Tag: data visualisation

• Did fairy belief protect Ireland’s ringforts?

  

  Ireland’s 31,431 ringforts are fairy forts that it was unlucky to disturb. I set them against barrows, enclosures and moated sites: the fairies left few fingerprints.

  Tristan Hotham

  Data stories

  Ireland, maps, data visualisation, folklore, open data, ringforts, fairy forts, archaeology

• Haunted, or just old? What Britain’s ghost stories say about its buildings

  

  I set 260 reportedly haunted places against Britain’s 40,409 most important listed buildings. Haunted buildings are barely older than their kind, but castles are 9 times and inns 9 times as common among them, and churches almost vanish.

  Tristan Hotham

  Data stories

  British history, castles, data visualisation, folklore, ghosts, haunted places, listed buildings, pubs

• Giants in the landscape: did people explain big things with big people?

  

  I gathered 331 giant places in Britain and Ireland, from Giant’s Graves to Gog Magog. Giants own graves, not mountains, and Ireland’s 212 Giant’s Graves are no bigger or more prominent than the tombs around them.

  Tristan Hotham

  Data stories

  data visualisation, folklore, giants, hill figures, Ireland, maps, megalithic tombs, place names

• Great Fires: Did the Towns That Burned Rebuild Bigger?

  

  I read every fire in Wikipedia’s town articles and found 102 great town fires, 63% of them in the 1600s and 1700s. Three centuries on, the towns that burned are neither clearly bigger nor richer.

  Tristan Hotham

  Data stories

  Census 2021, data visualisation, Georgian towns, great fires, history, maps, market towns, open data

• Rotten Boroughs: Where Are They Now?

  

  Before 1832 Gatton had 7 voters and two MPs while Manchester had none. I mapped all 56 boroughs the Reform Act abolished: today 25 are villages, a hamlet or an empty hill.

  Tristan Hotham

  Data stories

  Census 2021, Cornwall, data visualisation, elections, history, maps, Reform Act 1832, rotten boroughs