History Shorts: snippets of local history

Though he reigned for less than a year* before abdicating , Edward VIII, or more accurately, his royal cypher, appeared on more than 200 post boxes around the UK (The Letter Box Study Group reports 271). That might sound a lot, but these post boxes are relatively rare. Fewer than 170 remain today, accounting for less than 0.2 per cent of all the ~115,000 postboxes in the country. (Not surprisingly, Queen Elizabeth II post boxes are by far the most numerous and I'm guessing Charles III are by far the rarest...) Though I do enjoy spotting Victorian post boxes (see my blog post here ) simply because they are the oldest, I have to admit I was thrilled when I encountered this 1936 Edward VIII pillar box on the Great North Road near East Finchley. But, gosh, it is in a bit of a sorry state!  Edward VIII's crumbling facade There are a few EVIII boxes around outer London, hinting perhaps at the development of a commuter belt. *  Edward's reign is counted as 326 days from the death ...

The Holywell Music Room, which opened in Holywell Street, Oxford in 1748, is usually described as Europe's first custom-built concert hall. That's some accolade in a continent that produced Bach, Handel, Mozart etc. There's an unproven tradition that Handel himself played here — it certainly hosted his music — and the venue is also said to have led to Haydn becoming popular.  So is the claim true? A lot rests on the phrase "custom-built" or "purpose-built". Of course there were many venues throughout Europe hosting musical performances, how could there not be. But these venues had other uses as well. Oxford's own Sheldonian Theatre, much larger than the Holywell Music Room and situated only a few hundred yards away, had opened in 1669 and hosted many concerts. Handel definitely did play there in 1733. But as the Sheldonian was built to host the public ceremonies of the University of Oxford, not just music events, it cannot be described as a custom-bu...

Ordnance Survey benchmarks are among the most significant features of Britain’s historic landscape. Whether carved into stone walls, bridges or buildings, or displayed in a metal plate, these marks formed the backbone of a national system for measuring height. More than 700,000 benchmarks were created across the country from the 1830s to the 1990s, though most are no longer in use. The Ordnance Survey was originally founded in the 18th century to record features and settlements for military purposes. As surveying techniques improved during the 19th century, accurate maps of different scales were developed and published. A consistent vertical reference system was needed. Surveyors had to know not just where places were, but how high they stood above sea level. To achieve this, Ordnance Survey established a network of benchmarks, named for the process of placing an angle iron into a horizontal mark to form a "bench" on which a levelling staff could rest while measuring height. ...

While the Red Lion and the Royal Oak are the most common pub names in Britain, with many hundreds of each, there is probably only one pub in the country called St Peter's Finger.  There are some places called Peters Finger (or Petersfinger) but the drinking establishment is found in the Dorset village of Lytchett Minster, and seems to have been there for well over two hundred years. Surprisingly though the origin of the name isn't entirely certain. Pub sign in 2023. Lytchett Minster is found four miles from Wareham and four miles from Poole. A settlement was recorded here in the Domesday book.  A helpful information board reveals that the village church has no dedication, describing this as unusual but not unique. Parish records date back to 1554 and its font also dates to the 16th century. About 100 yards away from the church is St Peter's Finger pub. A phrase on the pub wall suggests that St Peter's Finger is a thief's finger, and that the pub was previously a den...

Britain and Ireland aren't short of fascinating monuments from prehistory but Stonehenge surely leads the way when it comes to media interest in the period, from TV documentaries to newspaper articles. It also continues to attract the interest of researchers around the world keen to uncover new insights into the 5000-year-old landmark. What's more there's still plenty to learn. Two linked recent bits of Stonehenge research led by Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia, have caught my eye. A Curtin team headed a  Nature  study published in August 2024 that revealed the monument's so-called Altar Stone, long believe to originate from Wales, probably hailed from Scotland. The six-tonne stone lies recumbent, mostly buried by a fallen monolith. Photo: AnirMitra / Pixabay It's a fantastic achievement to have a first-author paper in Nature at any stage of an academic career so huge kudos to then PhD researcher Anthony Clarke from Curtin's School of Earth and Pl...

News from the wires, our occasional series on recent history and archaeology research... Example of Mesolithic pot used in the study. Credit: Lara González Carreteri (CC-BY-4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) Thousands of years ago, European communities used a variety of plant and animal products to create elaborate meals, according to a study by Lara González Carretero of the University of York and colleagues. A common technique for interpreting the diets of ancient cultures involves analysing fatty residues in ancient pottery. This method is limited because it mostly provides insights only into animal remains. In this study in PLoS One , the authors combined multiple techniques, including microscopic examination and chemical analysis, to identify the remains of plants that were eaten by ancient European hunter-gatherers. Researchers examined organic remains found in 58 pieces of pottery uncovered at 13 archaeological sites across Northern and Eastern Europe dating betwee...