Four years ago this week, I started this blog.  So it’s my Blogiversary! And time for me to indulge a little by reflecting back on the last few years of this blog.

Way back when, the purpose of my blog was to write about my research into the Essex town of Great Dunmow during the turbulent reigns of Henry VIII and his three children.  I had spent the previous two years pouring over documents written five hundred years ago looking at religion and society in this rural parish within Essex in order to achieve my MSt Local History from Cambridge University.

A page from Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts. This is the main source used in my dissertation for Cambridge University’s Master of Studies in Local History.  The title of my dissertation was  the not-so nattily titled “Religion and Society in Great Dunmow, Essex circa 1520 to circa 1560“

I decided on my blog’s name, Essex Voices Past, because I wanted my readers to be able to engage in the past and hear (figuratively speaking!) voices from the towns and villages of Essex.  However, since those early days of my blog, I now seem to be writing about towns in other counties within the East of England, such as Hertfordshire and Suffolk.  Perhaps I should have called my blog “The East of England Voices Past“!

Since I first started my blog back in 2012, my writings and my research have changed direction. Long before I started to research Tudor history, I had a lifelong passion for genealogy, local history, the First World War and vintage postcards.  I am very fortunate that over the last couple of years I have been able to professionally indulge in those passions and combine my obsessions to produce a number of history books for Amberley Publishing.  Unfortunately this has meant that my posts on this blog have decreased dramatically.  I still spend all my time researching and writing, but now my output is in book format.

To-date, I have three local history books to my name.

Click on the picture to purchase my book

Click on the picture to purchase my book

Click on the picture to purchase my book

This year, I am in the process of writing three further books for Amberley Publishing.  One book on the messages written on postcards from the First World War, and two more books on towns and villages in Essex.
– Postcards from the Front: 1914-1919
– Billericay and Around Through Time
– Brentwood and Around Through Time

My 10 most viewed posts over the last 12 months are as follows:-
– A pinch and a punch for the first of the month, and no returns
– Witchcraft and Witches in Elizabethan Essex
– School Trip Friday: Of cabbages and kings
– The sugar beet factor of Felsted/Little Dunmow
– Reformation wills and religious bequests
– Thomas Bowyer, weaver and martyr of Great Dunmow
– Bringing home the bacon – the Dunmow Flitch of Bacon Factory
– Images of Medieval Cats
– The Hidden Treasures of Essex
– Berbice House School, Great Dunmow

I will be continuing to write on this blog, but, as I said this time last year, probably not as frequently as previously.

Thank you for indulging me and allowing me to reflect on my year’s writing.

Kate Cole – The Narrator
Essex Voices Past
January 2016

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2016.