Amberley imprint: 2705 books

In this book L. A. Summers investigates the facts behind the myths and mysteries using modern research and newly discovered information. What was life really like for railwaymen in the days of steam? Did the locomotive superintendents of some companies network their ideas, and further, was GWR influence...

Most people are under a misapprehension: the Rocket was not the first steam engine. Quite a few were built before it, but Stephenson’s engine was the first successful steam locomotive. Colin Maggs tells the story of the steam engine, from pre-Rocket days, to British Railways building the Evening...

Nineteenth century visitors to Ashby entered a world of make-believe, thanks to Sir Walter Scott's romantic hero, Ivanhoe. They flocked to the town in their thousands to bathe in the spa waters which were brought in by train and canal, and to relax in the shadow of the impressive castle ruins. A thriving...

While the roots of our history in the places mentioned here lie mainly in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, we feel more content with our recent tangible past, especially through the magic of photographs, where we can identify old streets, houses, workplaces, schoolrooms, faces of old...

A unique look at the life, events and people of London through the eyes of an American gentleman who was in charge of the Daily Express at the turn of the century. The editor of one of the biggest newspapers of the time, the Daily Express, R. D. Blumenfeld was witness to some of the most exciting,...

The old county of Sussex is one of the most beautiful in England, but beneath its rural idyll lies a history that is surprising and often shocking. Local author and historian Christopher Horlock brings us some of the county's strange and mythical tales, bringing together a whole range of places, events...

Ubiquitous in ever supermarket and corner shop, it is hard to imagine a world without bananas. But it was once so! Britain’s love affair with the humble banana is as much the story of Elders & Fyffes, a company set up to import the golden fruit into the United Kingdom. Originally, British imports...

Mary, Queen of Scots is one of the great tragic figures of British history. Born in Scotland one December morning in 1542, she was to become Queen of Scots just six days later. Growing up mostly in France and marrying the sickly French king Francis II in 1559, she returned to Scotland on his death,...

This is the much anticipated third volume of Dorothy Bentley Smith’s highly successful series of Past Times books. This title covers a period of five years and, like the previous two, is a collection of the articles that she wrote for the Macclesfield Community News. In the articles Dorothy covers...

Situated in North London near the county boundary with Hertfordshire, Barnet has a long and distinguished history. Properly called Chipping Barnet or High Barnet, the area has become synonymous with its historic horse fair, founded in 1588 and now immortalised in cockney rhyming slang. The Battle...

Although early records of Hampstead can be found in a grant by King Ethelred the Unready to the monastery of St Peter’s at Westminster (AD 986) and it is referred to in the Domesday Book (1086), the history of Hampstead is generally traced back to the seventeenth century. Much luxurious housing...

The incredible true story of what really happened in the Channel Islands during the Second World War. The Channel lslands were occupied on 30 June 1940 when four German planes landed at Guernsey Airport. They were the only part of Britain to be occupied during the Second World War. The islands had...

By the late nineteenth century the Black Country had become one of the most intensely industrialised areas of the nation: the South Staffordshire coal mines, the coal coking operations, and the iron foundries and steel mills that used the local coal to fire their furnaces, produced a level of air...

This particular volume consists of articles that were wholly or partially published when the author, local history expert Dorothy Bentley Smith, was a columnist for the Macclesfield Express from March 2010 to mid-2012. In these articles, Dorothy covers a wide variety of topics on the theme of local...