Hidden Heritage

Hidden Heritage Helping you connect with the past. We bring you historic stories from Britain and the rest of the world, from the Big Bang to the modern day.

Look closely at Blackfriars Bridge and you will discover that even its birds tell a story…The name Blackfriars comes fro...
14/09/2026

Look closely at Blackfriars Bridge and you will discover that even its birds tell a story…

The name Blackfriars comes from the black-cloaked Dominican friars whose medieval priory once stood nearby. The first bridge opened in 1769, a graceful Portland-stone crossing designed by the young Scottish architect Robert Mylne and originally named William Pitt Bridge.

By the Victorian period, structural problems and the demands of a rapidly expanding London had made a replacement necessary. The present bridge, designed by Joseph Cubitt and H. Carr, opened in 1869. Queen Victoria performed the ceremony, crossing its five elegant wrought-iron arches above the Thames.

Its most delightful details are easily missed. Carved into the Portland-stone capitals of the piers are birds created by sculptor John Birnie Philip. Those facing east, towards the sea, include seabirds and marine life, while those looking west feature freshwater birds, symbolising Blackfriars’ traditional position as the Thames’s tidal turning point.

Millions have crossed this bridge, yet how many have ever stopped to notice the stone “aviary” watching over the river?

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Hidden beneath Buckingham Palace: the everyday objects telling the story of palace lifeBuckingham Palace is famous for c...
14/09/2026

Hidden beneath Buckingham Palace: the everyday objects telling the story of palace life

Buckingham Palace is famous for crowns, chandeliers and priceless works of art, but some of its most revealing treasures have now been found beneath the floorboards.

During the huge restoration of the Palace, workers have uncovered a remarkable collection of lost and discarded objects dating from the Victorian era through to the late 20th century. Among them is a fragment of an Evening Standard newspaper from 1889 containing West End theatre listings, battered hobnail boots, old cigarette packets and unused Littlewoods football pools slips from 1957.

One particularly charming discovery is a sixpenny ticket for a Royal Household Social Club whist drive held at Buckingham Palace on 14 April 1949. Somehow, the little ticket had become embedded inside a lump of building material. At the time, George VI was King, Princess Elizabeth had been married to Prince Philip for less than 18 months, and the future King Charles III was just five months old.

Other finds include 1966 newspaper pages reporting on the Great Train Robbers in prison, instructions issued to palace staff for a 1977 Silver Jubilee diplomatic reception, a pewter tankard, an old Schweppes water bottle, Christmas cards and decorative Minton tiles whose design dates back to around the mid-19th century.

The discoveries have emerged during the Palace's decade-long £370 million reservicing programme, which began in 2017 and involves replacing ageing electrical wiring, plumbing and heating infrastructure. Around 1.2 miles of old Vulcanised Indian Rubber electrical cabling, which had become a potential fire risk, has already been removed.

Perhaps what makes these objects so fascinating is precisely how ordinary they are. Royal history is usually told through monarchs, ceremonies and great events, but a football pools coupon, a cigarette packet or a ticket for a staff card game gives us something different, a glimpse of the hundreds of ordinary people who worked behind the scenes inside one of the world's most famous buildings.

Who knows what else might still be hiding beneath Buckingham Palace's floorboards?

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For more than 900 years, the great red sandstone walls of Kenilworth Castle have witnessed rebellion, royal ambition, ro...
14/09/2026

For more than 900 years, the great red sandstone walls of Kenilworth Castle have witnessed rebellion, royal ambition, romance and destruction.

The first castle was established during the 1120s by Geoffrey de Clinton, chamberlain to King Henry I. Later strengthened by King John and protected by an enormous artificial lake, Kenilworth became one of England’s most formidable fortresses.

Its strength was tested in 1266, when rebels loyal to the fallen Simon de Montfort held the castle against the forces of Henry III. The siege continued for an extraordinary six months, making it one of the longest and most dramatic sieges in medieval English history.

Kenilworth was later transformed from a fortress into a magnificent palace. John of Gaunt created an imposing great hall and royal apartments, while Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, added luxurious buildings and gardens designed to impress Queen Elizabeth I during her celebrated visit in 1575.

After the English Civil War, Parliament ordered the castle to be made militarily useless. Parts of the keep and defensive walls were demolished in 1650, leaving the haunting ruins that survive today.

If you could see Kenilworth during just one moment in its past, would you choose the great siege of 1266 or Elizabeth I’s spectacular visit of 1575?

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High above the River Tamar stands a house that seems to have slipped through the centuries almost untouched.Cotehele in ...
14/09/2026

High above the River Tamar stands a house that seems to have slipped through the centuries almost untouched.

Cotehele in Cornwall was the ancestral home of the Edgcumbe family for nearly 600 years. They acquired the estate in 1353, when William Edgcumbe married its heiress, Hilaria de Cotehele.

The house took its present form after Richard Edgcumbe supported Henry Tudor against Richard III. He was knighted on the battlefield following Henry’s victory at Bosworth in 1485 and rewarded with wealth, land and important royal positions. This new status funded major building work at Cotehele, begun by Richard and continued by his son Piers into the early 16th century.

What makes Cotehele so remarkable is what did not happen to it. While countless medieval houses were remodelled to suit Georgian and Victorian fashions, the Edgcumbes deliberately preserved Cotehele as an ancient family showpiece. Its granite walls, slate roofs, shadowy passageways, great hall, tapestries, armour, pewter and dark oak furniture still create an atmosphere unlike almost anywhere else.

Not everything inside has remained exactly as it was in Tudor times, the family carefully arranged many of the rooms during the 18th century to evoke their romantic ancestral past, but the medieval fabric of the house survived extraordinarily well.

After the Second World War, Cotehele passed into the care of the National Trust. The Edgcumbe family regarded it as a memorial to Lieutenant Piers Edgcumbe, who had been killed near Dunkirk in 1940.

Have you ever visited Cotehele, and did it feel as though you had stepped back into Tudor England?

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On this day in 1947, Sam Neill was born in Omagh, Northern Ireland, beginning a life that would take him halfway around ...
14/09/2026

On this day in 1947, Sam Neill was born in Omagh, Northern Ireland, beginning a life that would take him halfway around the world and eventually onto some of cinema’s most memorable sets.

Today would have been his 79th birthday, and poignantly it is the first since his death in July.

Neill moved with his family to New Zealand as a child and went on to become one of the country’s most internationally recognised actors. His career stretched across more than five decades, from his breakthrough performances in Sleeping Dogs and My Brilliant Career to Dead Calm, The Hunt for Red October, The Piano, Event Horizon and Peaky Blinders.

But for millions, he will forever be Dr Alan Grant, the level-headed palaeontologist suddenly confronted with very real dinosaurs in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park in 1993. It became the role that introduced Neill to an enormous worldwide audience, and one he would return to decades later.

Off screen, Neill became almost as well known for his dry humour, New Zealand vineyard and affection for the animals on his farm. His warmth and understated personality made him a particularly well-loved figure far beyond his film roles.

Born 14 September 1947. Died 13 July 2026.

Happy 79th birthday, Sam Neill. 🎂

What was your favourite Sam Neill performance, Jurassic Park, Peaky Blinders, The Piano, or something else?

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14/09/2026

Seventy-five years ago, one of post-war Britain’s greatest industrial projects opened here in Hampshire.

On 14 September 1951, Prime Minister Clement Attlee officially opened Fawley Refinery on Southampton Water. Around 6,000 guests attended the unveiling of the £37.5 million, 450-acre complex, then the largest oil refinery in Europe and capable of supplying roughly a third of Britain’s petrol needs.

Britain was still rebuilding after the Second World War and facing uncertainty over overseas oil supplies. Fawley represented jobs, modern engineering and greater energy security, helping to fuel the cars, lorries, aircraft and industries of a changing nation.

This remarkable film was made in 1953, two years after the opening. It captures oil being pumped ashore from a tanker, vast networks of pipes, towering chimneys and flare stacks burning above a refinery that would provide livelihoods for generations of Waterside families.

Did you or someone in your family work at Fawley, and what memories do you have of the refinery?

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The day the Daily Herald disappearedOn this day in 1964, one of the great names of the British popular press reached the...
14/09/2026

The day the Daily Herald disappeared

On this day in 1964, one of the great names of the British popular press reached the end of the road. The final edition of the Daily Herald appeared on 14 September, bringing more than half a century of newspaper history to a close.

Its beginnings could hardly have been more different from the newspaper empires of Fleet Street. The Herald grew out of a 1911 printers' strike bulletin before becoming a daily paper associated closely with the trade union and Labour movement. At its height it was enormously successful: in 1933 it became the world's top-selling popular daily newspaper, with certified net sales of around two million copies.

