Fascinating as Cromer is as a place to explore in its own right, it really pays to venture from the centre and enjoy a stroll along the cliff tops. The town sits at the eastern end of the Norfolk Coast Path, a 47-mile waymarked trail stretching all the […]
Of all the ways of describing Cromer’s busy sea front, refined is probably not one of them. The main streets nearest the coast are lined with amusement arcades, fish & chip shops and bric-a-brac souvenir shops. To top it all, just beyond the boating lake and crazy golf, […]
The best way to understand why London’s East End docks closed for good in the 1980s comes if you take a 40 minute train journey east from Fenchurch Street. At the Port of Tilbury, piled up one of top of another are vast containers which are awaiting onward […]
After three days of rioting, Queen Square in the centre of Bristol lay in ruins. Properties on two sides of it were completely wiped out and the Mansion House – the home of the city’s Lord Mayor – the Excise Office and Custom House were all badly damaged. […]
It may have been a bank holiday weekend, but a team of three were hard at work restoring Independence, a vessel owned by the Bristol Ferry Boat Company. On a 1880s slipway overlooking the picturesque Bristol Floating Harbour, they were lovingly painting on a grey undercoat before the […]
What with centenary commemorations marking the beginning of the First World War in 1914 and it being 25 years since the Berlin Wall fell, we are at risk of becoming exhausted from historical anniversaries this year. But as a proud Bristolian now living in exile in London, I […]
Intersected by a main road and blighted by an open air car park, Cecil Square today seems little more than a busy traffic hub. While there are clearly some interesting heritage buildings on one side, the eye is drawn to the ghastly post war concrete library structure on […]
Hidden away at the foot of the splendid Avon Gorge in Bristol, there are a few streets of houses that thousands wiz past everyday on their journey into the city. Most probably don’t stop to blink at the heritage they are missing. With little more than pubs, average […]
Drive through the centre of Bristol and you can’t miss a tatty old office block completed in 1972 for the now defunct Avon County Council. Towering into the sky, this brutal piece of architecture continues to blight the city’s skyline 17 years after the authority was abolished. But […]
By Oliver Clark When I told a friend I was planning a visit to Tilbury Fort over the Christmas holidays the reaction was a bemused ‘where’s Tilbury?!’ Unfortunately if people have heard of the town of Tilbury on the Essex coast at all, it’s probably for the wrong […]
Past In The Present 