1950’s Racing Chart of the Solent

America's cup

1950’s Racing Chart of the Solent A chance find in a charity shop today turned up a racing chart of Solent and Spithead, how appropriate on the first day of the ‘America’s Cup’ hosted in Portsmouth for the first time in 164 years. Not being a sailor the chart is full of mysteries for me. The…

Read More

Odiham and the Vernacular Magna Carta

Odiham Castle Hampshire

The vernacular Magna Carta was produced at Odiham Castle in Hampshire within two weeks of the original document being sealed. A writ was attached and the charter then sent out across England.

Read More

Gilbert White Selborne

Gilbert White Selborne
This entry is part 9 of 10 in the series Hampshire People

Gilbert White of Selborne, the quiet naturalist, whose life was committed to the observance of all the natural history that surrounded his home in Hampshire.

Read More

Data Meon Valley Surnames 1841

Exton Church Yard Hampshire
This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series Digital Projects

Data collected from the 1841 census on Meon Valley surnames, shows the incidence of surnames in individual villages along the Meon Valley. This bank of data reveals some interesting finds. It is an incomplete but growing body of data useful to Hampshire family historians.

Read More

Wymering Fields Cosham

Hampshire History
This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Hampshire History Postcards and Images

This image of the  Wymering Fields Cosham, is a reminder of a time when this suburb of Portsmouth was a rural area of farms and fields. To the south of Wymering the mudflats of the tidal shore, it sits tucked under the chalk hills at Portsdown north of Portsmouth. After much reclamation and the passage…

Read More

Bramshott and the Canadians in WWI and WWII

Bramshott and Liphook in Hampshire became home for thousands of Canadian soldiers during both great wars. The links between these villages in Hampshire and the Canadian nation are touchingly deep, with 318 soldiers buried in the churchyard.

Read More

D-Day Gathering

Hampshire was at the centre of D-Day Preparations as the massive force embarked for Normandy
This entry is part 1 of 8 in the series D Day #DDAY71 #DDAY70

Making ready for Overlord in Hampshire, with troops massing on the South Coast, Eisenhower moving into Southwick House and Admiral Ramsay running Neptune from Southwick Fort. Who was in your area around the time of Mid-May to 6th June there was lots of hearsay but has your village or town got a story to tell?

Read More

Droxford WW2 and the Royal Ulster Rifles

Droxford D - Day
This entry is part 5 of 8 in the series D Day #DDAY71 #DDAY70

In the run up to D-Day Droxford was home to troops near and far including the 2nd Battalion Royal Ulster Rifles. By kind permission of the official history site for the 2nd Battalion Royal Ulster Rifles, we are able to share some images from May 1944.

Read More