The English Heritage Podcast

A day out at the seaside is still a summertime staple for many British families. From fish and chips on the promenade to a classic 99, messing about in rock pools and trying your luck on the 2p machines, there's so much nostalgia and tradition wrapped up in a day out by the sea. But what started our love affair with the seaside holiday? As with so many things, the Victorians had a big part to play.



Join Amy and guests English Heritage's Dr Andrew Hann and Dr Allan Brodie of Bournemouth University as they go back to where it all began. A trip to the coast was a trend that crossed class boundaries, attracting everyone from the royal household and landed gentry to factory workers and office clerks. Along the way, uncover the surprising reasons the Victorians flocked to the beaches and how their passion for sea air, bathing and leisure helped shape the great British holiday we still enjoy today. After all, everybody decided they liked to be beside the seaside.



You can watch our coastal series as well as listen to it - either on Spotify or go to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/EnglishHeritage

Don’t forget to follow this podcast wherever you get your podcasts and leave a review if you love the show.

Join English Heritage: ⁠https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/join/⁠ 

Podcast listeners can get 20% off the first year of an annual membership. Use code POD20 at checkout.*   

Support our work: ⁠https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/support-us/⁠    

The English Heritage Trust is a charity, no. 1140351, and a limited company, no. 07447221, registered in England and Wales.   

*Offer is available through the use of this code and valid for new memberships by annual Direct Debit only. It cannot be used in conjunction with any other promotion, on life memberships or renewals.

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Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, join host Amy Matthews and Howard Spencer, English Heritage senior historian for blue plaques, Judith Garfield MBE, executive director of Eastside Community Heritage, and Sumita Mukherjee, historian at the University of Bristol, as they celebrate the unveiling of London’s 1,035th English Heritage blue plaque, dedicated to the remarkable Kamal Chunchie.

After arriving from Sri Lanka, Chunchie joined the British Army and later undertook missionary and outreach work, with special responsibility
for missionary work among Black and Asian sailors of the dockland area.
He spent over 30 years supporting marginalised Black and Asian sailors
and their families as they faced poverty and prejudice in the East End
dockyards.

Installed at his former workplace, the Queen Victoria Seamen’s Rest in Poplar, the plaque formally honours Chunchie's legacy as a pioneering pastor and anti-racist community activist.

Join English Heritage: ⁠https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/join/⁠

Podcast listeners can get 20% off the first year of an annual membership. Use code POD20 at checkout.*   

Support our work: ⁠https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/support-us/⁠    

The English Heritage Trust is a charity, no. 1140351, and a limited company, no. 07447221, registered in England and Wales.   

*Offer is available through the use of this code and valid for new memberships by annual Direct Debit only. It cannot be used in conjunction with any other promotion, on life memberships or renewals.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What it is about our cliffs, beaches, islands and headlands that makes them so perfect for pilgrimage, prayer and retreat? In the fourth of our special series on Britain’s coastline, join Amy and English Heritage curators Susan Harrison and Jeremy Ashbee for a spiritual seaside journey. From the Holy Island of Lindisfarne to St Catharine’s Chapel near Chesil Beach and plenty of places in between, they explore why the shoreline has been such an important part of our religious history.

You can watch our coastal series as well as listen to it - either on Spotify or go to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/EnglishHeritage

Don’t forget to follow this podcast wherever you get your podcasts and leave a review if you love the show.

Podcast listeners can get 20% off the first year of an annual membership. Use code POD20 at checkout*. ⁠https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/join/⁠     

'If you enjoyed the podcast, please consider supporting our work to conserve and celebrate our places by making a donation. ⁠https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/support-us/⁠    

The English Heritage Trust is a charity, no. 1140351, and a limited company, no. 07447221, registered in England and Wales.   

*Offer is available through the use of this code and valid for new memberships by annual Direct Debit only. It cannot be used in conjunction with any other promotion, on life memberships or renewals.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To celebrate the men's football World Cup this year, join host Amy Matthews as we dribble through the surprisingly long history of the beautiful game.

Historian Will Wyeth and curator Peter Moore unpack a fascinating cabinet of curiosities, from a Victorian leather football discovered in a castle toilet to records of Mary, Queen of Scots watching an early match at Carlisle Castle.

We also discover how Polish Special Forces kept morale high with a pitch at Audley End during World War II and explore the childhood homes of sporting legends Bobby Moore and Laurie Cunningham.

Don’t forget to follow this podcast and leave a review if you love the show.

Join English Heritage: ⁠https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/join/⁠

Podcast listeners can get 20% off the first year of an annual membership. Use code POD20 at checkout.*

Support our work: ⁠
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/support-us/

The English Heritage Trust is a charity, no. 1140351, and a limited company, no. 07447221, registered in England and Wales.

*Offer is available through the use of this code and valid for new memberships by annual Direct Debit only. It cannot be used in conjunction with any other promotion, on life memberships or renewals.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Henry VIII separated from the Catholic Church, he was left feeling vulnerable to invasion from France and Spain. His answer was to build England’s first national coastal defence network. Rising like medieval spaceships along the English coast, these ‘device forts’ were a series of rounded stone fortresses. But how did they operate? What made them so formidable? How did they change the nature of warfare with their cutting-edge cannon technology?

Join Amy, alongside English Heritage’s Andrew Roberts and Kathryn Bedford, as they explore the story of Henry VIII's spectacular coastal fortifications and the threats they were built to face.

You can watch our coastal series as well as listen to it - either on Spotify or go to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/EnglishHeritage

Don’t forget to follow this podcast wherever you get your podcasts and leave a review if you love the show.

Join English Heritage: ⁠https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/join/⁠ 

Podcast listeners can get 20% off the first year of an annual membership. Use code POD20 at checkout.*   

Support our work: ⁠https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/support-us/⁠    

The English Heritage Trust is a charity, no. 1140351, and a limited company, no. 07447221, registered in England and Wales.   

*Offer is available through the use of this code and valid for new memberships by annual Direct Debit only. It cannot be used in conjunction with any other promotion, on life memberships or renewals.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices