Each of Sheppeys towns & villages is steeped in history & heritage. The island was where British aviation was born & came of age. The former dockyard is now little more than an industrial estate & the riotous dockside area Blue Town is today just a quiet backwater. Its now hard to think of people like Pepys Nelson Collingwood et al walking the streets of Blue Town but they once did. The area connecting Blue Town to Queenborough was once a thriving community known as West Minster but that has gone following flooding in 1953. The abbey at Minster once the epicentre of the island & a magnet for medieval pilgrims is now just a ruin. But despite all the changes the Isle of Sheppey remains a favourite destination for holidaymakers & day-trippers & is a fascinating place to explore with much awaiting discovery. ...

Dependent originally on fishing & farming Margate & Ramsgate benefited as limbs of the Cinque Ports during the Middle Ages shipping grain to London & elsewhere. Growth was however slow until an interest in sea-bathing arose in the eighteenth century when to Margate's great benefit Benjamin Beale invented the first bathing machine with a modesty hood. After that hoys paddle steamers & railways brought a stream of visitors that rapidly became a torrent. After the last war easier foreign travel allowed people to bathe elsewhere causing Margate to lose many hotels & other amenities. Mods & rockers did not reverse that trend & Manston aerodrome enjoyed some notoriety with the USAF in residence. Successes included the Hovercraft service to Calais & the enlargement of Ramsgate harbour. Thanet's cliffs beaches & sea air remain attractive today though. This delightful book shows some of the changes. ...

VENICE ITALY. CITY OF SPLENDOUR. In October 1555 the Italian master Titian painted the portrait of Angelico Vespucci
- a Venetian
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OS Explorer Map is the Ordnance Surveys most detailed map & is recommended for anyone enjoying outdoor activities like walking horse riding & off-road cycling. Providing complete GB coverage the series details essential information such as youth hostels pubs & visitor information as well as rights of way permissive paths & bridleways. ...

OS Explorer Map is the Ordnance Surveys most detailed map & is recommended for anyone enjoying outdoor activities such as walking horse riding & off-road cycling. The series provides complete GB coverage & can now be used in all weathers thanks to OS Explorer Map
- Active a tough versatile version of the OS Explorer Map.
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OS Explorer Map is the Ordnance Survey's most detailed map & is recommended for anyone enjoying outdoor activities such as walking horse riding & off-road cycling. The series provides complete GB coverage & can now be used in all weathers thanks to OS Explorer Map
- Active a tough versatile version of the OS Explorer Map.
...

OS Explorer Map is the Ordnance Survey's most detailed map & is recommended for anyone enjoying outdoor activities like walking horse riding & off-road cycling. Providing complete GB coverage the series details essential information such as youth hostels pubs & visitor information as well as rights of way permissive paths & bridleways. ...

Across the Island houses forts castles & monuments have fallen victim to the passage of time. Sometimes the only clue that they ever existed is in a name Wilkes Street
- where John Wilkes had a seaside villa in Sandown or Nash Avenue
- where John Nash built his retirement home at East Cowes Castle. What did they look like & what stands there now? Contrasting a selection of forty-five outstanding archive images alongside stunning full-colour modern photographs this book reveals the changing face of the Islands towns & villages during the last century. Each picture is accompanied by a detailed caption bringing the past to life & describing many aspects of life on the Island including shops & business pubs & sports providing a vital record of vanished vistas & past practices. As well as delighting the many tourists who visit the Island The Isle of Wight Then & Now will provide present occupants with a nostalgic glimpse of how the Island used to be.

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Once renowned as a place to dump criminals & with a past steeped in smuggling the Isle of Wight provides copious tales of corruption violence & delinquency. From the customs officer who had both his hands severed by smugglers to Bembridge witch Molly Downer who embarrassed the vicar by making him her heir this book contains a vast array of misdeeds & miscreants. Featuring criminals such as Michael Morey who butchered his grandson & thirteen-year-old John Leigh who strangled his father & caught in the act by his sister threw her from a window Isle of Wight Villains details the darker side of this island paradise. ...

The bestselling & controversial new history of the British Isles including Ireland from the author of Europe: A History. Emphasizing our long-standing European connections & positing a possible break-up of the United Kingdom this is agenda-setting work is destined to become a classic. If ever a history book were a tract for the times it is The Isles: A History.. .a masterwork. Roy Porter The Times Davies is among the few living professional historians who write English with vitality sparkle economy & humour. The pages fly by not only because the pace is well judged but also because the surprises keep coming. Felipe Fernandez-Armesto Sunday Times A book which really will change the way we think about our past. marvellously rich & stimulating Noel Malcolm Evening Standard A historiographical milestone. Niall Ferguson Sunday Times The full shocking force of this book can only be appreciated by reading it. Andrew Marr Observer It is too soon to tell if [ Norman Davies] will become the Macaulay or Trevelyan of our day: that depends on the reading public. He has certainly made a good try. This is narrative history on the grand scale
- compulsively readable intellectually challenging & emotionally exhilirating. David Marquand Literary Review
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