74039 CLACTON-ON-SEA: Through Time by Michael Rouse


The Victorian entrepreneur, Peter Bruff, had a vision of a new cliff-top seaside resort on the Essex coast, but his dream got off to a slow start. Then Clacton began to prosper during the early years of the 20th century and, by the 1920s and 30s, had become one of the country’s leading holiday destinations. After the war, Clacton was quickly back in business and crowded with holiday makers but, like most British resorts, it suffered from the effect of cheap foreign holidays in the 70s. Today, it is fighting back. This set of old photos captures its heyday, while the modern snaps record inevitable changes, but show that there are many reasons to be optimistic for the future of the seaside holiday. 96 paperback pages illus lavishly with sepia/white and colour photos. £14.99 NOW £5


74045 SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE: Street


Names by Anthony Poulton-Smith A lasting reminder of the county for those who live or work or have their roots in South Staffordshire, this volume is not just a dictionary, but a guide with histories, anecdotal material, pointers to people and events of the past. Within this book, every street from the ancient trunk road of Watling Street to the most recent cul-de-sac is examined. National figures, local personalities, trades, landowners, pastimes, the landscape, public houses, religion and folklore have all contributed to the names of the routes we travel every day. Readers will be intrigued by the origin of Quonian’s Lane, the trainer of a Grand National winner, and the holiday home of pit ponies. 126 paperback pages, illus.


£12.99 NOW £3.50


74047 SWALE VILLAGES: Through Time by John Clancy


Rarely is Swale included in people’s perception of what very pretty villages ought to look like, yet this delightful rural part of North Kent, stretching from Rainham in the west to Faversham in the east, and Maidstone in the south to Sheppey in the north, covers an area of 280 square miles that was once known as the Garden of England. It owes its name to the waterway which separates the Isle of Sheppey from mainland Kent. This fascinating collection of photographs highlights the small villages, hamlets and settlements scattered throughout Swale and traces some of the many ways in which they have changed and developed over the last century. 96 paperback pages with hand-coloured and sepia/white archive photos and modern colour photos. £14.99 NOW £5


74034 BALSALL HEATH


THROUGH TIME by Val Hart Balsall Heath is an inner city area of Birmingham which developed rapidly in the 19th century. Extensive bomb damage in WW2 followed by a spiral of decline, a painful period or redevelopment, a changing population, large scale road schemes and a tornado in 2005 have literally ripped through this area.


Through a series of sepia postcards and images juxtaposed with modern day colour photos the book illustrates some of the major changes in the buildings, many adapted for different uses, new schools, health centres, businesses, houses, community centres and green spaces have changed. 96 page paperback. £14.99 NOW £4


72729 MOST AMAZING PLACES OF FOLKLORE AND LEGEND IN BRITAIN: Where


to Discover Our Living Heritage and Traditions published by Reader’s Digest


Here you will find more than 500 places of ancient legend and modern fable, hundreds of spectacular seasonal celebrations and annual events. From the mighty Shetland fire festival of Up Helly Aa to the mermaid of Zennor’s tale of love and loss, why not let the amazing folklore and legends of Britain add a new dimension to your journeys around our own country. Each chapter begins with a regional map divided by county or, in the case of Wales and Scotland, by area. Numbers on the map show the geographical location of each entry. Directions lead you by road or landmark to each destination. 224 pages 26cm by 18cm, colour illus, websites.


£19.99 NOW £5.50


74320 CLARISSA’S ENGLAND: A Gamely Gallop Through the English Counties by Clarissa Dickson Wright


The author found fame along with Jennifer Paterson as one half of the much-loved TV cooking partnership Two Fat Ladies. As well as being a lover of food and a superb cook, she is a passionate supporter of the Countryside Alliance and of rural life. Hardly surprising, then, that she turns out to be a wonderful guide as she takes readers on a personal journey through the English counties. From Cornwall to Cumbria, Norfolk to Northumbria, she brings her extraordinary local knowledge, huge interest in food, forthright opinions and inimitable wit to the distinctive history and regional character of every corner of England. Here is a cornucopia of cookery lore and history, revealing such strange info as the fact that Boudicca was the original Essex girl, that Lincolnshire has a coriander crop second only in size to India’s, and disclosing just why a Cornish pasty should never contain carrots. As much an entertaining narrative as it is a travel companion, this book will amuse, enlighten, surprise and delight all. 422 pages with map, line drawings and colour and b/w plates.


