Author: Stephen Browning

20 Facts about Norwich and Norfolk

20 Facts about Norwich and Norfolk

20 facts you may not know, and some questions for you, about Norwich and Norfolk This article is based on information in the book ‘Visitors’ Historic Britain: Norwich and Norfolk – Stone Age to the Great War’ by Stephen Browning and Daniel Tink, published in February 2020 by Pen and Sword at £14.99 Please note: for copyright reasons, the photographs in this article are not those from the book. Photography Copyright Daniel Tink. 1. Norwich has its own ‘Diagon Alley’. Fans of Harry Potter will know that Diagon Alley was a secret, magical street, impossible to see or enter...

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Cloudesley Walks to Work

Cloudesley Walks to Work

This tale is taken from ‘Visitors’ Historic Britain: Norwich and Norfolk’ by Stephen Browning and Daniel Tink and published by Pen and Sword in February 2020 at £14.99 A fictional story based on genuine news reports in the local papers of the day The year is 1814 and we are accompanying a young clerk to the insurance firm of The Norwich County and Municipal Insurance Company which has offices overlooking the Market Place. His first name is Cloudesley, which is quite a popular name of the time. His job as clerk is a pretty good achievement, although not fabulously...

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Top ten Sherlock Holmes

Top ten Sherlock Holmes

To celebrate sending my book ‘Walking Sherlock Holmes’ to the publisher – due out about Spring 2021 – I have compiled a ‘Top Ten’ of my personal favourites, for one reason or another, of people who have played the great consulting detective. In the book we analyse the performances of 37 actors in particular, so this is a very short, and of course, subjective list. Do you agree? Do please let me have your thoughts by sending a message via the ‘Contact Me’ section of this website, or www.facebook/stevebrowningbooks and I will get back to you. Always great to...

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Special places in the life and works of Charles Dickens

Special places in the life and works of Charles Dickens

Many see Charles Dickens as the world’s greatest novelist, and this includes some of his illustrious contemporaries such as Leo Tolstoy. His life proceeded almost as dramatically as his plots – his father was imprisoned for debt when he was 12 years old and yet, just over a decade later, he had become one of the most famous people on the planet and the world’s first literary superstar. Charles Dickens was born in Mile End on the outskirts of Portsmouth on 7th February 1812, seven years after the Battle of Trafalgar and three years before the final defeat of...

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My Latest Book

This is the first study yet published to trace the history of Norwich and Norfolk from the time of earliest life to the outbreak of the First World War.

FULL DETAILS HERE