But by the 1950s and early 1960s, falling circulation and difficulties attracting advertising were taking their toll. Its owners, IPC, decided that rather than simply reviving the Herald, they would give it an entirely new identity.

So when readers went to the newsagents the following morning, 15 September 1964, the Daily Herald had gone.

In its place was a new newspaper called The Sun.

And this was certainly not yet the Sun most people know today. It was a broadsheet, owned by IPC, with the slogan “A Paper Born of the Age We Live In”. Its first print run was an extraordinary 3.5 million copies.

Rupert Murdoch would not buy the struggling newspaper until 1969, when he transformed it into the tabloid that became one of Britain's biggest-selling papers.

For generations who had grown up with the Daily Herald, however, 14 September 1964 marked the disappearance of a familiar voice from British newsstands.

Do you remember the Daily Herald, or the original 1960s Sun before Murdoch took it over?

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Born on this day in 1927, Janet Davies, the actress forever remembered by millions as the wonderfully patient Mrs Pike i...
14/09/2026

Born on this day in 1927, Janet Davies, the actress forever remembered by millions as the wonderfully patient Mrs Pike in Dad’s Army.

Born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, Davies had already built up a solid career in theatre and television before joining the cast of Dad’s Army in 1968. As Mavis Pike, the protective mother of the rather naïve Private Frank Pike, she became an important part of the series’ much-loved Walmington-on-Sea world.

Mrs Pike was also famously close to Sergeant Wilson, although the exact nature of their relationship was one of the programme’s running jokes. Her constant concern for Frank helped produce some classic moments, particularly whenever Captain Mainwaring became exasperated by “that stupid boy”.

Away from Dad’s Army, Davies appeared in numerous television productions, including Dixon of Dock Green, Z-Cars and The Liver Birds, but it is Mrs Pike for which she remains best remembered.

Sadly, Janet Davies died in 1986 at the age of just 58. Had she still been with us, she would have been 99 today.

Nearly sixty years after Dad’s Army first appeared on television, Mrs Pike remains one of those supporting characters who helped turn a successful sitcom into a genuine piece of British television history.

What is your favourite Mrs Pike moment from Dad’s Army?

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New York before the skyscrapers, Trinity Church rising above Wall Street, around 1870.Completed in 1846 and designed by ...
14/09/2026

New York before the skyscrapers, Trinity Church rising above Wall Street, around 1870.

Completed in 1846 and designed by Richard Upjohn, this Gothic Revival masterpiece was the third church built on the site. Its 281-foot spire dominated Manhattan’s skyline and remained the tallest structure in New York City until 1890.

The scene is almost unrecognisable today. Long before Wall Street became a canyon of steel and glass, its cobbled roadway was lined with modest buildings, shopfronts and gas lamps, while Trinity Church stood proudly above them all.

Its historic churchyard contains the graves of several notable Americans, including founding father Alexander Hamilton. Remarkably, the church still stands amid the modern towers of Lower Manhattan.

Would you have preferred Wall Street as it appeared then, or as it looks today?

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Born on this day in 1936, Terence Donovan, the East End boy whose camera helped define the look of Swinging London.Born ...
14/09/2026

Born on this day in 1936, Terence Donovan, the East End boy whose camera helped define the look of Swinging London.

Born into a working-class family in East London, Donovan became fascinated by photography while still a child. He began training in photo-engraving at just 11, later worked as an assistant to leading fashion photographer John French, and by 1959 had opened his own studio. He was only 22.

What made Donovan different was where he pointed his camera. Instead of keeping fashion models inside immaculate studios, he took them into the streets, bomb-damaged buildings, power stations and industrial corners of London. The grit of the East End became part of the glamour. His stark black-and-white photographs looked less like traditional fashion shoots and more like scenes caught from real life.

Alongside David Bailey and Brian Duffy, Donovan became one of the three photographers nicknamed the “Black Trinity”. Together they helped overturn the old establishment style of British fashion photography and became celebrities in their own right. Donovan went on to photograph everyone from Twiggy and Jimi Hendrix to Diana, Princess of Wales, while also becoming a prolific director of commercials and music videos, including Robert Palmer’s unforgettable Addicted to Love.

Terence Donovan died in 1996, aged just 60. Had he lived, he would have celebrated his 90th birthday today.

A working-class lad from East London who ended up teaching the world how Swinging London should look.

Which photographer best captured the 1960s for you Donovan, Bailey or Duffy?

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