£20 NOW £6.50


73905 ROYAL HOSPITAL CHELSEA: A Year in Pictures


by Patricia Rodwell


London’s Royal Hospital Chelsea, founded in 1692 ‘for the succour and relief of veterans broken by age and war’ and designed by Sir Christopher Wren, still serves its original purpose as lodgings for old soldiers, while also welcoming visitors to its elegant buildings and extensive, verdant grounds. Since the first group of 99 ‘Chelsea Pensioners’ were installed, some 25,000 old soldiers have lived there. This nostalgic record celebrates the historic site and its residents. It is shot by a London- based photographer who usually specialises in portraiture, as some of her splendidly detailed pictures here testify. It provides a unique insight into both the history of this remarkable institution and the lives of its residents today. Nowadays, this historic site is home to more than 300 In-Pensioners, or IPs. The photographer was granted rare, behind the scenes access to the Hospital and all its activities, over the course of a year, and her evocative images reveal for the first time the daily lives of both the IPs and the staff, such as the Captain of Invalids and the Matron. From the moving Founder’s Day ceremony to scenes of light-hearted recreation, and from intimate moments in the IPs’


accommodation to fittings for their famous scarlet uniforms, here is an absorbing insight into the vibrant community for whom the Hospital is home. There are interviews with some of the IPs themselves, and ‘testimonials’ from the likes of the BBC’s Kate Adie, Martin Bell and ITV News At Ten presenter Mark Austin. Altogether a memorable viewing and reading experience. 223 pages 29.5cm x 25.5cm with photos in dazzling colour, Who’s Who at the Royal Hospital Chelsea and list of sponsors.


£40 NOW £18 71154 IN THE FOOTPRINTS OF


WAINWRIGHT by Derry Brabbs Derry Brabbs published seven books with Wainwright. He had spent the best part of a decade taking the photographs for the large-format illustrated walking guides which Alfred Wainwright wrote 1984-1992, when his legendary series of Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells was complete. This is a fascinating account of Derry’s training and adventures including his first meeting with Wainwright and the joys, trials and tribulations of working on projects with a great fellwalker. 300 spectacular colour photos. 288pp, large softback.


£16.99 NOW £3.50


70959 PANORAMAS OF LOST LONDON


Work, Wealth, Poverty and Change 1870-1945


by Philip Davies Published in association with English Heritage and


with a foreword by Dan Cruikshank, here are over 300 spectacular photographs of London’s lost buildings from English Heritage’s archive. It is a detailed view of the city’s lost heritage, its social and economic history, work, wealth, poverty and change during the years 1870- 1945. Some of the book’s finest photographs have been enlarged to poster size revealing the true quality. There are 100 previously unseen images in this new, larger landscape format tome measuring 14½” across by nearly 12". It reproduces historic photographs commissioned by the London County Council, many of them in the early days of photography, to capture individual buildings and streets that along with entire neighbourhoods were on the threshold of redevelopment. Shop fronts are plastered with advertising reveal their wares and architectural features and textures leap into focus. Take the tram to Aldwych 1932, see Sir Christopher Wren’s Court Room with its fine vaulted ceiling and fluted Corinthian screen. The ultimate coffee table book. £40 NOW £28


74050 WELSH HARP RESERVOIR: Through Time


by Geoffrey Hewlett


This nostalgic book reveals what the Harp was originally like, exploring the canal system and the extremely popular Victorian Music Hall. The first greyhound race and the first bicycle race both took place here. It was the venue for horse racing, angling, boating and wildlife. It was also, incredible to relate, the place where early tests were made on torpedoes, tanks and sea planes. How did they cram it all in? 96 paperback pages illus with sepia/white and colour photos. £14.99 NOW £4


72731 MOST AMAZING PLACES TO WALK IN BRITAIN


edited by Jo Bourne


These 200 walks have been selected for their spectacular or beautiful scenery. Most are circular and each one comes with full instructions, map, distance, description of terrain, estimate of length and guide to amenities. One of the great challenges for Yorkshire hill- walkers is Ingleborough, the second ascent of the Pennine Three Peaks. The route described here takes the walker up past Gaping Ghyll pothole to Little Ingleborough, with the option of going on to the summit and enjoying views of Morecambe Bay on a good day. Here is Dorset with its steep stepped gorges and the ancient St Aldhelm’s chapel, or the long beaches and smugglers’ creeks of the Pembrokeshire Coastal path. 320pp, softback, colour photos. £14.99 NOW £5.50


ORDER HOTLINE: 0207 474 2474 72936 MOST AMAZING PLACES ON


BRITAIN’S COAST by Reader’s Digest Severn Beach is our unexpected starting point for this sprint round Britain’s coastline, taking in over 1000 beautiful, historic or just plain quirky landmarks. We visit elegant Clevedon with its Georgian terraces, then head south-west to Cornwall via dizzying Porlock Hill and the wilderness of Braunton Burrows. We forge ahead along the south coast with detours to the Isle of Wight and Channel Islands. The Humber Bridge and Spurn Head signal the north, with Dracula’s Whitby and John of Gaunt’s Dunstanburgh Castle looming ahead and Cuthbert’s Holy Island as the gateway into Scotland. 100 gorgeous colour photos, 40 maps. 320 pages. £19.99 NOW £6


