Anthony Beeson: 6 books

'Stoke Bishop has less community of interest with Bristol than London has with Brighton,' stated Francis Tagart from his luxurious Old Sneed Park mansion in January 1885. For decades it rankled with Bristolians that those who made their fortunes within Bristol and enjoyed its benefits contributed...

Brycgstowe, 'the place at the bridge', as the Saxon founders of Bristol once called it, is a city of destiny. Once the second port in the country and one of the wealthiest cities in Britain, it has enjoyed centuries of prosperity based on manufacturing, seafaring and trade. Geographically split between...

Bristol, ‘Queen of the West Country’, is a city founded on manufacturing and trade. Once described as producing within its bounds every daily necessity required in life, its merchants were mocked by outsiders for lives dominated by a rage for profit. It was a city in which grandeur lived cheek...

Wareham, once a quiet market town, is now the bustling historic gateway to the Isle of Purbeck. Wareham has a varied history that ranges from evidence of early Neolithic and Mesolithic settlers and even, interestingly, used as a garrison town, with 7,000 soldiers living and training there during the...

Brighton’s first suburb, London Road, was for its first century almost entirely domestic in character and the haunt of the genteel middle classes, whose gardens were praised by the Loudons. The suburb’s change to commercial and industrial use provides a fascinating picture of a once prosperous...

'Preston, once a village with an independent life, is now Brighton', wrote Edward Verrall Lucas of the main subject of this volume in 1904. The same thing might also be said of Patcham and its hamlet of Withdean, which are the other protagonists within these covers. Preston and Withdean were noted...