We ruminate about other distractions that have been limiting the number of entries to the BLog recently and wander into a discussion of the use of puppies' urine to improve the complexion in the Elizabethen period

Candied Eringo was once one of Colchester's major industries. It was once celebrated as a sort of herbal Viagra

The Essex fisheries were once renowned and the whole of the coast of Essex was marked by this important industry. All, alas now gone.

We look at the industries of Essex a hundred years ago and wonder at the speed of change

A fascinating contemporary account of the Peasants' revolt from the perspective of those who were on the receiving end

A new account, by Harry Price, of his escapades at Borley Rectory, comes to light. It illustrates quite nicely how he engaged in a subtle manipulation of the truth whenever it suited him

The memories of Viola Mayhew when she lived at Pentlow, as told to her daughter, Joy Steward

We discover that there is nothing new about Islamophobia, and find out that one of the most influential Ottoman eunuchs during the late 16th century, Hasan Aga, turns out to have been a former Samson Rowlie from Great Yarmouth, and that the "Moorish King's Executioner" in Algeria turned out to be a former butcher from Exeter called "Absalom" (Abd-es-Salaam).

A curious account of the last armed invasion of Essex from the sea, in 1724, not from France, Germany or Holland; but from Kent

We give a potted history of picture postcards, and the surprising story of the Royal Mail's efficiency before the Great War

An interesting account of growing up in Pentlow during the Second World War

We try to give a guide for any newly-arrived 'Lunnuner' on how to ask the way in Suffolk. The correct pronunciation of Suffolk towns and villages is fast being forgotten as we adopt the phonetic pronunciation from the written form

A happy annual camp for the Wesleyans at Fornham Heath suddenly turns ugly out

The citizens of Sudbury petition their MPs as the government repeatedly increase taxation. The only difference is the date, 1732.

We pore through mediaeval text only to discover that they seemed to have great difficulty in keeping the dead in their graves, or was it an appalling difficulty in detecting whether the patient was, in fact, dead?

We try to explain why it was that the Borley Rectory affair was ever considered by otherwise rational people to be the best evidence for the permanence of the spirit after death, and point the finger of blame at Harry Price, who wrote the two classic books about the Rectory.

A chance remark about the name of a local field leads to the discovery that a meteorite fell to earth in the Stour Valley in 1857

A rather gruesome story illustrate the perils of emigration in the eighteenth century.

The effort spent in collecting 160 photographs of Cavendish together has proved time-consuming but ultimately rewarding

There is a surprising paucity of photographs of horse-drawn commercial vehicles from the neighbourhood, so we took special care to make sure that this one was restored well enough to be presentable

We relate how Cavendish has always been prone to flooding, despite the wild optimism of property developers

The cottage industry of Strawplaiting kept local families from starving in the victorian age and many should thank the ingenuity of George, the first Marquis of Buckingham at Gosfield Hall, for introducing it into the area

A new review of the definitive footpath map by looking through old records has an alarming side-effect

The local historian gets angry about the present govenment's deranged plans to brick over the green belt for reasons of expediency, and finds out that our elected representatives have been replaced by government-sponsored quangos, briefed to push through unpopular and damaging policies

A wealthy widow decides not to pass on her inheritance, but to spend it on herself, bless her

A new look at the plagues that swept through Essex in the sixteenth and seventeenth century

A look at the software used to maintain the website

Photographs have a limited life before they fade to the point of being almost invisible. But, the image is still there and can be restored, if only we are allowed to scan them in!

The strange account of the arrival of a strange metal object in the town square at Aldeburgh in 1642

We reproduce a rather pleasant description of Audley End written in 1840

the rather odd court reports that tell of the prosecution of some ladies of Borley as witches in the 1570s

A cricket match between Kent and Essex leads to several deaths when a dispute between the teams gets out of hand

The enormous popularity of Archaeology on the television has led to some very happy experiences and some rather unfortunate side-effects

Lawrence Clarkson is one of the more likeable of the religious charlatans of the 1660s. His numerous lady followers got more than the laying on of hands

A remarkable story of a local boy leaving for London, making good, and returning to benefit the whole community

An account of the horrific time when the Plague struck Braintree with great force and the town had to be entirely quarantined

How odd for American Tourists to find out that our towns and villages are named the same as their places back home

The fact of the existence of slaves in Britain in the eighteenth century is little-known. East Anglia was consistently hostile to the practice of slavery, and escaped black slaves were sure of sanctuary there.

