Showing posts with label Great Bed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Great Bed. Show all posts

Friday, June 14, 2013

Herts Past & Present - Contents of Issue No 16


Herts Past & Present
Autumn 2010
Issue No 16
Contents
Brief Guide to Sources: Apprenticeship Indentures
Lydia Hope's inventory of paintings and Charles I's art collection (St Albans)
Some of Hertfordshire's Special Trees
The Great Bed of Ware: A Literary History
Property ownership in twelve Hertfordshire parishes in the nineteenth century (Hitchin area)

Friday, August 10, 2012

Major update to Ware pages

Some of the larger towns and village pages are either in need of an restructure, or a restructure has been started and not finished. The problem is that over the last 11 years the amount of information on the site, and waiting to be added to the site has increased significantly, and the original idea of one page per place has proved impractical. Ware ended up with one main page, and one overflow page, plus a few other related pages - such as the one on the Great Bed of Ware.

St Mary's Church, Ware
If you visit the Ware pages you will find there is now a menu - and much more attractive front page - with a 1891 description of the town, and a series of thumb pictures which take you to other pages. The changes will take some time but the first stage will be to add more pictures and to re-scan all the old pictures - so all the post card images will be available in higher resolution simply by clicking on the picture. In addition an index of post card publishers is being built up so allow better dating.

So far the new page for St Mary's (the ancient parish church) is complete with new images and text, and there are new/updated images on some of the other pages. I will report on progress at intervals.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

The Great Bed of Ware has gone back home ...

Did your ancestor travel from London to Cambridge? If so they may have spent a night in the Great Bed of Ware. It was built in the late 16th century - almost certainly as an advertising gimmick to encourage travelers to break their journey in the town. It soon became famous - even being mentioned in one of Shakespeare's plays! For the last 80 years it has been on display in the Victoria & Albert Museum but a Heritage Fund grant [pdf] means that from April 2012 to March 2013 it will be on display in Ware Museum. If you visit the town there is also a history trail [pdf] which guides you round the inns where the bed is known to have been in the past.