Amberley imprint: 2705 books

It has been forcefully argued that if there is one place in Great Britain where an industrialised society first emerged, then that place is Whickham on Tyne, some three miles up-river from Newcastle/ Gateshead. Certainly the North East of England was one of the power houses of Britain's Industrial...

Adapting from a peacetime role to one of greater magnitude than anyone could have expected, resourcefulness, bravery and self-sacrifice were to become the cornerstones of Britain’s firefighting services during the Second World War. Rising to great challenges during air raids and always exceeding...

The Christchurch Fusee Chain Gang is a detailed study of poverty, survival and bygone trades. With major new discoveries about the watch industry, and the characters that inhabited the small town of Christchurch in Dorset, Sue Newman explores the significance of watch making and other cottage industries...

Reading some of the descriptions of the Black Country in the nineteenth century, one could be forgiven for believing the area stood at the gates of Hell. Much was made of burning heaps of coal and coke, with mining waste burying agricultural land and slag tips at the furnaces glowing red. The noise...

The story of the most iconic railway company of the great age of steam. The initials ‘GWR’ conjure an evocative picture of a Brunswick green locomotive hauling tea-and-cream-coloured coaches through a verdant West Country landscape. However, the GWR was not just engines and trains. In this comprehensive...

The railway came to Oxfordshire during the 1840s, the core of the present-day local railway network being completed by 1853. Other lines were subsequently constructed and, despite some branch line closures during the 1960s, these Victorian railways are still serving the public during the first decades...

The Somerset & Dorset Railway, known as the S&D (said to also stand for ‘Slow and Dirty’ or ‘Serene and Delightful’), ran from Bath across the Mendip hills to Bournemouth on the south coast. Never a high-speed line, the main traffic for the Somerset & Dorset during the winter months...

Battersea has grown to be a fashionable and vibrant district of south-west London. Referred to as Patricesy in the Domesday Book, Battersea was historically best known for market gardening, providing fruit, vegetables and flowers for the City of London. However, the area moved from rural to urban...

The railway network within Birmingham has long been important for the movement of passengers and freight to serve the centre and its suburbs, and as the road network around Birmingham has become more congested, the railways in the city have, once more, taken on an important role. As the network declined...

This book is a study of waterways infrastructure and investigates through images and maps how the present midland network of canal and river navigations was put together. It is a complex history where some working waterways are approaching 250 years of existence, but where others span the distance...

Sunderland Through Time is a unique insight into the illustrious history of this part of the country. Reproduced in full colour, this is an exciting examination of Sunderland, the famous streets and the famous faces, and what they meant to the people of this area throughout the 19th and into the 20th...

Belfast (Irish: Beal Feirste ‘mouth of the sandbank ford’) is the capital city of Northern Ireland. The site of Belfast has been described as ‘not built on a perfect site’ given that the original settlement was located on low-lying land on the Co. Antrim side of the River Lagan. It was during...

This compilation of photographs explores two of west central London's historic areas through rare images, many unseen in over a century, alongside modern photographs for comparison. Bloomsbury is renowned for its fine architecture, rich cultural heritage, universities and specialist hospitals while...

WATFORD has witnessed an unprecedented number of changes over the years. The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw a great industrial and residential expansion which was followed by the Blitz, the reconstruction and the changes of the 1960s and 1970s to accommodate the growing traffic. Watford...