History Shorts: snippets of local history

Inside the tiny church , a photo by bishib70 on Flickr. This is my favourite image of my photographs of the delightful model village of Bourton-on-the-water, which has been given Grade II listed status by English Heritage . The detail of the tiny stained glass windows in the church of St Lawrence is exquisite!

Winchester Cathedral , a set on Flickr. A new Winchester Cathedral, replacing the Saxon Old Minster, was consecrated on April 8 1093, the project of the Norman bishop Walkelin. Much of the Norman building survives within the massive present day structure, including the crypt and transepts. It remains the seat of the Bishop of Winchester today.

According to Wikipedia, this is a Palladian villa built in the 1750s-60s for Simon Harcourt, 1st Earl Harcourt, a British diplomat and general, with grounds later landscaped by Capability Brown. The old village of Nuneham Courtenay was uprooted to make way for the house and grounds and was recreated a mile away on the Oxford to Dorchester road (now the A4074). Destruction of the old village has been linked to the Deserted Village, in the poem of that name by Oliver Goldsmith. During World War II, it was used by the RAF, home to a photographic reconnaissance interpretation unit. It is now owned by Oxford University (their Harcourt Arboretum is also nearby) and the building used as a retreat centre.

Titanic Belfast visit , a set on Flickr. I was able to fit in a visit to the Titanic Belfast building recently and was very impressed with the experience. On the plus sides, it focuses quite heavily on the industrial history of Belfast and Northern Ireland to good effect (such as the Shipyard Ride), the cabin recreations are fascinating, the building itself is of course striking and the public spaces around have been landscaped in an interesting manner. The gift shop, perhaps not surprisingly, falls a little on the side of bad taste - after all, this was a shipping disaster, not really a reason for keyrings and chocolates! However, such a modern tourist facility does need to turn a profit so it's hardly surprising to see a range of tie-in tat on offer. All in all we probably spent almost 4 hours touring the exhibition - it's very in-depth and was also very busy, good to see for business but it made some of the areas quite claustroph