For National Limerick Day, we would like to highlight perhaps our tiniest archive. It is National Limerick Day this month because it’s the 214th birthday of Edward Lear. He was the English artist, author and poet who popularised limericks in his 1846 Book of Nonsense published for children. With this in mind, we took a...

Today, 16th of May, marks 380 years exactly since the supposedly humiliating surrender of Hartlebury Castle during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (also known as the English Civil War). This event in 1646 was recorded by a single contemporary commentator, Henry Townshend of Elmely Lovett. He recorded that it was a place “which put...

On 23rd April 1932, during the F.A. Cup final between Newcastle United and Arsenal, a refereeing decision would create controversy and change the result of the game. The referee, one W. P. Harper of Stourbridge, allowed an equalising goal for Newcastle that appeared to go out of play before ending in the net. Newcastle would...