Amberley Blog

Even if it had come from a big-time rock and roll promoter with an established track record in promoting world-class events it would still have been an audacious request. Coming from the 23-year old proprietor of a small printing business on the Isle of Wight, it sounded impossibly ambitious. The request was: would Bob Dylan like to play a festival...

The photographs in this book were taken in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The period became known by rail enthusiasts as BR Blue – because all the locomotives were painted blue. The era was characterised by institutionalised thrift, standardisation, and possibly an air of fatalism. The railway was being run on a shoestring and was treading water: trapped in...

The past is chaotic and complex. History aims to create coherent narratives to make meaning. What to do with those bits of the past that don’t readily fit into a history? How about a book like an ‘A-Z’? Evesham, like everywhere, has plenty of such snippets. There were a numerous local mysteries to consider. One is the location of “Long...

The most impressive still-standing structure along the route of the Stanhope & Tyne is the Hownes Gill viaduct, which opened in 1858 and is now a Grade II listed structure. The viaduct was not built until twenty-four years after the line originally opened, by which point it had closed, been reopened, and at the time was under the ownership of...

The skyline south of Wakefield is dominated by ruined castle at Sandal. It was built by some of the greatest soldiers of the Middle Ages, the Warenne family. The town of Varenne near Dieppe, in North-East Normandy was the ‘home town’ of the Earl. The first known member of the family is Ralph de Warenne in the 1030’s, but the...

NEW TRADE ROUTES After the fall of the Roman Empire trade in Europe declined, roads fell into disrepair and commerce was centred on small towns and local markets; but by the eleventh century new routes were opening up. Most trade was now carried on water, either by sea or along the great rivers that crossed the continent. In the North...

You would think that the historic town of Bury St Edmunds with the ruins of one of the largest Benedictine abbeys in this country would be honeycombed with tunnels relating to it. Well, as far is known there are none, just mere speculative suppositions put forward over the years by well-meaning people. For tunnels in most cases read interconnecting cellars...

In the summer of 1798, a French fleet carrying an army of 33,000 arrived off the coast of Egypt. The curious soldiers peered out from their ships at lone and level sands stretching away. There was nothing to be seen beneath the burning sun but a tower, which some said was a mosque, but orders soon shook them from their...

This book celebrates an eclectic mix of women who have contributed significantly to the world of computing over three centuries – from Nicole-Reine Lepaute, born in 1723, to the youngest of the women chosen, Joy Buolamwini, born in 1989. It provides a selection of talent and achievement, in concise biographical cameos, presented alphabetically. Diversity is recognised through inclusion of women...

This is my first book, a COVID lock down project of sorts to provide a distraction from my full-time job as a senior manager in the NHS, involved in urgent and emergency care for over 30 years. Northern European Emergency Vehicles brings together a love of travel and photography, combined with a personal and professional interest in the emergency services...