Richard Jones
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rlcj.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
Richard Jones
@rlcj.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
7 followers 3 following 27 posts
Associate Prof. of #Landscape #History. Centre for #Regional & #Local History, University of #Leicester. #EnvHist #HistGeog #Medieval #archaeology #rivers #flooding […]

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rlcj.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
#victorian innovation never ceases to amaze me. If there was a process needing industrialising, scaling, and making more efficient, they found the solution. Exhibit #1: how Carlisle solved the tricky problem of polishing its turds. #ordnancesurvey #Map #manure #envhist #nneteenthcentury #History
Detail from Ordnance Survey map showing Carlisle’s Manure Works and Varnish Works.
October 12, 2025 at 8:47 PM
rlcj.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
Am enjoying being creative with my historical
sources. Love the marbled #paper I am finding. Their naturally fluid forms and some of their colour palettes seem very apposite for the subject of #Sewage. #History #doubleexposure
Hand-written label reading ‘Sewage Farm’, set diagonally and reading bottom left to top right. Overlaid with marbled paper, chocolate and coffee brown bubbles and blisters.
August 24, 2025 at 7:46 AM
rlcj.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
With reference to my previous toot relating to people with
surprisingly apposite involved somehow in #victorian #Sewage #farming I thought for the briefest moment today that I’d found another. Messrs Stinks of Small Heath. Then my palaeographical brain kicked in! #disappointment
Extract from a handwritten minute from 1872. What looks like ‘Messrs Stinks’ is actually ‘Hinks’. They were manufacturing chemists.
August 16, 2025 at 7:41 PM
rlcj.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
The #joy of working in #archives. On Tuesday I found a reference to on Mr Crapper selling land to be used as part of Walsall’s sewage farm. Today I found a Henry Bladder providing horses, labour, and tools to the sewage farm at Malvern. Writing the #History of […]

[Original post on mstdn.social]
Extract from a Victorian minute book, hand-written, mentioning ‘Bladder Hy’ or Henry Bladder Extract from a Victorian minute book, hand-written, mentioning Mr Crapper.
August 14, 2025 at 6:30 PM
rlcj.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
Writing at pace to fill time and space. An academic’s life. It’s a load of bullocks, obviously. #cattle #History #ww1 #Nottingham #CowsOfMastodon
Opening paragraph of article provisionally entitled ‘As scarce as blackberries in February’: Nottingham and the beef crisis of December 1917-January 1918.
August 8, 2025 at 6:57 PM
rlcj.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
Been on my travels. A scene from Le Jardin Secret, hidden among the northern souks of #marrakesh, #morocco, #turtle #door #wood
A bathing turtle, head and front legs bottom left, refracted through the opulent carved wood of a door next to the pond. Honey browns.
August 4, 2025 at 9:58 PM
rlcj.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
#birmingham challenged my predisposition to the #rural, and my dislike of the #urban, yesterday. I discovered a city and its people that I had not previously appreciated. Immense diversity, a warmth of reception, openness, curiosity, full of human authenticity […]

