England's Past For Everyone

Begun in 1899, on-line in 2001, the Victoria History of the Counties of England (VCH) has moved steadily towards the magnificent ambition of its founders to tell the story of England’s towns and villages county by county over two thousand years. Volumes on Cambridgeshire, Essex, Gloucestershire and the East Riding will be published in 2001-02; further volumes to a new design will follow on Burton-on-Trent, Chester, Northamptonshire, Somerset, Sussex and Wiltshire in 2002-03. The VCH staff are dedicated and energetic. The story they tell is one of colonisation and settlement, of growth and sometimes decline, of social and gender order, of work, custom, responsibility and of local politics.