Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 13hThis is a cause for rejoicing: HOSPREC used to be a vital source and it's great to have it back online again. 060
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 07/10/2026A 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! 020
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 07/10/2026I 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. 320
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 07/10/2026Here'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.) 232
Reposted by Christopher HiltonEmily✨ @emilyoram.bsky.social · 01/10/2026You know what Ipswich. Big respect for this 🚜 05019
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 04/10/2026I 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.uk3 Images titled: Swan Vesta "ghost-sign", London Road, Broad Green, Croydon in TQ3166 :: Geograph Britain and IrelandGeograph Britain and Ireland is a web-based project to collect and reference geographically representative images of every square kilometre of the British Isles. 201
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 04/10/2026Goodness 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. 110
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 04/10/2026The 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.comInstagramCreate an account or log in to Instagram - Share what you're into with the people who get you. 032
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 04/10/2026This 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). 140
Reposted by Christopher HiltonPaul Montgomery @stonefishweirs.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Picture 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 02310
Reposted by Christopher HiltonDr Colin Runeckles @colinruneckles.bsky.social · 02/10/2026"We're The Wretched Gang of Sodomites and this is our new single." 2187
Reposted by Christopher HiltonLiz Harper @archivistliz.bsky.social · 02/10/2026If 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 112
Reposted by Christopher HiltonDavid Underdown @davidunderdown.bsky.social · 02/10/2026We'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 #DigiPrescivilservicejobs.service.gov.ukQuick Check Needed 014
Reposted by Christopher HiltonMargot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026The 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.orgWe’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. 13436
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Some 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. 010
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Stumbled 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. 110
Reposted by Christopher HiltonInternet 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 5547171
Reposted by Christopher HiltonRuth MacLeod @scottishruth.bsky.social · 01/10/2026The 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.ukInspiring Nature Prize DrawSupport the reopening of the Horniman's Nature Gallery for your chance to win a luxury return trip for two on the Caledonian Sleeper! 013
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Interesting 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.) 030
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 01/10/2026For 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 020
Reposted by Christopher HiltonJoe 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 03510
Reposted by Christopher HiltonUniversity of Brighton Design Archives @designarchives.bsky.social · 30/09/2026A 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 02112
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Goodness, 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. 040
Reposted by Christopher HiltonDisability History Association @handle.invalid · 30/09/2026The 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 🗃️ 079
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Edward Ardizzone drew the interior of a lot of pubs and illustrated this 1940 book, recently reissued: www.faber.co.uk/product/9780...faber.co.ukBack to the LocalA 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 130
Reposted by Christopher HiltonExeter Cathedral @exetercathedral.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Announcement: 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. 05125
Reposted by Christopher HiltonNissa Ren Cannon @nissaren.bsky.social · 29/09/2026As a person obsessed with the ways Google no longer works, I enjoyed this sancho.bearblog.dev/google-weird...sancho.bearblog.devWhen 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... 35726
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Essex 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. 010
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Yes, 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! 010
Reposted by Christopher HiltonAndy Lewis @andylewis.bsky.social · 27/09/2026Every 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).- 43679256
Reposted by Christopher HiltonTim Daw @timdaw.bsky.social · 11/09/2026Come fly with me: A fully interactive virtual landscape of the Stonehenge area www.sarsen.org/2026/09/an-i...sarsen.orgAn Interactive model of the Stonehenge LandscapeA fully interactive virtual landscape of the Stonehenge area https://stonehenge-3d-flythru.netlify.app/ The latest Julian Richards video ... 2114
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026As 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. 3226
Reposted by Christopher Hiltoncmillerartlife.bsky.social @cmillerartlife.bsky.social · 26/09/2026Two 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.orgJohn Constable: views of natureMarking the 250th anniversary of his birth, this display celebrates the painter's lifelong engagement with the landscapes of rural England. 2115
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026All on YouTube, of course: another thing that's changed since the original gig-going days! music.youtube.com/playlist?lis...music.youtube.comCabaret Voltaire - Forge Warehouse, Sheffield - 25 October 2025Playlist • mel the bell 010
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026It 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... 100
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026The 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). 110
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026There are a few things for which I still use them; pretty regularly I find myself writing the date as nineteen ninety-something. 120
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026On 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. 120
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026My 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). 120
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026Yes, when I went to the return of Cabaret Voltaire in Sheffield last year I wanted a bit more of a souvenir than a pdf... 110
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026Bit 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! 030
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026Periodically 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..." 560
Reposted by Christopher HiltonThe Salisbury Museum @salisburymuseum.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Last chance to see our 'Bloomsbury in Wiltshire' exhibition. Ends Sunday 27 September. 033
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026And 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." 020
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026During 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... 140
Christopher Hilton @chilton-bb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026Pleased 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! 043
Reposted by Christopher HiltonianVisits @ianvisits.co.uk · 25/09/2026ianvisits.co.ukFree exhibition inside the RNLI’s Thames lifeboat stationA pop-up exhibition brings archive art and architectural drawings to the floating Tower Lifeboat Station, open daily until Wednesday 30 September. 0237
Reposted by Christopher HiltonRay 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.eduThe Bizarre, Murky History of Soviet-Born TetrisBehind the beloved game lies a struggle over mathematical ideas, erased collaborators, offshore millions, and copyright power. 0113