Historian and geographer, writer and researcher
The Icknield Port Loop of the Birmingham Canal Navigations is one of those swathes of dereliction, just outside of Birmingham city centre, that shouldn't really exist anymore. It's a long, inaccessible ribbon of water, a better home to fauna and flora than it ever was for humans. It was part of James Brindley's original canal, …
Continue reading "“Decent housing for decent people”"
Last week I looked at money: finance that filtered from Africa to Jamaica to Britain through the holdings of wealthy landlords such as the Earls of Dudley. This week I want to look at things: the industrial links that the Black Country had with enslavement and unfree labour. These are not easy to trace, just as …
Continue reading "Slavery and the Black Country: collars and chains"
On the North Worcestershire Path, not far from Iverley, there is a broken water pipe lying to one side of the track. It's a bit forlorn, but clearly a very nice thing: it's glazed, and the makers have taken the trouble to brand it: Doulton. There are many industries that have a ready association with the …
Continue reading "Clay miles: Henry Doulton in the Black Country"
I was very fortunate recently to get to camp in one of the most beautiful spots in the country, in the Elan Valley, Powys. It's among the most sparsely-populated parts of the UK, falling within what John Henry Cliffe described as 'that great desert of Wales' as far back as 1860. Despite that descriptor, it's far from …
As I mentioned recently, apparently historians love pubs more than anything. I was particularly intrigued by a discussion with Nathan Booth at the Urban History conference in Cambridge about the internal layout of pubs in his recently-completed thesis on Stalybridge - I hadn't given this a lot of thought, focusing mainly on the streetscape. So …
Continue reading "Foucault in Northfield: Birmingham’s reformed pubs"
Last night was a fun night for a midlander to be on Twitter. Footage emerged showing Steven Emerson, noted US terrorism theorist, describing Birmingham as "entirely Muslim" and "a no-go are for non-Muslims". This of course came as news to the the 78% of Brummies who don't identify as Muslim, many of whom took their sarcastic selves …
When talking about their home town, West Midlanders are some of the most self-deprecating folk you'll meet; try putting a Brummie up against a Scouser in a bragging contest and you'll see what I mean. But there's one thing guaranteed to make the most miserablist swell their chests - the cuts. Every local knows that …
For some reason, I spent most of yesterday thinking ring roads. Specifically, the Birmingham Queensway system that no longer exists. As a geographer, town planning sits very much inside my sphere of reference, and this is a famous example of a mid-C20 town planning 'blunder' (probably depending on who you ask). Certainly it was swept …
In my defence, I've been very busy at work and am not all there in the concentration stakes. Last night I reached Rodizio Rico (Mailbox) after trekking across town (University-New Street-Snow Hill), only to realise that I'd left our tickets for Laura Mvula (Digbeth) at work (Edgbaston). This was not the first blunder of the …
I'll be a busy boy this weekend, for many and various reasons (not least very amateur plumbing), but I'll hope to make time for some of the Heritage Open Days. I'm particularly interested to finally go and see the Back-to-Backs in Birmingham (cf. National Trust). This will be very helpful for my thesis I should …