[Original post on mstdn.social]
Shocks of red and pink flowers, the soft curve of a black and white painted bridge arcs from left to right over olive blue canal water. High-rise buildings in background. Distrusted by a canal bridge overlay to produce a more abstract effect.
June 15, 2025 at 7:32 PM
rlcj.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
‘CO-OPERATIVE PERMANENT’. To paraphrase Heraclitus, permanence is an illusion; only change is real. Here’s some proof from #birmingham today. #philosophy
Ghost letters on stone plinth. Verdigris from old copper lettering with iron studs. Reading CO-OPERATIVE PERMANENT
June 14, 2025 at 5:09 PM
rlcj.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
In Leicestershire yesterday. Yes really. Soft, rolling, domesticated Leicestershire. But in hidden places the county shows off its much harder, jagged, wild character. A primordial scene created by stoneworkers’ chisels from a more recent past.
Snatched view through trees down to a body of water. Rock outcrop in foreground and rock cliff face in background. Trees in early summer leaf. Photograph framed left and right by tree trunks.
June 9, 2025 at 2:43 PM
rlcj.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
Suck Cess! Followed one of their lorries down the M69 today. What a company name! #Sewage
Website landing page. Suck Ces. Liquid Waste and Disposal and Drain unblocking. Specialists in the Midlands. Text placed over image of back of tanker with hose to right.
June 6, 2025 at 8:38 PM
rlcj.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
#fensterfreitag A detail of the remarkable work of contemporary stained#glass #Artist, Thomas Denny https://www.thomasdenny.co.uk/ This to be found in Leigh #church, Worcestershire.
Reds and oranges and yellows, a kaleidoscope of russets, browns, ochre, and gold. Stained glass showing figures, one kneeling, above a bird, behind an orchard with trees laden with apples.
June 6, 2025 at 5:50 PM
rlcj.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
Might make a series. ‘Tales from the Sewage Farm’. How about this for starters? Mr Dayman’s complaints were regular and made over the course of 20 years! Unfortunately his house was opposite the sewage outfall. #Sewage #smell #farming (Transcription in image Alt-Text)
Handwritten minute in spidery hand reading ‘A letter from Mr Dayman dated 5 Nov as to the smell from the Sewage Farm was read & referred to the Joint Committee.’
June 5, 2025 at 6:48 PM
rlcj.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
Joyously in the #archives today. In #Devon Heritage Hub to explore the #nineteenthCentury records of Tiverton #Sewage #farm. #envhist #History (transcriptions in image Alt-text)
Black cloth book cover with cream label with fancy hand-written title ‘Sewage Farm’. Sample of handwritten text. Reads ‘Broom asks for tool for drilling in with Mangold seed & the same was ordered.’
June 5, 2025 at 4:26 PM
rlcj.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
I normally keep quiet about this daily brain wake up exercise (aka time waster). But I haven’t achieved much in my life, so a whole year #Wordle streak is worth celebrating I think! 365 and counting.
Screen capture of the Wordle personal stats page, showing current streak at 365 days. Below the normal distribution of the number of rows used to find the word.
June 4, 2025 at 11:25 AM
rlcj.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
A colleague reminded me that it was five years ago to the day that I posted this pastiche teen magazine #Photo #love story in another place. Lockdown Love. Enjoy! #cows #CowsOfMastodon I still miss 706617. She was a beautiful, inquisitive, and charming little heifer.
A photo story in nine panels featuring a slightly greying bespectacled man and black and white Holstein Friesian cows. Oh and an angry bull bottom left.
June 1, 2025 at 10:13 AM
rlcj.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
The walled #kitchen #garden at Clumber Park, Nottinghamshire was looking magnificent over the weekend. Especially the deep borders of Allium christophii (Star of Persia). My take. #doubleexposure.
A stack of terracotta pots superimposed with an image of a border of Allium christophii (Star of Persia)
May 28, 2025 at 12:35 PM
rlcj.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
Did Paul Simon predict the #future back in 1986? #Music #AI
Amazon Music screen shot of Paul Simon ‘You can call me Al’ playing.
May 27, 2025 at 7:19 PM
rlcj.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
As a #font fetishist I’m so disappointed with myself for buggering up the kerning on this new sign. Anyway (if you will forgive me for working at speed), everyone invited round my place this weekend if you find yourself in #nottinghamshire and want to see my […]

[Original post on mstdn.social]
Black and white sign saying OPEN STUDIO propped against a kitchen wall on green-tiled surface. Photographs displayed on an oak table in black frames. Too distant to make out detail but provide a sense of their colour palette. In background others propped up on a book shelf!
May 20, 2025 at 7:26 PM
rlcj.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
John Bolding & Sons Co. “ONDO”. #edwardian #sanitation Encountered today in ‘Snowzell’. If you know the #gloucestershire accent you’ll know where to find it!
Ceramic basin with two brass taps, plug and over flow. Creamy white.
May 17, 2025 at 5:43 PM
rlcj.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
Behold! The first of my mighty mangel wurzels has germinated. Can’t express how excited I am to watch this monster grow over the next few months. #heritage #vegetables #Gardening #crops #Sewage #farming
A small seedling, two small leaves. Red stem and red tint to underside of leaves. Soil background.
May 14, 2025 at 3:36 PM
rlcj.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
In the magnificent ‘Orchard: a Year in England’s Eden’ Benedict Macdonald and Nicholas Gates trace abundant life & occasional death through the seasons in one ancient #orchard in #Herefordshire. They are careful not to reveal its location. It’s too precious. But […]

[Original post on mstdn.social]
A copy of Orchard, in autumnal livery, perched in the boughs of a lichen-covered apple tree.
May 11, 2025 at 6:48 PM
rlcj.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
#may is the month to sow your Mangel Wurtzels. I just have. Have you? #autumn monsters to come. This variety is the classic Long Red Mammoth beloved of #nineteenthCentury #Sewage farmers. #Gardening #roots #vegetables
Overhead view of a seed tray with seed compost against a brick and weed background. Photo taken on the diagonal.
May 7, 2025 at 6:47 PM
rlcj.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy
I love a good wyrt. And they don’t come much better than the Greater Stitchwort (Stellaria holostea). Looking glorious round these parts right now. #wildflowers #herbs #Flowers
A splay of five-petalled white flowers with yellow stamens. Dark green leafy background.
April 21, 2025 at 11:31 AM