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  • SHS Conference 2024 Part 2

    This is the second in a series of three posts about the SHS conference in Durham. Day 2 broke dull and damp, but breakfast was excellent, and afterwards I wandered down in the rain to the venue for the first panel. I had planned to go to one of the panels with two early modern…

  • SHS Conference 2024 Part 1

    It’s been a busy spring and summer. This is the first in a short series of posts about the Social History Society Conference in Durham. At the beginning of July it was off to Durham for the Social History Society Conference. I drove up, because the trains would have taken me twice as long and…

  • Ravenscroft’s Brentford Catch

    This afternoon I spent a thoroughly enjoyable hour with my family recording Thomas Ravenscroft’s catch about Brentford for a colleague who is going to give a talk there next month. The term catch is interchangeable with what is now the more familiar name, ’round’ – the word used to describe simple, popular songs like Frere…

  • Sound Faith Conference 2024 Part 5

    This is the fifth and last in a series of short posts about the Sound Faith: Religion and the Acoustic World 1400-1800 conference at the University of York from 12-14 June 2024. The final panel was ‘The Soundscape of the English Parish Church and Beyond’, chaired by Ros Oates. It opened with a very engaging online paper…

  • Sound Faith Conference 2024 Part 4

    This is the fourth in a series of short posts about the Sound Faith: Religion and the Acoustic World 1400-1800 conference at the University of York from 12-14 June 2024. Day 2 started with Panel 5: The Sound of Manuscript and Print in which I was speaking with Katherine Butler (Northumbria University) and Alexander Fisher (University…