Pendley has accumulated over 1,700 years of history - from: Ancient Britons and Romans, who settled this area at least some 1,700 years ago, to England's last great heathen King, the warlike and impressively vigorous, Penda, who seems to have given his name to this area, sired a child when he was aged 77 and died, in battle, aged 80; The Anglo-Saxon nun, Eddeva, via William the Conqueror's half-brother, Robert, to Sir Robert Whittingham, who demolished mediaeval Pendley and built the first manor house in its place; The Verneys and the sixteenth century's changeable politics to the Andersons, who facilitated the initially illicit union which was to produce US President, George Washington; The Harcourts who, in the end, didn't care about Pendley and let the old manor house be destroyed, and the trade-wealthy Grouts with their illegitimate heir, Lawrence Williams, who secured his family's fortune by marrying into his own family and then buying Pendley; His son, JG - supervisor of the building of the new manor house, a successful agriculturalist who also shepherded his brother's children and, so, secured the future of Pendley for a century - to Dorian, the last of the Williams' line at Pendley; The short-term ownership of David Evans and the Grass Roots Partnership to the current owner, Vinu Bhattessa, who's turned the place into a hotel and conference centre. Along the way, Pendley Manor acquired some peacocks, a famous Shakespeare Festival, a couple of ghosts and a host of stories. Many of these are unrecorded but some, at least, have come down to us through the ages - and these are told within this book.

As the great powers slugged it out in the world's first World War, more and more men were drawn into their nations' armies and sent to serve many miles from home. Stevenage, a quiet Hertfordshire town, became home to two military camps, the Royal Engineers Signal Camp, North Road and the New Zealand Reserve Signal Company depot. Told for the first time is the story of these two camps and especially of the New Zealand force, which became the largest contingent in the town. Why were German troops in Stevenage High Street?Just what were Maori warriors doing in the town?And was that really a German U-boat in the High Street? Lavishly illustrated with many previously unseen images of Stevenage at war, this book provides answers to these and many other questions, as well as telling the tragic story of New Zealand war veteran G.V.T. Moore, the only member of the force who remains in Stevenage today.

This book investigates the impact of the ever-changing story of William Wallace on Scottish national identity. Freed from the historian's bedrock of empiricism by a lack of corroborative sources, the biography of this short-lived late-medieval patriot has long been incorporated into the ideology of nationalism. It is to explain this assimilation, and to deconstruct the myriad ways that Wallace's biography has been endlessly refreshed as a national narrative, over many generations, that forms this investigation. William Wallace: A National Tale examines the elision of Wallace's after-life into narrative ascendency, dominating the ideology and politics of nationalism in Scotland. This narrative is conceptualised as the national tale, a term taken out of its literary moorings to scrutinise how the personal biography of a medieval patriot has been evoked and presented as the nation's biography over seven centuries of time. Through the verse of Blind Harry, the romance of Jane Porter, to the historical imaginations of Braveheart and Brave, Scotland's national tale has been forged. This is a fresh, engaging and timely exploration into Wallace's hold over Scotland's national mythology. It reappraises William Wallace as a national figure. It explores Wallace variously as: A Protestant, A Scottish Chief, A Romantic Hero, and a Hollywood Hero. It examines Scotland's obsession with the need for a national hero.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

A local history book for residents and ex-residents this book is the story of life in Swanscombe from Saxon times to the present day and the people who lived there, in old and new photographs.

This is the story of Salcombe through the eyes of the Murch family. Born and bred in the town for generations, and destined to change its face forever: James who was to become the town's largest employer constructing most of the buildings around the Estuary, and Frank - Lt. Cmdr. Francis Murch - who assumed responsibility for the safety of Salcombe in the dark days of the American build-up to D Day in 1944.