Category: Data stories
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Sun and rain: the UK’s sunshine against its rainfall
Every square kilometre of the UK by sunshine and rainfall at once: sunny and dry, dull and wet, and the rare places that are both sunny and wet. Since 1961 to 1990 the country has become 5.6% sunnier and 7.2% wetter.
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When did your town last see a total eclipse?
London has seen one total eclipse of the Sun in 1,200 years. I computed every path of totality across Britain and Ireland from AD 1000 to 2200 and tested 17,103 places: for most towns the last one was in 1715 or 1724.
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Governing on the move: where England’s kings slept
Medieval government travelled with the king. I mapped King John and Edward I night by night from old printed itineraries: John moved on 42% of the days we can follow him, Edward on 23%, and Edward spent 841 nights at Westminster.
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The turnpike towns: did the turnpike make the town grow?
England’s 1,245 turnpike trusts were founded in a rush in the 1750s and 1760s, and 10,927 of their milestones and toll houses are still recorded. But did the towns on the turnpikes grow faster? Not that I can see.
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What’s the king on your postbox?
OpenStreetMap’s volunteers have read the royal cypher on 61,435 UK post boxes. 3,614 still carry Victoria’s VR, 143 the cypher of Edward VIII, and the mix on a town’s streets says something about when it was built.
