Keith Turner

The rocks of the Lake District were laid down over millions of years of volcanic activity and sub-marine sedimentation, eroded by wind, rain, and ice age glaciers, which scoured the river valleys, widened them, and formed the lakes we know today. The towering fells hide a violent past. There were struggles over a disputed border between England and Scotland and the ruins of a Roman fort at Hardknott testify to an even earlier conflict with the Celtic Brigantes. From border settlements to market towns, mining and the coming of the railways, this book takes the reader on a journey in words and pictures across the entire Lake District along becks and rivers, down force and ghyll, across precipitous passes and over fells and through dales, using more than 200 old postcards from the authors’ extensive collections. A Postcard from the Lake District is a glorious pictorial record of soaring mountain ranges, tranquil tarns and the majestic lakes which keep visitors coming back time after time.

For more than a thousand years the Afon Conwy – the River Conway to the English – provided a military gateway into the heart of North Wales, firstly for the legions of Rome and then the English armies seeking to subdue the people of Wales. In later, more peaceful times, it proved a seemingly impossible barrier to the spread of transport links which sought to open up new and improved communications with Ireland – a barrier that can prove troublesome even today. A Postcard from the Conwy takes the reader on a journey in words and pictures along the entire length of the river and its headwaters, using more than 200 old postcards from the authors’ extensive collections. It is a pictorial record of soaring mountains and tranquil lakes, majestic bridges and castles, houses great and small, sailing boats and steamers – all immortalised by past generations of photographers and artists for the benefit of innumerable tourists and travellers.

As trams and other light rapid transit systems make a comeback in many British cities this packed volume, the third in a trilogy, looks at all the tramways that have operated in the towns and cities of northern England, Scotland and the Isle of Man. From the 1870s to the 1950s, trams were a common sight in many British towns and one sorely missed by many enthusiasts. This illustrated book is a practical and useful tool, revealing the tramway lines and networks of the British Isles, with archive photographs and informative text. Volume One covers southern England (including Greater London and East Anglia) and the Channel Islands, while Volume Two covers the counties of central England, and the whole of Wales and Ireland. Author Keith Turner’s in-depth research and stunning illustrations offers the definitive work on the subject.

Flowing for nearly 100 miles through gently rolling countryside at the very heart of England, the Avon is one of the most quintessentially English rivers in the country. Visiting places such as Naseby, Warwick, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Evesham and Tewkesbury, this book captures visions of the river as it used to be, from ye olde battlefields through to Edwardian tourism with, of course, plenty of Shakespearian history. A companion volume to the authors' A Postcard from the Severn and A Postcard from the Wye, this book takes the reader on a journey in words and pictures through the five counties traversed by the Avon, using images from more than 250 postcards drawn from the authors' collections - many posted to friends and relatives by some of the innumerable visitors to the river and its world-famous associated attractions. It is a record of how the river and its surroundings once appeared, and how they were immortalised by earlier generations of photographers and artists, printers and publishers.

As trams and other light rapid transit systems make a comeback in many British cities this volume, the second of three, looks at all the tramways that have operated in the towns and cities of central England, Wales and Ireland, with lines as far apart as Skegness and Galway. From the 1870s to the 1950s, trams were a common sight in many British towns. From the pioneering Oystermouth Tramroad of 1807 to the up-to-the-minute systems of Nottingham and Dublin of 2004, this is a practical and useful tool revealing the tramway lines and networks of the British Isles. Volume One covers southern England (including Greater London and East Anglia) and the Channel Islands. Volume Two covers the counties of central England, and the whole of Wales and Ireland.

The Wye flows for more than 130 miles, from the high slopes of Plynlimon in Wales to the Severn Estuary, passing through some of the most picturesque scenery in Britain en route. Indeed, the Wye Valley was the birthplace of modern tourism – when many eighteenth-century travellers undertook the English equivalent of the Grand Tour. By the nineteenth century, when the railway had arrived, many enterprising locals were running boat tours along the river, stopping off at Goodrich, Chepstow and Tintern to take in the ‘picturesque landscape’, and famous names such as Pope, Coleridge, Wordsworth and Thackeray had all made the pilgrimage here. By 1850 more than twenty accounts of the Wye tour had been published.A Postcard from the Wye takes the reader on a journey in words and pictures along the entire length of the river, using more than 200 postcards from the authors’ extensive collections. It is a record of how the river once was, including its industrial heritage as well as more rural scenes, and shows how it was immortalised by earlier generations of photographers and artists for the benefit of innumerable tourists and travellers.

Provides information on sixty of Worcestershires historic pubs. This book includes prime examples of riverside pubs - the famous Severn mug houses - wayside inns, canal and railway pubs, and home-brew pubs, as well as the mainstay of every community, the local.

From the 1880s to the 1950s, trams were a common sight in many British towns. This volume looks at the tramways and light railways that have operated in Britain's towns and cities. From Cornwall's Camborne & Redruth Tramway to the transit system in Croydon, it provides the history of the tram networks of Britain.

The narrow gauge railways of Britain have seemingly had the gift of choosing some of the country's most beautiful scenery through which to run. The Leek & Manifold Valley Light Railway was no exception, running for eight winding miles through the valleys of the rivers Manifold and Hamps. Situated in the north-east corner of Staffordshire and the south-west corner of the Peak District National Park, where the one spills over into the others, the Manifold Valley possesses a scenic grandeur all of its own.The valleys cut through an area with few inhabitants and little obvious economic prosperity. Agriculturally the land is poor, except when used for the raising of cattle and the production of milk, and the latter product was envisaged as providing the bulk of the railway's freight traffic while the passenger service, it was hoped, would bring in day-trippers from the neighbouring urban areas. This then was the great idea and it is to the credit of this predominantly rural corner of England that there were found locally enough men of vision to back the dream with hard cash. This is the 'Manifold's' story from conception to closure and conversion to idyllic rural footpath.

A collection of photographs of Birmingham's old pubs with accompanying text.

This intriguing collection of over 200 archive photographs, postcards and engravings from collections housed in Birmingham Central Library, recreates scenes from many of the industries that once thrived in the heart of the Midlands. The skilled jobs of gun manufacture, war munitions and car production are explored here alongside the intricate skills of the Jewellery Quarter workshops and the splendour of Cadbury's entrepeneurial village and chocolate production empire. From images of warehouses, factories and workshops the reader is given a unique glimpse of the industries that safeguarded the importance of Birmingham's industrial development. This volume provides a useful comparison for workers today. Made in Birmingham is a valuable pictorial history which will delight those who visit the city for recreational or commercial purposes and evoke memories of times past for those who have worked in and lived around this valuable industrial region.

Second revised edition.

A history of Birmingham transport

This companion volume to Central Birmingham 1870-1920 captures the changing face of the city over a further half century using a selection of nearly 200 old photographs, many of which have never before been published. The book portrays not just the streets and buildings but also the men, women and children of the city as they went about their daily business during both peace and war and the postwar period of rebuilding and reshaping. The photographs are once again drawn from the extensive photographic archives at Birmingham Central Library where the author is a Local Studies specialist.

Capturing the changing face of central Birmingham over a period of half a century from c. 1870 to 1920, this selection of more than 200 photographs – many of which have never been published before – portrays not just the buildings and streets, long since swept away or transformed beyond all recognition, but also the men, women and children of the expanding town-cum-city as they went about their daily business during a period of immense upheaval and reconstruction. The photographs are drawn from the extensive photographic archives at Birmingham Central Library where the author also works as a Local Studies specialist.