Today, whilst toodling around this here InterWeb thing, I happened upon a surprisingly good website on Historic Cleveland (the UK “county”, not the US city.) On it, I found the diaries of North Yorkshire landowner and businessman, Ralph Jackson, and a concise and yet wonderfully informative timeline.
As is so often the way, I learned a few things that I didn’t previously know and “coloured in” a few facts of which I was already aware — such as:
- We have a stone circle at Commondale, dating from the Neolithic period (3500-1700 BC.)
- The fort on Eston Nab (I look up at Eston Nab as I write this) was Bronze Age (1700-600 BC.)
- “In the mid-1300s [BC] the Black Death and floods ravage North Yorkshire.”
- Tocketts Mill dates from Medieval (1066 to 1500) times.
- “Natural disasters hit Cleveland in the mid-eighteenth century. Food shortages in the Great Winter of 1739-40 lead to riots, rinderpest epidemic closed cattle markets for up to six years, floods and frequent outbreaks of smallpox, cholera and typhus.”
- In the 1800s, “Stokesley is a centre for printing and publishing (Braithwaite, Pratt, Tweddell) but by the end of the century has lost much of its commercial importance.”
I’ve never written an historical novel but…
I like what I’ve read on this website. I’m going to link you. You’re free to do the same if you want.
Thanks.
Chris
Cheers, Chris — consider yourself linked to.
Thanks Gary, great site you have here.
Funnily enough, I recently found a long list of “Things You Never Knew About Cardiff”, and discovered that Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show came here in the 19th Century. The American Indians camped out in Sofia Gardens, and Annie Oakley did a little sharp shooting. Not just that, but Bob Hope’s parents got married here, apparently.
Now if only I can find some way of linking the two in a historical novel…
Chris: Thank you — really glad you like it.
David: If you manage it, I’ll buy it! Sounds like a bestseller to me 😉
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