"The South West of England was prominent in the campaign to ban blood sports in the second half of the twentieth century. Both the Hunt Saboteurs Association and Save Our Stags, an organisation established to oppose deer hunting in Devon and Somerset, were both born in the region". Tichelar looks at the people behind the movement, and how it has shaped the areas approaches to wildlife and conservation.
Tag: Bath
A Church as it should be? Victorian Restoration in South West England
'In this paper Weller demonstrates that, chiefly with "examples from the parishes in and around Bristol and Somerset, that the older church buildings we see today, whilst for the most part still possessing a Medieval structural core, have undergone varying degrees of transformation, sometimes including partial or occasionally total demolition, during the Victorian Age"'.
‘Mr Toagis’s Stonehenge’
"An exploration of an uncelebrated benchmark in replica 'henge' monuments to mark the tenth anniversary of Clonehenge". From cake to cucumbers, Brian Edwards looks at the history of people creating replicas of the English heritage site, whether this be a re-imagining of the original structure, or a reproduction of their current state. Edwards also touches upon an Orwellian connection to this practice.
The Shirehampton Powder House: exploding some myths
"The Powder House, sometimes referred to as The (Gun-)Powder Magazine, is a well-known landmark on the bank of the Avon in Shirehampton. A number of misunderstandings about its nature and history are in common circulation. In this article, using evidence which is in the public domain but not widely known,Richard Coates attempts to set the record straight".
Aftermaths of war: Bristol in three civil defence plans, 1939-1967
"Three civil defence exercises covering Bristol – in 1939, the 1950s and 1960s – not only have an eerie fascination for their word-pictures of a city plunged into imaginary wars; the written scenarios also throw light on what concerned the scenario writers. As the likely damage in war became more than the authorities could handle, so the planners’ responses took a sinisterly authoritarian turn"
The 1913 Suffrage Pilgrimage, Electioneering and Women’s Politics in Bristol
"The aim of this article is also to shift attention away from the suffragettes towards a consideration of the broader base of suffrage politics in Bristol in the immediate pre-war years. By examining the non- militant, or constitutional movement, we can gain a more complex picture of the nature of support for women’s suffrage and can assess its long lasting influence on the politics of the city".
Property Crime in Georgian Bath: Evidence from the Guardian Society, 1783-1800
"Though we have long boasted of having fewer robberies committed here than in any place of equal size, yet it is impossible to be entirely exempted from lawless plunderers’, according to a sober assessment from 1786. Indeed, by the later eighteenth century, there were few places so full of temptations and opportunities as Bath,with all its well-to-do residents and visitors,opulent shops, fine houses and well-stocked gardens. In this article,Trevor Fawcett examines the record of the city’s prosecution society in the constant fight against property crime".
Imagining ‘Silbury and Parnassus the same’: Edward Drax and the Batheaston Vase Adventure
"Despite assuring readers of his Ancient History of Wiltshire in 1812 that, 'We speak facts not theories', the Stourhead antiquary Sir Richard Colt Hoare (1758-1838) found the facts about Silbury Hill hard to come by. 'This stupendous artificial mound of earth cannot fail to arrest the attention of every passenger from Marlborough to Bath,' he wrote. 'An attempt was made to open it some years ago by a Dorsetshire gentleman, Colonel Drax'... But who was Drax, and what was his interest in Silbury?"
William Crouch of Englishcombe and Wellow (1503-1586): M.P., Ruthless Property-Dealer, Administrator and Trouble-maker
16th century Cornish historian, Richard Carew, marvelled at the way in which ‘the golden shower of the dissolved abbey lands rained well-near into every gaper’s mouth. Among those with open mouths eager to receive this monastic bounty in the Bath area was William Crouch. Bettey provides insight into one the most unscrupulous men of this era, who seized the opportunity of the sale of monastic property to amass huge wealth.
The Norman Lords of Bristol
"The early history of Bristol is obscure. Although archaeological excavation is beginning to shed light on the development of the town, the townsmen left no written records to provide a picture of the political framework, within which the town emerged, nor of how power was mediated in the town". Thompson looks at early records of how Bristol was formed, and what events and factors influenced its early development.