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Christopher Hilton

@chilton-bb.bsky.social
1.5K followers 1.2K following 1.5K posts

Head of Archive & Library at The Red House, brittenpearsarts.org. Archives, music, metadata; side orders of architecture, landscape history & electronic noise.

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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 13h
This is a cause for rejoicing: HOSPREC used to be a vital source and it's great to have it back online again.
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
A society's attitude to the events the objects incarnate is going to be crucial, too: Germany presumably has to wait a long time before preserving Nazi era works can be seen as neutral history not celebration, while here the pillboxes say "finest hour". Someone's probably done a PhD on this!
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
I often wonder when the crossover came (assuming it has), from too-modern-to-be-historic institutional eyesore, to "heritage" worth protecting. Although that guy on Chronicle won the BBC citizen-archaeology prize, clearly your experience in the 90s suggests they were still widely perceived as junk.
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Here's a way to see great chunks of time vanish down a rabbit-hole: identify those chunks of concrete in your locality. (How the passage of time changes things: I recall in the 1970s BBC2's "Chronicle" archaeology programme featuring someone documenting WW2 pillboxes & this seeming quite unusual.)
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Emily✨ @emilyoram.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
You know what Ipswich. Big respect for this 🚜
Image: a picture of various blue stim toys on a blue football stadium seat with a blue Ipswich Town drawstring bag 
Text:
To mark the start of Sensory Processing
Awareness Month and ADHD Awareness Month, we are pleased to launch our brand new 'build your own' sensory packs.
Packs are now from the online store, with more info available on the club app and website.
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
*lament
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I didn't, no; despite spending a lot of time chronicling ghost signs. How did I miss it? Over the years I added many to @geograph-gbi.bsky.social; one the ones I loved, and now laments its loss, was the Swan Vesta one in Broad Green, north of Croydon centre: www.geograph.org.uk/stuff/list.p...
geograph.org.uk
3 Images titled: Swan Vesta "ghost-sign", London Road, Broad Green, Croydon in TQ3166 :: Geograph Britain and Ireland
Geograph Britain and Ireland is a web-based project to collect and reference geographically representative images of every square kilometre of the British Isles.
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Goodness me: any one of those ghost signs is worth a look and to have all of them one building is really something. Onto the list for next time I'm in London.
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
The Red House is seeing out the last month of the 2026 open season with a lot of Behind-the-Scenes stuff: over on Instagram I'm holding forth about the archive building. www.instagram.com/reel/DeCmXWL...
instagram.com
Instagram
Create an account or log in to Instagram - Share what you're into with the people who get you.
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
This is a splendid ghost sign: I'm sad I never noticed it in my London days (determined to get up that way and see it now).
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Paul Montgomery @stonefishweirs.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Picture of a Thames wooden fish trap(7th to 8th century AD) at Isleworth in the London Borough of Hounslow faces downstream; Chelsea is facing upstream. Structurally, the traps appear to be part of a headwear and an ebb catch fish going up and down with the tides. #coastalhistory #muSEAum #fishtrap
Chelsea (Fish trap 1 – dated to AD 730-900) and Isleworth (dated to AD 650-890).
Source : Thames Discover
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Dr Colin Runeckles @colinruneckles.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
"We're The Wretched Gang of Sodomites and this is our new single."
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Liz Harper @archivistliz.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
If you’d like to co-supervise with me and a TNA colleague a PhD on Archives of Religion and Belief in Contemporary Britain, helping deliver practical benefit to us and the wider archives sector, do express your interest by Friday 9 October 2026, 17:00. lnkd.in/egq8_-S3
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David Underdown @davidunderdown.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
We're looking for another data engineer. Come and join me and work on the pipelines connecting incoming records transfers to our public and government facing presentation systems. Typicall based in Kew, hybrid (2 days/week onsite), permanent. £43,367 plus £1,633 market supplement #DigiPres
civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk
Quick Check Needed
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
The Migration Museum, London, is hiring a part-time (3 days per week) curator for a year to help build the vision of the new museum. £40k pro rata plus 5% matched pension contribution. Deadline for applications 18 October.
migrationmuseum.org
We’re Hiring: Curator, Contemporary Art (Part-time)
The Migration Museum is seeking a Contemporary Art Curator to join their team on a part-time basis. Application deadline: 18 October 2026.
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Some years ago I read a book about WW2 camouflage/deception operations which stressed the importance of 1930s "quota quickie" films: a cohort of scenery artists used to working fast with no money, who could take a bit of cloth and paint and mock up a fake airfield that convinced from flying height.
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Stumbled across this on Nare Head in Cornwall: a bunker that was part of the network of WW2 deceptions around Falmouth Harbour. Lights and flares would give incoming Axis bombers looking for the traces of incendiaries the wrong idea about where the dockyards were making them bomb the wrong place.
A flat-topped grass mound with a concrete-lined slot leading into it.A view down over a field full of round hay-bales towards an inlet of the sea.
