History Shorts: snippets of local history

Or, The brief existence and mysterious demise of Littletown Site of Littletown (Destroyed A.D. 1838). Image: CC-BY NLS It’s clearly marked on OS maps from the 19th and 20th century: Littletown, Destroyed A.D 1838. It sounds dramatic, right? An official record of a noteworthy event. At the very least, something that would warrant a mention in a local newspaper. Well, apparently not. Indeed, evidence of Littletown’s actual existence is scant, never mind its apparently sudden demise.  Location, location, location  The site where Littletown (sometimes Little Town) once stood is in present-day Oxfordshire, though in an area that was part of Berkshire until 1974. Its location is close to the river Thames, on the northern edge of Little Wittenham parish on its boundary with Long Wittenham parish. The nearby pair of wooded hills known as Wittenham Clumps or Sinodun Hills, one of which was the site of an Iron Age hillfort, are a familiar landmark. The wider area has yielded Bronze Age,...

"One Blake hung upon an oak in the way to Abingdon, beyond the half-way gate. This traitor betrayed three Christian kings, and would have betrayed the fourth ; upon which he was hanged, within two days after his design was discovered, upon the said oak, which is still called 'Blake's Oak.'  The wood was formerly a haunt of robbers, and here St. Edward* of Abingdon was once attacked by them, but his protestations of poverty being found to be true, he was allowed to proceed unharmed."  A Handbook for Travellers in Berks, Bucks, and Oxfordshire , London: J. Murray, 1860 A very small copse named Blake's Oak exists on land north of Abingdon near to where a proposed large housing development will be built. It lies relatively close to the slightly bigger Sugnell Copse and is adjacent to the main Oxford to Abingdon road. The OS Six Inch map (1888-1913) shows what is still effectively the modern extent of both copses (though I wonder if both copses were once joi...

Victorian postbox , a photo by bishib70 on Flickr. One of two Victorian letter boxes I'm aware of in Abingdon. There are also several GR letter boxes around. Just a minor, almost mundane slice of local history!

3 Lombard Street, Margate, late 1890s? Mystery finally solved! , a photo by whatsthatpicture on Flickr. I just discovered this Flickr photostream via a HistoryPin tweet on Twitter - it caused me to delve a little more into some of the other photos available on the stream. The one I've selected above literally made me go Wow! As one of the comments state, this is an example of Flickr at its best. It's really a type of crowd-sourcing or, to borrow a phrase, citizen history. Terrific local history debate from several contributors in the comments section, and it makes me even more determined to scan the old photos that I have!

Kilburn Grange Cinema , a photo by bishib70 on Flickr. Wanting to indulge in some first-hand historical sources, I once bought an old photo album off a well known online auction site. I still have no idea to whom it originally belonged - frustratingly, there are no names attached and I can't identify most of the places in the photographs. A couple of images immediately stood out however: the Radcliffe Camera in Oxford, and this shot of Kilburn Grange cinema in London. I scanned the image to try to establish what films were showing - the only title I could identify is Passions of Men , potentially the short film of that name released in 1914, the same year the cinema opened. I have also scanned and posted the Radcliffe Camera photo to my Flickr account, but hopefully I will soon find the time to look through and possibly publish some of the other photos from the album - my contribution to Flickr Commons, hopefully with the blessing of whomever originally took the photos...

Old public bathing area , a photo by bishib70 on Flickr. Another photo of Long Bridges public bathing area in Oxford. On the right of the photo you can see the steps into the water. (You can see these highlighted if you click through to the photo on Flickr.)

Long Bridges bathing place , a photo by bishib70 on Flickr. This was once a public swimming area in Oxford.