Photo: Steve Daniels, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
How to plan your own town history walk
A self-guided route needs an old map, a sense of the medieval plan and a short list of stops you have checked on foot.
The trail board
All stops
Every article, numbered in the order we would walk them. Each one stands by itself too.
Photo: Christopher Hilton, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
How to tell how old a building is from the street
Brick bonds, window panes and date stones will give you a rough period from the pavement. They will not give you a year.
Photo: Kim Traynor, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Are bricked-up windows really from the window tax?
Some were, and many were not. How the tax worked between 1696 and 1851, and how to judge a blank window for yourself.
Photo: Christine Matthews, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Who gets a blue plaque, and who decides?
London's official scheme has strict rules: 20 years dead, a surviving building, and a long wait. Plenty of round plaques follow none of them.
Photo: Keith Evans, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Listed building grades: what I, II* and II mean
Grades show relative importance. They do not change what is protected, and a listing nearly always covers the inside as well.
Map: Cotterells & Cooper, Surveyors, Bath, Somerset, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
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How to research the history of your house
Start at the local archive, then work backwards: the 1939 Register, the census, the 1910 valuation and tithe maps.