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Internet Archive @archive.org · 01/10/2026
The Wayback Machine lets you travel through more than a trillion saved web pages. 🏛️ ‣ Find an old website. ‣ See how a familiar site changed. ‣ Recover something that's disappeared. ‣ Check what a page looked like years ago. The web has a history. Go explore it. web.archive.org #ToolsYouCanUse
Four "Tools You Can Use" Wayback Machine campaign tiles arranged in a 2x2 grid. Top left, a cream and blue tile with a folder icon reading "Wayback Machine" and "Explore more than 1 trillion web pages saved over time." Top right, a cream tile with bold black text: "Explore more than 1 trillion web pages saved over 30 years." Bottom left, a cream tile with a screenshot of the Internet Archive Wayback Machine homepage, with its search field circled in red. Bottom right, a cream tile with bold black text, "See how the web has changed over time," and a small multicolor line-art icon of the Internet Archive's columned building.
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Ruth MacLeod @scottishruth.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The Horniman Museum are crowdfunding, some decent prizes available! (The Caledonian Sleeper is perhaps less of a novelty for me...) www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/win-caledo...
crowdfunder.co.uk
Inspiring Nature Prize Draw
Support the reopening of the Horniman's Nature Gallery for your chance to win a luxury return trip for two on the Caledonian Sleeper!
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Interesting to see "Jim" Cadbury-Brown's bigger-scale work: I chiefly encounter his smaller, domestic works at the Red House and elsewhere in Aldeburgh. (These concrete blocks do go against Brutalist orthodoxy by having brick cladding: that connects to the "softer" Aldeburgh work.)
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
For the new month, here's the October image from my 2026 @geograph-gbi.bsky.social calendar: Path west of Sheepwash Crossing, near Thorpeness. www.geograph.org.uk/photo/7626414
A path through autumn woodland, the twisting treetrunks on the right picked out by golden sunlight from the left.
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Joe Brown @joebrownlondon.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
#OnThisDay 55 years ago at 18:04 the last 4DD double-decker train departed Charing Cross for Dartford. An ingenious way to increase capacity with restricted loading gauge, the two 1949-built units had 'interleaved' compartments. Michael Taylor / more info: buff.ly/DpLe2D3
4DD unit 4001 has just arrived at Charing Cross on a sunny day, in green livery. In the leading car the interleaved compartments, five at a lower level alternating with five at a higher level, are visible. The higher level compartment windows elegantly follow the curved profile of the car body towards the roof.Cut-away diagram showing the seating layout in a 4DD carriage
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University of Brighton Design Archives @designarchives.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
A selection of fabrics and wallpapers from the Festival of Britain exhibition, 1951, published in 'Design from the Festival', one of the many digitised resources available on our website - designarchives.brighton.ac.uk/resources/do... @designcouncil.bsky.social archive DCA/32/2/1/78
a 2-page magazine spread with colour and black and white photos of wallpapers and textiles. Patterns include florals, checks, stripes
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Goodness, this looks simultaneously very familiar - this is the sort of stock that was around when I first started commuting in from South London - and extremely ancient. The slam-doors you could open while the train was in motion we took for granted then but they look bizarre now.
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Disability History Association @handle.invalid · 30/09/2026
The Disability History association is seeking new board members! We're looking for a new Director of Membership and a graduate student to serve as our Director of Student Affairs. More info at the links. Questions? Email us! dishist.org/call-for-app... and dishist.org/call-for-app... #dishist 🗃️
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Edward Ardizzone drew the interior of a lot of pubs and illustrated this 1940 book, recently reissued: www.faber.co.uk/product/9780...
faber.co.uk
Back to the Local
A delightful, nostalgic ramble around the hostelries of London from a bygone age. ‘Probably the most delightful and evocative book ever produced on the English pub.’ Slightly Foxed
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Exeter Cathedral @exetercathedral.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Announcement: A selection of The Exeter Book’s famous riddles are now on display for the first time since the opening of the Treasures Exhibition in 2025. The Exeter Book is a treasured item listed on the UK UNESCO Memory of the World Register, preserving nearly all surviving Anglo-Saxon riddles.
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Nissa Ren Cannon @nissaren.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
As a person obsessed with the ways Google no longer works, I enjoyed this sancho.bearblog.dev/google-weird...
sancho.bearblog.dev
When did Google get so f-ing weird?
I recently had an experience while doing a simple Google search that was so profoundly weird that it stopped me in my tracks. Understanding this Google se...
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Essex Record Office have a strong audiovisual department and have digitised stuff like this for us (it was a one-off job for someone wanting to hear a concert they sang in in the early 70s, so similar scenario): well worth contacting them to see if they could help.
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Yes, do come! We're open till the end of October, close over Christmas for all the maintenance stuff, and open again at Easter. Everyone very welcome!
