Where you live....

[Mags]

Does your town, city or village hold any famous historical facts?

Have any famous people been born there?

Did a historical event occur there?

Let's hear more about the history of where you live.....

I'll start with a link to some important events in the history of Bristol ......

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bristol/made_in...ry/index.shtml

[Sweet]

My brain was ticking over then Mags, then I realised you were Bristol too - saved - phew! x

[Mags]

Originally Posted by Sweet

My brain was ticking over then Mags, then I realised you were Bristol too - saved - phew! x

C'mon Julie, I'm sure you can think of some more facts!!

[dinahsmum]

Rupert Brooke wrote his famous poem - "If I should die, think only this of me ......" here, whilst waiting to go to war.
Expand it to rural Dorset and you can have Black Death entering Britain through a ship docking at Melbury (Weymouth-ish) and the Tolpuddle Martyrs and the start of trade unionism.
Edit
Stonehenge isn't so far - that's got a bit of history too.

Mags you forgot to add that my son was at University in Bristol

[Mags]

Originally Posted by dinahsmum

Rupert Brooke wrote his famous poem - "If I should die, think only this of me ......" here, whilst waiting to go to war.
Expand it to rural Dorset and you can have Black Death entering Britain through a ship docking at Melbury (Weymouth-ish) and the Tolpuddle Martyrs and the start of trade unionism.
Edit
Stonehenge isn't so far - that's got a bit of history too.

Mags you forgot to add that my son was at University in Bristol

How on earth could I forget an important event like that DM ...sorry !

That's the sort of thing I'm interested in too ....... I didn't know any of those events happened in Dorset

[yola]

Well we had Oscar Wilde residing at her majesties pleasure here a while back; hence The Ballade of Reading Gaol.

Both Kennth Brannagh and Kate Winslet come from here as does Ricky Gervais.

We've got loads of head offices here, including Microsoft and Bang & Olufsen.

Ummm - can you tell I'm struggling . . . Reading was often used for road scheme pilots and other socio-demographic tests and it was considered 'average town'.

It was the 1st town to have a fly-in-the-wall documentary (reality show in today's lingo) filmed here . . . remember The Family?

If Henry VIII hadn't destroyed Reading Abbey the town would probably have been the most important in the country second only to London. The Abbey was enormous and very wealthy and influential. We only have ruins left now

Jane Austen was at school in Reading.

William Fox Talbot had his first professional photography outlet in Reading where he and a colleague pioneered photographic processing and printing. It was actually in a house around the corner from me!

The early Victorian writer, Mary Russell Mitford lived and wrote in Reading and surrounding villages. Most famous for the book, Our Village.

Alfred Waterhouse - Architect who designed the Natural History Museum was born in Reading (he also designed our town hall)!

And of course both Suttons Seeds and Huntley and Palmers were originally Reading-based business, hence Reading being known as 'The 3Bs town . . . Beer, Bulbs and Biscuits'!!



That's about it - I started off with not much to write but as I looked into it further it seems there's quite a lot Reading's responsible for!

[Sweet]

Guess thats me back to the drawing board lol x

[Luke]

We have the famous coventry cathedrals-two as we are so special!
The infamous tale of Lady Godiva riding a horse through the streets in the starkers..and peeping tom. Theres the clock representing this across the road from the Godiva statue.
We got bombed quite horredously in WW2..as was quite the 'boom town' at the time
Nowdays we have the infamous transport museum, and the waste-of-money-eyesore that is the big sculpture thing outside.
Erm..theres actually far too much to write about Coventry, its a place that is sickeningly steeped with things and i'd be here all day if i was to list every little thing

[alexgirl73]

Hmmm, I don't know that much about Telford to be honest, but here goes.

We have a world heritage site in the famous Ironbridge Gorge, home of the famous Ironbridge, lol! First of its kind to be built in the world I believe.

The town is named after Thomas Telford (a fellow Scot), who was the shropshire architect in 1700 something!!

Ted Hankey the darts player comes from here.

We are the home of the Merrythought Teddy Bear and Coalbrookdale pottery.

We are overlooked by the Wrekin, which is believed to be the inspiration of Tolkiens Middle Earth.

and that's about as much as I know!!!

[Mags]

Thanks for your input ladies and Luke ...... all very interesting If anything else comes to mind, come back and jot it down!