Bob Clarke – författare

Today’s village of Kinver first made an appearance in 736 AD as Cynibre. Despite being close to the Black Country and having a flourishing iron working industry from the seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, the village avoided the spread of industry and housing. Even today much of the village lies within a conservation area and is surrounded by green belt land. The neighbouring village of Enville, its hall the seat of the former Earls of Stamford and Warrington, has also escaped the seemingly relentless spread of suburbia, and has retained its unspoilt individuality. Chapters cover canals and rivers, pubs, prominent properties, churches, the Kinver Light Railway and tourism. This attractive volume will evoke nostalgic memories for many people, and will give pleasure to residents and visitors alike.

Grub Street was a real place, a place of poverty and vice. It was also a metaphor for journalists and other writers of ephemeral publications and, by implication, the infant newspaper industry. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, journalists were held in low regard, even by their fellow journalists who exchanged torrents of mutual abuse in the pages of their newspapers. But Grub Street's vitality and its battles with authority laid the foundations of modern Fleet Street. In this book, Bob Clarke examines the origination and development of the English newspaper from its early origin in the broadsides of the sixteenth century, through the burgeoning of the press during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, to its arrival as a respectable part of the establishment in the nineteenth century. Along the way this narrative is illuminated with stories of the characters who contributed to the growth of the English press in all its rich variety of forms, and how newspapers tailored their contents to particular audiences. As well as providing a detailed chronological history, the volume focuses on specific themes important to the development of the English newspaper. These include such issues as state censorship and struggles for the freedom of the press, the growth of advertising and its effect on editorial policy, the impact on editorial strategies of taxation policy, increased literacy rates and social changes, the rise of provincial newspapers and the birth of the Sunday paper and the popular press. The book also describes the content of newspapers, and includes numerous extracts and illustrations that vividly portray the way in which news was reported to provide a colourful picture of the social history of their times. Written in a lively and engaging manner, this volume will prove invaluable to anyone with an interest in English social history, print culture or journalism.

A pocket-sized, illustrated history tour of the Wiltshire town of Royal Wootton Bassett showing how it has changed across the decades.

Devizes is a typical bustling Wiltshire market town. Architecturally the town boasts a variety of buildings spanning almost a thousand years, and over 500 are currently listed. The town, located centrally in the county of Wiltshire, continues to thrive as a commercial hub despite losing the canal to industrial traffic and the railway by the mid-1960s. A range of industries have made Devizes their home, including Brown & May and Wadworth's, and there has been major development in and around town. This series of images - many not published before - has been drawn from the collection housed at the Wiltshire Museum. The museum is also the recipient of all profits made by this book.