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Andy Lewis @andylewis.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Every time someone links to this film, I have to repost it. It's one of the most significant bits of British 20th century art. Everything about it is incredible. Groundbreaking music production by Daphne Oram. Amazing camera work by Wolfgang Suschitzky (who later filmed Get Carter).-
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Tim Daw @timdaw.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Come fly with me: A fully interactive virtual landscape of the Stonehenge area www.sarsen.org/2026/09/an-i...
sarsen.org
An Interactive model of the Stonehenge Landscape
A fully interactive virtual landscape of the Stonehenge area  https://stonehenge-3d-flythru.netlify.app/ The latest Julian Richards video ...
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
And in the station at Margate...
A tiled panel on a wall, consisting of the words "T S ELIOT" above and "TOILETS" below. The letters are different colours with lines joining the instance in the top row with that in the bottom, showing that each is an anagram of the other. Eliot’s photograph is set into the O on the top row. At the bottom italic text reads "My name is only an anagram of toilets. - T.S. Eliot."
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
As it's TS Eliot’s birthday, here's the church at East Coker (the village his ancestors came from, which gives its name to the second of the Four Quartets, and where his ashes are buried) and the shelter in Margate where he wrote parts of The Waste Land.
The west front of an English parish church in honey-coloured stone, with a tall tower to one side of the nave. Conifers are massed along the far edge of the churchyard, marking the edge of parkland.An early 30th century open fronted shelter on a promenade.
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cmillerartlife.bsky.social @cmillerartlife.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Two Constable exhibitions ending soon at British Museum and @ipswichmuseums.bsky.social which has the wonderful Walking Constable's Landscape (including Hay Wain) www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/... ipswich.cimuseums.org.uk/constable250/
britishmuseum.org
John Constable: views of nature
Marking the 250th anniversary of his birth, this display celebrates the painter's lifelong engagement with the landscapes of rural England.
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
All on YouTube, of course: another thing that's changed since the original gig-going days! music.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
music.youtube.com
Cabaret Voltaire - Forge Warehouse, Sheffield - 25 October 2025
Playlist • mel the bell
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
It was rather sweet, in a way, which I wouldn't have associated with the Cabs: the tribe gathering for what might be the last time, looking older, looking round thinking about those who weren't there any more (most of all Richard H Kirk, of course). At a certain age everything gets valedictory...
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
The wristband will have to do: that's something I don't remember from back then, of course (just the inky stamp on the hand to allow reentry).
A man's wrist, seen close up, with a pink paper wristband on it reading "25.10.25 SENS", the rest of the word being lost around the curve of the arm.
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
There are a few things for which I still use them; pretty regularly I find myself writing the date as nineteen ninety-something.
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
On a couple of occasions when time and availability were tight I recall an actual run into London to buy tickets at the venue: that sorted out the men from the boys.
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
My memory of booking stuff in London from a distance was that venues varied: some would take a phone reservation and you picked up and paid at the box office on the day, others wanted the cheque in advance (and you picked up on the day, or sent an sae, depending on how long you had before the gig).
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Yes, when I went to the return of Cabaret Voltaire in Sheffield last year I wanted a bit more of a souvenir than a pdf...
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Bit early, I think: plus Reading at that time was pretty strictly metal, which we post-punk kids eschewed. Also we didn't really do outside: being pasty in fetid basements was more our thing!
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Periodically I and my early 80s gig-going circle will try to remember how we got advance tickets for a gig in another city without the Internet or (in our case) credit cards. These skills may suddenly have value again. "This, children, is a cheque, and this is a stamped addressed envelope..."
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The Salisbury Museum @salisburymuseum.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Last chance to see our 'Bloomsbury in Wiltshire' exhibition. Ends Sunday 27 September.
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
And how many of us, post Waste Land, will have been chuckling inwardly and doing the TS Eliot voice saying "I had not thought death had undone so many."
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
During my 30 years as a London commuter I was part of that crowd flowing over London Bridge so often; it was strange thinking of the innumerable photos and films of us, clothes changing gradually with the years. So often there'd be a film crew capturing our feet for library footage...
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Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Pleased to have lent a work by Colquhoun from the Red House collection to this. It's a cracking exhibition: if you're within reach of Kilmarnock in the next few months you should definitely go!
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ianVisits @ianvisits.co.uk · 25/09/2026
ianvisits.co.uk
Free exhibition inside the RNLI’s Thames lifeboat station
A pop-up exhibition brings archive art and architectural drawings to the floating Tower Lifeboat Station, open daily until Wednesday 30 September.
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Ray Newman @raynewman.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
“The problem: Pajitnov did not design these puzzle pieces, known as tetrominoes, and despite TTC’s relentless public-relations campaign to the contrary, they are not unique to Tetris... ” thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-bizarre-...
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu
The Bizarre, Murky History of Soviet-Born Tetris
Behind the beloved game lies a struggle over mathematical ideas, erased collaborators, offshore millions, and copyright power.
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