meantime, I hope to continue to write stories about the Tudor Lives of Essex folk on my blog.

A plea for help…
If you can help me in any way with vintage postcards of subjects for any of my books, please do get in touch with me at thenarrator[at]essexvoicespast.com. Or, if you can help me with access to any areas – schools, churches, stately homes – so that I can take modern-day photographs of the towns and villages I am writing about, please do contact me.

Serendipity?
There is one final part of strange coincidences to this story. Amberely Publishing are based in the small Cotswold town of Stroud – the very town where I grew up and spent my formative teenage years. A town I once knew and loved well.  I hope to be spending some happy hours revisiting my childhood roots when I visit “my” publishers.

© Essex Voices Past 2014