Write for us

We welcome guest articles from people who know a town, a building type or a body of records well. You might be a local historian, an archivist, a guide, a conservator, a surveyor or a keen walker with a good notebook. What matters is that a reader finishes your piece able to see or find out something new.

What we would like

• Self-guided walks round a British town or a single street, built on evidence you have checked on foot.
• How to read a feature of old buildings: shopfronts, ghost signs, roofs, boot scrapers, chimneys, ironwork.
• How street patterns came about: market places, yards, courts, ginnels and wynds, town walls, canal and railway quarters.
• Practical guides to a record series or an archive method, such as rate books, trade directories or building control plans.
• Regional building materials and how to recognise them.
• Local history societies and community projects explained from the inside, with the lessons they learned.
• Accessibility on historic streets, and how to make a walk work for more people.

What we decline

• Listicles of "prettiest villages" and generic destination copy.
• Promotional pieces for hotels, tours, estate agents, window firms or building products.
• Anything about gambling, adult services, pharmaceuticals or crypto.
• Family trees with no wider interest, and legends retold without evidence.
• AI-generated or spun text, and work published elsewhere.

Length and style

Aim for 900 to 1,500 words in plain British English. Tell us early what the reader will be able to do afterwards. Give a source for each date, figure or claim about a named building, and link to pages a reader can open. If you describe a route, say whether it uses private land, steps or busy roads.

Original work and disclosure

• Your article must be your own original work, and not published anywhere else, in print or online.
• Tell us at the start about any commercial link, payment or client connected with the subject or with a link in the article. We label such pieces, and we may decline them.
• Outside links must help the reader. We can edit or remove any link, and we do not accept links to the kinds of site listed above.
• Do not include invented quotes, statistics or testimonials. We check, and we will ask where things came from.
• Photographs must be your own or clearly licensed for reuse, with the source and licence supplied.
• We edit for clarity and accuracy, and we will show you substantial changes before publishing.

How to pitch

Email [email protected] with the subject line "Pitch", and include:

1. your working title and two or three sentences on the argument or route;
2. the main sources you will use;
3. a line about why you are the person to write it, and a link to anything you have published;
4. any commercial connection, as above.

Please pitch before you write the whole thing. If you would like to see the sort of depth we aim for, try how to tell how old a building is or how to plan a town history walk.