We celebrate our most celebrated author whose 100 books sold an incredible 150 million copies altogether

The output of the Hedingham pottery is extraordinay.: a free adoption of mediaeval and renaissance designs copied from reference books, executed in cramped workshops in Hedingham by a family of potters. Now treasured in collections worldwide

We find out that some local towns were considered by the Victorians to be in posession of no history whatsoever

A strange belief is recorded in the mid-eighteenth century that suspected witches should be tried by the church bible. If witches, the bible was said to turn round and not weigh them down.

We learn that the Rothchilds wealth came about through the judicious use of carrier pigeons after the battle of Waterloo.

We come across a most amusing sketch of sudbury written by 'Frenchie' in 1784

We get diverted by the historical subject of cheese-making and goad a prefectly innocent cheese-making concern.

A light-hearted take on the Borley-Rectory enthusiasts who spend hours staring hard at photographs of Borley Rectory looking for upside-down pictures of the nun in the foliage of trees.

We sneakily annouce a new facility for the family historians a mongs our visitors in the one place on the site they'd be unlikely to look

To go with the fascinating article on the Chelmsford Ballad (which proved to be one of our least popular publications) we show one of the earliest maps of Chelmsford, contemporary with the celebrated case

we occasionally come across extraordinay stories in the old newspapers that make us hope against hope they are really true

Dunwich was once once in the Premier League of Britain's cities, and the capital of East Anglia. Now it lies up to two miles out to sea.

It is wonderful to record the contemporary prejudice against the introduction of chimneys, where much the same arguments were raised as were used against the introduction of double-glazing. Curiously, they may have a point too

Strabo presents us with one of the earliest historical sketch of Britain, written after Julius Caesar's unsuccessful attempts to invade.

A book written in 1881 describes superstitions about witches that were still current at the time.

The people of Melford attacked Melford Hall and partially destroyed it in 1642. The reason for doing so seem to have been rather a puzzle

We look at the evidence for considerable friction between the various non-conformist sects in Glemsford.

Mary Adams of Tillingham in Essex joined the sect 'The Ranters'. Gods punishment was said to have included 'blotches, blains, boils and stinking scabs as ever one could stand by another'

We learn that Beer was a clever way of making an inadequate water-supply drinkable. Beer was once by far the safest thing one could drink.

It is an alarming thought that the early photographs of the area are not as safe for posterity as we always imagined.

We learn of Rev William Baret de Cratfield, the rector of Wortham, near Diss, in the St Edmundsbury diocese, who made a radical change in career when he was deprived of his living through his general incompetence. He became a highwayman and eventually died in Newgate prison

The evidence for Dragons in Essex is there. But what does one make of it? How does one interpret it?

The newspapers of the Eighteenth century seldom minced their words.

The saffron harvest at Chipping Walden was so important that it led to the name of the town being changed. Saffron, as well as its other qualities, was said to be good for the prevention of plage, and, curiosly, the town escaped its ravages almost entirely

We record with some awe, the life of probably the most repulsive vicar ever.

Thanks to the keenness of the Elizabethens for litigation, we know quite a lot about a fued in the Foxearth area around 1570

We take a nostalgic look at the lng-forgotten tram system at Colchester

We learn of some rather cruelly-named rulers of countries, including Gorm the old, Otto the Idle and Stephen the Fop

the curious murder of poor Garfar on his first trip to London, his throat cut from ear to ear

The Historian spends hours in the dark in the attics of the old watermill, decyphering all the wall-writings.

Few villains are as bizzarre as Al-Hakim bi-Amr, who is honoured by two different religions a a founding father

Malicious propaganda against Islam is not new. We look at what the chapbooks were saying in the seventeenth century

We admire this splendid gothic construction, and photograph its awesome appearance without realising that it is a product of the victorian age

A quick bout of feeling that all the time spent writing the 'Hysterical Historian' is wasted.

The Suffolk-born Bishop John Bale. (1495-1563) railed the veneration of Saint Walstan, the patron saint of Farm-workers, saying that the fools believed that the Saint was the patron saint of the 'Prevy Partes'. His fiery sermons had the opposite effect to that he intended.

Ernest Ambrose recounts the curious story of the tower of Long Melford Church, which has barely celebrated its centenary in its current form

A frightening and mysterious plague carries off an entire Suffolk family. The story of a poor family from Wattisham is told in the The Parish register for 1762

Trying to republish a classic book is a frustrating business, as we discover why so few societies ever attempt it, despite the obvious benefits to the community

A poem written in suffolk dialect in the nuneteenth century eerily predicts the Borley Rectory affair

Not all priests in the sixteenth century lived up to their responsibilities, and Pentlow's rector was actually outlawed!

