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Walking and Pop-up Open-air Museums

Purton and the River Severn Walking around Purton on the River Severn is almost literally rather than figuratively a pop-up experience. The biggest riverine boat-grave in Britain: old boats and barges rammed into the river bank to try and keep it stable. And there are the boats: rusting, mouldering, skeletal and cadaverous, beached in a liminal half-solid, half squelching aqueous mud-scape. There they lie, some staring out mutely at the rushing river. Others are slip-sliding away to oblivion. After our trip in the Bongo, we drove back along the A38 to find a spot for the night. Where better than Arlingham? We camped at Weston Farm, right next to field after field of orchards, and field after field of medieval ridge and furrow: an open-air pop-up of corrugated pasture, and sea-waves of...

Stroud and the 1926 General Strike

In 1926, ‘Stroud and District’ comprised both an urban-industrial and a rural-agricultural landscape, stretching along and through five valleys and hillsides, with fast flowing streams and picturesque villages; the 1921 census indicated some 66,000 persons. Those...

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Beatrice Webb and the General Strike

Beatrice Webb’s May 1926 Diary (a small selection) The net impression left on my mind is that the General Strike will turn out not to be a revolution of any sort but a batch of compulsory Bank Holidays without any opportunity for recreation and a lot of dreary walking...

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