Barry Shurlock feature: The local historian’s Christmas stocking

THIS is the time of year when trying to think up some unusual gift for him or her reaches a climax. It obviously must be something not yet cluttering up the house, and ideally ticking those other boxes – political correctness, low-carbon footprint and more.

Generally speaking, local history does not trespass on any no-no areas (though perhaps it should) and it is doubtful whether any reliable data on its effect on climate are available. People visiting archives, tapping at keyboards and publishing articles surely do very little harm to the planet.

So, here we go with suggestions for bringing a smile to a loved one’s face by buying them a subscription to a local society, a book or the like. The stocking will undoubtedly bulge better with some real object, but, as anyone who has bought software or a subscription will know that a ‘virtual present’ in the form of code or password can easily be bulked out with suitable (recycled) packaging.

There are a huge number of websites concerned with local history which will lead to a subscription button in a few clicks. Michael Woodhall, a trustee of the Hampshire Archives Trust, has been marshalling information on all the local societies in the county and has reached a total of 140 – and is still counting.

As advertisers like to say, ‘there will be one near you’. And then there are also the countywide societies, all looking for new members and easily found online – Hampshire Archives Trust, Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society, Hampshire Genealogical Society, Hampshire Industrial Archaeology Society, Hampshire Gardens Trust, Hampshire Mills Group, Hampshire and Islands Historic Churches Trust, Friends of Winchester Cathedral – all offering a rich experience at a snip.

What to buy? The obvious answer is a subscription to one of these local or county groups. For less than meal in a pub it will give a year’s involvement in something that will provide opportunities to meet new people, to read about new things, to attend lectures and Zoom sessions, to find new openings for volunteering. In short, to buying a completely new experience…and all for peanuts.

Then there are the products that these wonderful groups produce, mainly books and the like, but also CD-roms and PDFs that provide huge amounts of information for next to nothing. For those with an interest in family history, the Hampshire Genealogical Society alone is a treasure trove of advice and information. The Hampshire Archives Trust and the Hampshire Field Club also offer enough reading online to pass many happy hours.

Here are some of the latest offerings that will handsomely fill any stocking and provide entertainment and enlightenment well into the New Year.

Many bells will be rung by the memories of local resistance to the building of the M3 through Twyford Down recorded in Helen Beynon and Chris Gilham’s Twyford Rising: Land and Resistance.

And its message is stronger than ever: “What happened at Twyford Down was one of many beginnings for an environmental movement that now takes confidently to the streets on issues of climate change and the extinction of species.” It is available from: https://twyfordrising.org/contact/. Let’s hope Greta has a copy!

Anniversaries of the First World War have generated a clutch of books, such as Not Just A Name: Alresford, Hampshire and District and Four Marks’ Fallen: Roll of Honour 1914-1945, both by retired dental surgeon Glen Gilbertson (glenn.gilbertson@hotmail.com). As well as honouring the dead, Glenn provides a huge amount of information of interest to military historians and others.

Similarly, We Will Remember Them honours those from Fulflood and Weeke in Winchester who fell in the First World War. Extensive research by former Mail on Sunday journalist and war scholar, Derek Whitfield, Geraldine Buchanan and others, has provided an in-depth snapshot of this part of the city in the early 20th century (available from: greatwardeadwinchesterfulflood@outlook.com.

The book also has useful accounts of the forgotten role of the 4th Hampshires in Mesopotamia at the siege of Kut-al-Amara and a quick-to-read summary of the battles of 1916-1918 on the Somme and at Arras and Ypres. The indexing, referencing and even the guide to changes in street numbering are models for books of this kind.

Another book that provides a superb picture of the role of local communities during the First World War is Hospitals of the Petersfield Union 1914-1919 by Bill Gosney, published by Petersfield Museum (01730 262601), a newly reopened must-go-to destination.

The book is beautifully researched and written and covers much more than its title suggests. The way in which the people of Petersfield responded to the needs of the men overseas and the returned wounded is inspiring and wonderfully recorded in this well-produced, richly illustrated book.

If the stocking is not by now bulging, and the Christmas dinner might need walking down, Louis Murray, chair of the Gosport Society, has published the ideal gift, 20 Historic Walks in and Around Gosport and Fareham. In fact, it covers a huge area stretching south to the Solent from a line between Swanwick and Boarhunt.

Walking around a place is the first thing anyone should do to get a handle on its history. The look of and names of buildings and the arrangement of roads can tell much of what happened in the past. As well as the walk itself, this excellent guide includes ‘By the Way’ sections with historical background. It is available from the TIC Gosport Ferry, Lee-on-Solent Bookshop, lms62@ymail.com, or 02392 551128. It’s a gift for those who might want to discover the Iraq Supergun, Queen Victoria’s rail station, the seaside house of Lord Ashburton (Alexander Baring), Tips Copse Stubbington, or a Turkish sailors’ cemetery.

For Havant and district there is a huge choice of reasonably priced books or PDFs from: thespring.co.uk/heritage/local-history-booklets, including the latest, The Railway in Rowland’s Castle, which, incidently, tells the tortuous story of getting a railway to Portsmouth (and thereby cutting out Gosport station).

And for those who come in and out of Southampton, the journey will never be the same once you have read A Walk Up the Avenue: Southampton’s Ornament just out from Ally Hayes and Wendy Stokes of Bevois Mount History (available from October Books, Portswood and on ebay). It is “a cross between a guide book (with hand-drawn maps) and a local history book telling the stories of the sites, buildings and people of probably the most attractive approach to a city in England.”

Unfortunately, there are too many excellent books to squeeze onto this page, but all of the following are worth tucking into the stocking: Headbourne Worthy by Peter Finn, Traditional Houses of the Worthys by Bill Fergie and Edward Roberts and Winchester Racecourse by Robin Greenwood (all from: wlhg.chair@gmail.com). Penton Mewsey: The History of a Hampshire Chalk Downland Parish by John Isherwood (www.andover-history.org.uk) and the Victoria County History ‘shorts’ on: Mapledurwell by John Hare and others, Steventon by Jean Morrin, Cliddesden, Hatch and Farleigh Wallop by Alison Deveson and Sue Lane and Medieval Basingstoke by John Hare (all from: jeanmorrin@outlook.com).

For more on Hampshire, visit: www.hampshirearchivestrust.co.uk and www.hantsfieldclub.org.uk.

barryshurlock@gmail.com