72980 ENGLAND by Gerald and Marc


Hoberman and John Andrew Subtitled ‘Photographs in Celebration of the Quintessential Uniqueness of the Realm’. Chronicled here are the ravishing beauty of the Lake District, set against the bleakness of the Northern Pennines and the vast skyscapes of the Fenlands, the castles, cathedrals and great houses contrasted with the Lowry Centre in Salford Quays and Mathew Street in Liverpool. Fishermen and shopkeepers, shepherds and beefeaters, royalty and commoners, here are the idiosyncratic local festivals and practices which have come down to us in the form of Morris dances, well dressing, corn dollies and Punch and Judy shows. Here is the splendid patchwork- quilted landscape, divided by hedgerows and dry stone walls, and there the wild, misty, uninhabited reaches of Dartmoor. Here are the picturesque caravans of the Romany Gypsies and there the magnificent bed of King Charles I at Sudeley Castle. Stupendous photos, 176 pages 31cm x 25cm with silk bookmark and map. £40 NOW £11


72131 A POET’S GUIDE TO BRITAIN: How


the Landscape Inspired Our Greatest Poems by Owen Sheers


Based upon the eponymous BBC4 TV series the book is divided into sections: London and Cities, Villages and Towns, Mountains and Moorland, Islands, Woods and Forests, and Coast and Sea. With some 150 works, here are voices from the Middles Ages to the present day, from Wordsworth’s “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge”, celebrating the beauty of a London dawn, to Sylvia Plath’s visceral evocation of the Yorkshire Moors in “Wuthering Heights”. From George Mackay Brown’s moving “Hamnavoe”, an elegy for his father, a postman on Orkney to Anne Ridler’s “Zennor”, set on the Cornish cliffs, we travel across all Scotland, Wales, England and their islands. Includes lesser-known poets. 344pp. £20 NOW £7


71137 MCKIE’S GAZETTEER:


A Local History of Britain by David McKie The ultimate serendipitous experience, this book tells quirky stories from 150 places in Britain, many of them with such extraordinary names as Unthank, Temperance Town, Irk, Blennerhasset, Devil’s Quoits and Snig’s End. Bishop’s Castle is a sleepy town on the Welsh border


which someone had the bright idea of galvanising into life with a railway. Grimsthorpe Castle, one of Vanbrugh’s Baroque masterpieces, is associated with Thomas Linley, a friend of Mozart who was considered to have an equally glittering future ahead of him until he drowned there at the age of 21. 668pp, paperback, line drawings.


£16.99 NOW £4


71316 CHICHESTER THEN AND NOW by Phil Hewitt


A beautiful city dominated by its medieval cathedral, market cross and elegant Georgian architecture, Chichester has a rich history and a thriving community. The market cross of 1501 is built in the most elaborate and intricate Gothic style. Among the book’s fascinating archive photos are a double spread of the fire brigade steam pump in 1906, Eastgate Square under deep snow in 1881, and a wonderful photo of fashionable young women marching arm in arm down East Street in 1950. 160pp, over 100 archive b/w photos. £16.99 NOW £4


73760 8 OUT OF 10 BRITS


by Charlie Croker Between 1997 and 2007 the proportion of people over 70 holding driving licences rose from 38% to 52%. Women’s average bra size was 34B in the late 1990s and is 36C today. UK workers have 20 days’ paid leave per year compared to 25-30 in most EU countries, 17 in Japan and only 10 days in the USA. Is it true that 63% of us are


too embarrassed to complain about bad food in a restaurant? Covering our homes, jobs, obsessions, leisure time, food and drink, politics, religion, crime, town and country, health and wealth, here is everything about who we are. 204pp paperback, cartoons. £7.99 NOW £2.75


72222 TRAVELLER-IN-FURNESS by Barry Charles


Born in Macclesfield in 1944, Barry Charles became a professional artist in 1972 after a serious motor accident. The two-man exhibition in Manchester with L. S. Lowry was something of a watershed and he was ‘discovered’ by the Life series of Country Magazine. Piel Island, Furness Abbey in a panorama, the Market Cross, Ulverston Station, Urswick Tarne and in the Lake District section Cartmel Village, cottages and hotels in Langdle, and Holker Hall are among the exquisitely rendered pencil drawings, one to a page in this very large softback. Many of the drawings in the portfolio were originally published as Limited Edition prints, signed and numbered by the artist. 39 drawings including three previously unpublished. 64 very large pages. ONLY £5


