Downend
Local History Society
Richard Randall writes
The Emersons of Emersons Green - Joan Ashley
I remember quite recently the Committee being outraged at a map showing Emersons Green, but excluding the ancient village of Mangotsfield! This provoked a letter of strong protest about the omission and therefore it was of great interest to learn how Emersons Green acquired its name in the first place. Joan Ashley did a splendid job of researching and deciphering wills of the Emerson family, not helped, we suspect, by the recurring family names. It turns out they were yeoman farmers with properties at Horton, Cold Ashton and Mangotsfield, hence the connection with this area. However, one feels the prominence of the name owes more to developers and estate agents, rather than the eminence of the family.
Red Roofs and Green Gables - David Eveleigh
The speaker said he felt out of his comfort zone with this talk, however, it did not show, and his audience felt very comfortable indeed! The building 'boom' between the wars seemed much gentler than the one that happened post war, and provided the familiar surroundings in which many of us grew up. The appearance of styles and items of the period brought appreciative murmurs around the hall, and contributed to what turned out to be an evening of pure nostalgia.
NEWS
Avon Local History and Archaeology
Local History Study Day 15th March 2008 at St. Matthias campus, Fishponds.
This year's Study Day is entitled City, Village: Suburb? and costs £9.50 per person, £6.00 for members of ALHA and affiliated groups, including DLHS. For details, go to the ALHA web site, then to Services.
News from South Gloucestershire Council
Online Library Information Sources available to members of South Gloucestershire libraries.
- Dictionary of National Biography – this site contains 50,000 lives and 60 million words. In book form it occupies 60 volumes! You can searh by a variety of methods, including place name, subject and name.
- Xrefer – this site allows you to search 100 reference books including the Dictionary of British History and the Companion to British History
- Newspapers online – on this site you can search The Times, Guardian, Observer and Sunday Times from January 1998 and the Western Daily Press and the Bristol Evening Post from 1999 onwards.
The web pages for accessing these resources is www.southglos.gov.uk/libraries, and they are available at all times, using your library card number.