Tag: Persistence test

• Minted: were England’s mint towns still the big towns?

  

  Around the year 1000, every English penny named the town that struck it. I followed the 68 mint towns of Æthelred II forward to 1377, 1801 and 2021. 8 of the 10 biggest were still among England’s largest towns in 1377; Lydford, Cadbury and Torksey are villages now.

  Tristan Hotham

  Data stories

  Anglo-Saxons, Census, cities, Coins and hoards, Domesday, Early medieval, England, industry, medieval, Norman Conquest, Persistence test, population, Towns and cities

• Canal Mania: Did the Canal Towns Boom, and Do They Still Lead?

  

  England’s canal towns grew about 4.0 times over between 1801 and 1861. But they were rising before the canals came, and today they are bigger, not richer.

  Tristan Hotham

  Data stories

  Britain, Census, cities, England, Georgian, history, industry, Persistence test, Poverty and wealth, Present day, Towns and cities, Transport

• Cholera 1849: low ground, bad water and a long shadow

  

  In 1849 cholera killed 14,007 people in London. I rebuilt William Farr’s elevation law and John Snow’s water evidence from their own tables, mapped every death around the Broad Street pump, and found that the worst-hit districts of 1849 are not the poorest today.

  Tristan Hotham

  Data stories

  Britain, cities, Health and disease, history, London, Persistence test, population, Poverty and wealth, Present day, Victorian

• The Roman Commuter Belt?

  

  Roman villas and today’s richest neighbourhoods both crowd into the lowland south-east. I set 617 villas against household income across England and Wales: the villa premium is real at first sight, and almost all geography.

  Tristan Hotham

  Data stories

  archaeology, Britain, Chance test, England, history, Persistence test, Poverty and wealth, Present day, Roman, Romans, Wales

• Laid Waste: the Harrying of the North

  

  Domesday Book called hundreds of northern places waste after William the Conqueror’s Harrying of the North. I mapped them: Yorkshire was worth 35% of its 1066 value, the waste climbed the hills rather than the roads to York, and its scar on today’s map is faint.

  Tristan Hotham

  Data stories

  Britain, Domesday, Domesday Book, history, medieval, Norman Conquest, Northern England, Persistence test, Present day, war