Great Britain


73272 AN ALPHABET OF LONDON by Christopher Brown


Brown is particularly renowned for his linocuts, and what he has done here is take over 200 of them and arrange them in an A-Z of London. For T we have barristers wandering the Temple, Tipu’s Tiger (the pride of the V&A) and also a skull with three drilled holes. Hours of enjoyment working out the riddles, or just enjoy Brown’s bold, bright linocuts of people, events, buildings, monuments and other icons, all with a London theme. A sturdily linen-bound 96pp. £12.95 NOW £4


72369 COLLINS QUITE BRILLIANT: A


Celebration of British English What makes Britain great? Its institutions and culture, the Queen and education, Britain at play with beer and skittles, football and cricket, is it fish and chips, whisky galore or how we take the biscuit, the great outdoors and our weather, work and banking, our language from Anglo-Saxon to text speak, Britannia ruling the waves, places with strange sounding names, Mancs and Scousers, or Howay, man!? We British are an eccentric population with a barmy culture. 240 page browseable paperback.


£7.99 NOW £2 72588 A POSTCARD FROM SHAKESPEARE’S


AVON by Jan Dobrzynski and Keith Turner Take the Shakespeare Express to follow the path of the Avon into the heart of Stratford. The images included in the book are 250 postcards drawn from the authors’ collection. With quotes from Shakespeare, extended captions, the subjects can range from a finely detailed statue of Shakespeare atop the Gower Monument, Shakespeare’s birthplace and the Shakespeare Hotel, the bridges and an aerial view, the town centre, the Warwick Pageant, fishponds and the Italian Gardens and postcards from the exterior and interiors of Warwick Castle. 160pp in large paperback. £12.99 NOW £3


72992 A HISTORY OF ENGLAND IN 100 PLACES: From Stonehenge to the Gherkin


by John Julius Norwich Ranging from battlefields to sacred buildings, castles to cottages, and Eton College Chapel to the Liverpool terraced house of Paul McCartney’s childhood. Here are Blackpool Pier, Wool Hall, and the Captain Hook Memorial Museum.


Here too are the hundreds of people involved - from Ambrosius Aurelianus to Wallace Simpson - and, in passing, the political, cultural, social, religious and economic story of England. 492 paperback pages illus in colour and b/w with maps. £14.99 NOW £3.50


72775 THE MANOR REBORN: The Transformation of Avebury Manor by Sian Evans


Avebury Manor has been owned by 13 different families in its 450-year history, and in 2009 the National Trust decided to embark on a full restoration in collaboration with the BBC. In a high-profile series co-fronted by Penelope Keith, the Trust lovingly brought the house back to life. Designs for the restoration were taken from other period properties, for instance tapestries from Speke Hall and Cotehele inspired hand-painted hangings in the Tudor manner, while Stourhead, Kedleston, Stowe and Wimpole Hall provided elegant models for formal rooms in Enlightenment style. The artist and restorer Corin Sands was commissioned to paint pictures based on the work of the Queen Anne painter Jakob Bogdani. The kitchen and kitchen garden are central to the restoration. 260pp, colour photos. £20 NOW £7.50


72700 AMAZING AND EXTRAORDINARY FACTS: Great Britain by Stephen Halliday


We look at the pre-eminence of the English language, the beautiful game of football, Belfast’s Titanic shipbuilding feats, the Venice of the West (Midlands) and the birthplace of British industry, kings and queens, Welsh princes, fish and chips. Money and law and extraordinary Britons like Robin Hood, Francis Bacon felled by frozen chicken, Brunel’s less famous father and Florence Nightingale’s gift for maths are among this book packed full of trivia. 144pp with pen and ink drawings. £9.99 NOW £3


73002 LONDON UNFURLED by Matteo Pericoli


This unfolding 25-foot long boxed book is a double sided drawing showing London’s skyscape north of the river on one side and south of the river on the other. We start at Hammersmith Bridge, moving downriver past Fulham Football Ground, Wandsworth and Battersea bridges, until we reach the Millbank Tower, the Houses of Parliament and Charing Cross Station. Continuing east, there is St. Paul’s, Tower Bridge, Canary Wharf and finally the Isle of Dogs. Turning the pages over to look south, we can see the Millennium Dome, then moving upstream the Greenwich Observatory, Cutty Sark, HMS Belfast, the Shard, Shakespeare’s Globe, Tate Modern, the London Eye, Lambeth Palace, Battersea Power Station, and finally Putney Bridge. Concertina- folded drawing accompanied by a booklet identifying the landmarks. An intriguing design. Illus below. £25 NOW £12


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