A nearby parish, moves from Bulmer to Ballingdon and then disappears

Not everyone who is interested in local history is doing so for altruistic reasons, which is why we cannot tell you where all the Roman villas are sited

A most revealing bill which describes the repairing of this important river-bridge

The folk-song collectors of the early twentieth century did us a great service

A charming account of the revival of the traditional East-Anglian harvest celebrations, once suppressed by the church as being too debauched.

If only the antiquarians of the past had been more meticulous in recording what they'd found, we might have had a clue as to the explanation of this puzzling find

Local History Societies should stop talking and start doing things

The East Anglian Dialect brings with it a number of interesting traditions, including the short list of the names of horses

The Shakespearian Actor who decided that William's plays had got too humourless, then danced from London to Norwich for a wager, and then wrote a booklet about it.

Hodson's history includes a wonderful account of a bellfounder with a sense of humour. Henry Pleasant worked at Sudbury from 1694 to 1707, he was noted for the punning rhymes which he placed on his bells.

It would seem that we were far more immune to post-traumatic stress disorder in the past. We give an account of a horrific suicide on the railway that was dealt with calmly and without fuss

It is not often, I suppose that a local historian discovers that a riot once happened at the very house where he now lives, after which two men were 'capitally convicted'

We reveal how we managed to put the collection of 800 old local photographs onto the site, and discuss the problems of conserving a valuable historical record.

Tobias Gill was a rogue, and was certainly involved in the death of Anne Blakemore. However, the subsequent trial and execution of this Negro dragoon in 1750 was outrageously unfair

We used to assume that everyone knew about the Melford Riot, but apparently not. So here is the most readable account , from Ernest Ambrose, of course.

Dammit! Books about our parish out to be more careful with the facts when casting aspersions on our rector.

The Sudbury riot was not about the price of food, but was caused by the contempt of the councilors for the popular mood.

We give grateful thanks for the illustrations on the site

A wonderful book, beautifully printed. How we long to republish it. Hodson was an irrepressable antiquarian who left a chest-full of documents for posterity. 'an indefatigable antiquary, who never missed an opportunity of collecting any scrap of local information that might come his way'. This might have been dispersed or destroyed had it not been for the efforts of C. F. D. Sperling

The story of a fox that outwitted the residents of Tittle Hall, at Boxted

On the difficulties of the pronunciation of place names in East Anglia

The several large brick 'Elizabethan' halls nearby all look alike on first glance but it is becoming apparent that they have very different origins

We mourn the loss of the real east-Anglian dialect

Nothing like the horror of the Tsunami, but we have had our earthquake in the past

A meditation on falling off the stage in the course of a Christmas nativity play

Thoughts about the difficulties of tracing the roman roads in East Anglia

There seems to be a wide range in the distribution of family names roundabout, to the point where a quarter of the population of Little Waldingfield has the surname 'Squirrell'

On the astonishment of finding instances where suicides were buried at the crossroads with stakes through their hearts

A magnificent illustration of the use of oxen in agriculture has been given to the website

Liston Hall suffered at least two fires, which were worse than they might have been since on both occasions the local fire-engine proved to be inadequate

An account of a skeleton found in the valley at Foxearth, and the frustration of lack of detail in the excavation

Great Yeldham old rectory may have provided the Bulls with the inspiration for their tales of the haunting of Borley Rectory

Some splendid aerial shots of Foxearth are given to the society

Harry Price, the rather sinister genius behind the creation of the legend of the haunting of Borley Rectory, was a fascinating and complex man who decided that the public preferred Bunk to Debunk

A new work of Historical Fiction by one of East Anglia's greatest living writers is based in Pentlow

A celebration of the splendid water tower dubbed 'Glemsford's Eiffel Tower'

Local Historians can save you a lot of money if you ask the right ones the right questions about the house you are about to buy

The Flax Ladies provide the subject to one of Glemsford's most evocative photographs; but what were their names?

It's incredible to think that the local Otter Hunt used to meet on the front lawn of Pentlow Mill

What are people reading on the F&DLHS site?

On the odd things that happen on the internet

A valuable document about Pentlow comes to light

A local country house appears for sale on the internet for £500

A website dedicated to the history of Borley Rectory suddenly, and comprehensively, disappears.