October 2020

The third of Dr. Woodward’s (s.p.b.s) six 17th century topographers, John Ogilby (1600 – 1676), is shown in the portrait above. Ogilby had a varied career, his topographical work Britannia being published late in his life. Of Scottish birth he trained originally as a dancer and later became a theatrical entrepreneur in Ireland. On his […]

Richard Blome (1635-1705) is Dr. Woodward’s fourth travel writer (s.p.b.s), his description of Hull and Holderness being taken from his publication of 1673 Britannia, or a Geographical Description of the Kingdom of England, Scotland and Ireland. One of the points Blome made was that Hull’s trade ‘being inferiour to none in England except London and

The third travelogue writer chosen by Dr, Woodward (Descriptions of East Yorkshire: Leland to Defoe (E.Y.L.H.S., 1985) was John Evelyn (1620-1706) who briefly visited Hull during the Commonwealth era of the 1650s. Evelyn was a royalist sympathiser who had escaped to the continent during the Civil Wars, 1642-1651. He was born into a wealthy family

Camden’s name not only survives in the context of his authorship but also in the name of a society and in the name of a London borough. William Camden’s two best remembered publications are Brittania and Annals (short version of the full title). The former was first published in 1586, then written in latin, and

William Camden, 1551 – 1623, is the second travelogue writer quoted in Descriptions of East Yorkshire: Leland to Defoe (E.Y.L.H.S., 1985) and surely the only one to have a London borough named after him (see later). A friend and supporter of Elizabeth I, Camden published a history of her reign in the later years of

The ‘tours’ (towers) Leland refers to may have been simply showy pieces of domestic architecture, after all what could have been more ‘showy’ than an eye-catching tower rising well above the general roofline. However, there may have more prosaic purposes. For example, they would have enabled the ‘Old Harbour’ and the middle Humber Estuary to