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University of London, School of Advanced Study, Institute of Historical Research

The Victoria County History (VCH) was founded in 1899 and dedicated to Queen Victoria. It was created to produce an encyclopaedic national history in a series of volumes which cover, county by county, and parish by parish, the general and detailed history of England from earliest times to the present. Fourteen county sets have been completed; work is in progress on a further thirteen.

When complete, the VCH will record the authentic factual history of every city, town and village in England. All the information in the VCH is compiled by professional historians, based in the counties they are researching, who work systematically from original historical documents. From this research they write the history of the town, parish, or individual theme which is to appear in their next county volume. The completed work is edited at the VCH's central office, housed in the University of London's Institute of Historical Research.

Each county is introduced by chapters on general topics such as prehistory, ecclesiastical history and economic history. Some of our volumes date from the turn of the 20th century and not only provide a comprehensive history of each parish, but also a unique snapshot of life as it was at the time the volume was published – VCH Lancashire, volume II, for example, tells of the popular sport of ‘whippet racing' and the section covering industry provides a comprehensive article on the ‘Sea Fisheries' of Lancashire (the volume was published in 1908). Natural historians have used the botany sections to find out what trees were growing in England a 100 years ago.

Most of each county history is devoted to short histories of a group of about 20 parishes, arranged by hundreds, which give the reader a comprehensive, fully referenced account of each city, town, and village in the county.

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Complete sets of county volumes may be found in the following bookshops:

Oxfordshire

Blackwell's
48-51 Broad Street
Oxford OX1 3BQ
Tel: 01865 792792
Fax: 01865 794143

Church Green Books
46 Market Square
Witney
Oxon OX28 6AL
Tel: 01993 700822

Staffordshire

Picture Book
6 Stanley Street
Leek
Staffordshire
ST13 5HG

Tel: 01538 384337
Fax: 01538 399696
www.leekbooks.co.uk

Darlington volumes

Waterstone's
1-3 Cornmill Centre
Darlington DL1 1LS
Tel: 01325 465666
Fax: 01325 465888

Cheshire volumes

Gildas Books
2 City Walls
Northgate
Chester CH1 2JG
Tel: 01244 311910

 

All volumes in print may be ordered from your bookseller or in case of difficulty from Boydell & Brewer Ltd