Hampshire during the English Civil War was a pretty miserable place. Looting was rife and the population politically divided and plagued by disease. Into this gloomy scene came the London rope-maker William Franklin, a self-proclaimed Messiah, who set up camp in Andover in 1649 with his female companion Mary Gadbury. Was he a visionary or a blasphemer? Local historian Alex Beeton talks to Julie Dypdal about this fascinating tale, the fluctuating fortunes of Franklin and his band of followers and the light this shines on society at the time.

On our website you will find more information about this episode including our fantastic show notes and a downloadable version of the transcript; visit our website by clicking here

On Sundays and feast days and in times of celebration and mourning bells ring out from Hampshire’s churches, abbeys and cathedrals to mark the occasion. It’s a practice that has continued since Saxon times, but where are the county’s oldest church bells which once rang to sound the curfew, or to remind households to cover their fires overnight? And where were they made? 

Phil Watts, Bells Advisor for the Winchester diocese reveals all to Cathy Booth in this fascinating heritage podcast as he tells the stories of Hampshire’s extraordinary bells and shares how has bell ringing changed over the centuries.

On our website you will find more information about this episode including photographs, our fantastic show notes and a downloadable version of the transcript; visit our website by clicking here

May 12th is International Nurses’ Day and in this podcast we celebrate the life of one of Hampshire’s most influential Victorians, the nurse and campaigner Florence Nightingale. From her home at Embley Park near Romsey, she set off for the Crimean War where she introduced pioneering hygiene measures that saved countless lives and established a template for modern nursing. Her ‘Wash your Hands’ message has never been more relevant.

Julie Dypdal talks to local artist Sophie Hacker about the stained glass window she created for Romsey Abbey to mark Florence Nightingale’s bicentenary last year, and Florence’s lasting legacy in the county and beyond.

For more information, including show notes and a transcript, please visit our website: https://www.winchesterheritageopendays.org/hampshire-histbites-episodes

Please note this is the final episode of Season 3. We will be returning in June with Season 4.

Among the treasures on display in Winchester Cathedral is the ancient Sigmund Stone, excavated from the remains of the Saxon cathedral on the same site. Carved on this stone fragment is a scene from the Old Norse Volsunga Saga, a compendium of tales that provide a window into the treacherous and brutal Viking world. Aisha Al-Sadie, Learning Officer at the cathedral, takes us back to the time of wolves and forests, great feasts and bloody battles as she narrates a story of King Volsung and his feud with the dastardly King Siggeir.

The Sigmund Stone is on display in the Kings and Scribes exhibition in Winchester Cathedral, which will be open to the public from May 17th, subject to government guidelines. See winchester-cathedral.org.uk for more information.

For more information, including show notes and a transcript, please visit our website: https://www.winchesterheritageopendays.org/hampshire-histbites-episodes

Please note this is the penultimate episode of Season 3. On 12th May the final Season 3 episode will be released and then there will be a short break of around 4 weeks whilst we prepare the next Season. 

Hampshire-based explorer John Pilkington continues his travelogue, recounting to Emily Briffett how a childhood love of maps led to his wanderings in far flung corners of the globe. Here he regales us with tales of tracing dinosaur footprints in Bolivia, witnessing the birth of post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, getting stranded in Antarctica, tracking down Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and becoming the first European to visit the source of Mekong River.

For more information, including show notes and a transcript, please visit our website: https://www.winchesterheritageopendays.org/hampshire-histbites-episodes

Inveterate traveller John Pilkington talks about following the trail of Marco Polo along the ancient Silk Road to China, where he discovers a surprising link between Suzhou, the Venice of the East, and Hampshire’s Whitchurch Silk Mill. Among the highlights of his travels, he tells Emily Briffett, are his travels among nomadic people in Afghanistan and traversing high mountain ranges between Pakistan and China along the Karakoram Highway. En route he meets many challenges, including offerings of rancid yak butter tea and battles with obstinate camels.

For more information, including show notes and a transcript, please visit our website: https://www.winchesterheritageopendays.org/hampshire-histbites-episodes

St Swithun’s archivist Elly Crookes talks to Julie Dypdal about the school’s eventful history and its fascinating archives-which include letters from Christina Rosetti and William Wilberforce.

Educating girls wasn’t a priority in Victorian England but the pioneering founders of St Swithun’s School in Winchester helped to change that in Hampshire. 

By the end of the 19th century its female pupils were studying not just reading and writing but science, economics, engineering and money management. A feisty spirit was encouraged among pupils: when school buildings were requisitioned for troops during the two world wars, the girls played and beat Canadian soldiers at lacrosse and taught GIs to play cricket. 


For more information, including show notes and a transcript, please visit our website: https://www.winchesterheritageopendays.org/hampshire-histbites-episodes

What was life like for women in Emperor Nero’s court? This knotty issue is just one of the preoccupations of Carey Fleiner, senior lecturer in Classical and Early Medieval studies at the University of Winchester. 

In this episode Dr Fleiner talks to Ingrid Tofteng about Nero’s wives, Pompeii and the Vesuvius eruption of 1944-and how the influence of the Roman Empire has reached down through the centuries. Along the way we hear about Carey’s work behind the scenes at the British Museum and the joy of living in Winchester, where echoes of the Roman world lie just beyond her back door.

This episode was  first recorded by students of Cultural Heritage and Resource Management masters course in coordination with the University of Winchester for Heritage Open Days 2020, and has been re-edited specially for us as a podcast.

For more information, including show notes and a transcript, please visit our website: https://www.winchesterheritageopendays.org/hampshire-histbites-episodes

If you find yourself on St Giles Hill or walking along Chesil Street in Winchester, listen out for the ghostly whistle of a steam train or the clang of a signal bell. 

Here, at the foot of St Giles Hill, was Cheese Hill (later Chesil) Station, opened in 1885 as a stop on the ill-starred Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway line. From here Hampshire strawberries were carried to London, race horses to Newbury and thousands of troops to Southampton to embark on journeys to the Western Front, and, later, the Normandy beaches. The line closed in the1960s, but tantalising fragments of station and railway remain. 

Winchester tourist guide Clare Dixon talks to Julie Dypdal about the history of the railway, and takes us on a podcast tour of the bridges and buildings, tunnel and viaduct that still form part of the Winchester landscape.

For more information, including show notes and a transcript, please visit our website: https://www.winchesterheritageopendays.org/hampshire-histbites-episodes

How will future generations regard the Covid-19 pandemic and the way it changed our lives? Here in Hampshire, Zoe Viney of Wessex Film & Sound Archive  run by and based at Hampshire Record Office in Winchester is helping to create a record of local life in lockdown through the project Making History: Making Movies.

In this latest episode she talks to Eleanor Andrews-Steele about her work curating historic film and invites us all to participate in the project by recording our personal experiences of the good, the bad and the boring aspects of life amid a pandemic. 

For more information about how to submit your memories, please visit our website: https://www.winchesterheritageopendays.org/hampshire-histbites-episodes. You will also find our more detailed show notes and a transcript here