Tag Archives: London

Blue Plaques

How many of us walk from A to B in the shortest route and in the quickest time. Iin every day life, probably nearly all of us. We only tend to mooch, look around and take our time when we are on holiday or a day out.

Next time you are in your village, town or city look around and look up, you will be surprised what you will notice that went totally undiscovered before.

How many bars, restaurant and shops do we only know from street level – look up, you may learn what the building was orignally used for.  Wakefield for example, has a street known as Westgate.  In modern times most popular for its ‘Westgate Run’.  Westgate, a long street, one of the main entries and exits of the town had a very large number of public houses, the ‘run’ was to have a drink in each of the pubs.  The ‘run’ has now changed slightly as the pubs have now been superseded by bars.

If you looked up while walking down Westgate you would see that the majority of the buildings, grand buildings, were at one time banks.  These banks were needed in previous centuries due to the amount of money that was changing hands in the area, either from the great cattle market held only a couple of minutes walk away or the number of merchants that were in the area who did their business in the old cloth hall.

Look around, you never know what you might find – images of Wakefield’s Blue Plaques can be found here

A list of the Blue Plaques with a short description of where the plaque can be found – click here

Lots of other towns have their Blue Plaques on the internet for example :-

English Heritage Blue Plaques – mainly London and the surrounding areas
Oxfordshire Blue Plaques
Tameside Blue Plaques
Canterbury Blue Plaques
Windsor Blue Plaques
Birmingham Blue Plaques

Why not look around the place where you live ?

Who Are You ?

Who are You ? How many times have you looked at a photograph and asked that question ? From my experience I can say 100’s if not 1,000’s.

I’m not a betting person but I will guarantee that you will have gathered, inherited or bought photographs of people, not always related but you have wondered…. Who Are You?

Donald Curtis, probably taken in Africa – the Curtis family new the Riach people from Urquhart and Lhanbryde, Moray.

My mum for instance, she served in the ATS during WW2, being posted to Nottingham and Burntisland just across the Firth of Forth from Edinburgh.  During her time in the ATS she collected lots of photographs of young men and women all serving their King & Country.  These wonderful pictures showing happy times during an unhappy period in our history are not only part of my family history but are important socially aswell.

These photographs, all in wonderful black and white, either have no information or simply ‘love Willie’ or ‘regards Joan’. But, who is Willie and who is Joan – mum knew who they were, where the photo was taken and when, so why would she bother to write names, places and dates on her ‘memory’ photograph?

So, what to do with all these photographs of her time in the ATS, her youth in the Urquhart area of Morayshire and her work as a housekeeper to Miss Kynoch in Fochabers, plus photographs of a friends son who was now married, had a son and lived somewhere in Africa, possibly South Africa.

A Gallery, a big gallery, that was the idea, with images scanned and questions posed on each picture.  Then I was given access to a local historians collection of photographs –  two very large shoe boxes to be precise, full of thick cards and some of the backs, beautifully decorated, were more interesting that the actual photograph on the front.  Some of these photographs had names and dates on the reverse.  The photographers studios were worldwide.

How to gather all these photographs in one place that seemed to make sense and make it easy for visitors to search and peruse.  I decided to divide in to areas i.e. Bradford, Leeds, Canada, Morayshire etc.

To view this collection of Who Are You’s visit WhoAreYou and enjoy !

London Remembers

Have you family from London or do you just like looking at images of interesting places?

Well if the answer to either of those questions is Yes! Then take a look at this website – London Remembers.

The map page has 100’s of hotspot links to places of interest :-  The Ship Tavern WC2 ; Wynkyn de Worde- father of Fleet Street ; site of Zeppelin bomb ; Hobby-horse bicycle and much more.  If you don’t want the hotspot version you can chose a list – a little easier to work with if  like me, you were mooching.

A good site and lots to keep you interested

To visit London Remembers click here – this link takes you straight to the map but click on the home link to see what else is happening