Between midnight on 6 June (D-Day) and 30 June 1944 an Allied invasion force of over 850,000 troops landed on France’s Normandy beaches, together with nearly 150,000 vehicles and 570,000 tons of supplies. ‘Operation Overlord’, as the almost three month campaign was known, was supported by a massive airborne assault and the deployment of 7,000 vessels, known as ‘Operation Neptune’. D-Day was the start of the long campaign to liberate occupied north-west Europe, leading to the eventual Allied defeat ofRead more

6 June 2019 marks the 75th anniversary of D-Day, code-named Operation Overlord, when Allied forces launched the greatest land, air and naval operation in history – a massive amphibious assault to retake Nazi-occupied France during the Second World War.   156,000 soldiers – British, American, Commonwealth and other allied troops – landed on the beaches of Normandy, together with thousands of vehicles and tons of supplies. The seaborne attack – Operation Neptune – involved nearly 7,000 vessels, including warships, destroyers,Read more

A rare survival from a dramatic stage in the Industrial Revolution, Shrewsbury Flaxmill was built during a period of innovation and social upheaval.Read more

Queen Victoria was born on 24 May 1819 and to celebrate the bicentenary of her birth we’re looking at some of the historic places named after her; from pubs to parks, streets to statues and even a phantom city.  The Victorian age Perceptions of Queen Victoria’s legacy change with each generation and historians are frequently busting cliché’s about her. Whatever your views on Victoria and her era, particularly in the latter part of her reign, she was held in great affectionRead more

Over the centuries soldiers and Prisoners of War (POWs), have left personal expressive art on the places where they lived or served. These murals, cartoons and graffiti were often subversive, humorous, risque, nostalgic or decorative. Some were tolerated by military authorities in the interests of morale, and others were officially sanctioned.Read more