Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 12hIf you visit the Somme, Ypres or Vimy Ridge, you can see sections of "preserved" First World War trenches. Head south to the St-Mihiel Salient, though, and you can spend hours wandering in the woods among trench systems that have hardly been touched since 1918. 5548
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Poilu (roughly translated as "hairy man") was an affectionate term for a French First World War soldier. All over France there are streets named after these soldiers. 080
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 30/09/2026The Hotel Regina in Saint-Palais-sur-Mer opened in 1932 and was requisitioned by the Germany army during the occupation of France. General de Gaulle visited after the Liberation in 1945. Today it is an apartment block and it is our home for tonight. 060
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Maurice Blanchard - died for France, May 5, 1915. "The wind whispers his name in the heart of the Ailly wood." 040
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 27/09/2026Sometimes a name just won't fit conveniently on a war memorial plaque. 160
Reposted by Nick JenkinsAncestral Enquiries - Tony Smith 🌳 @ancestralenq.bsky.social · 26/09/2026The Grade 2 listed, Sam Smith Old Red Lion pub, Meadow Lane, Leeds which dates from the 19th century is to refurbished with work carried out on timber windows, external doors & building render. 👇 Leeds Sam Smith Old Red Lion pub to undergo repair work after reopening www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...bbc.co.ukLeeds Sam Smith Old Red Lion pub to undergo repair work after reopeningThe Tadcaster-based brewery applied to the council for listed building consent for the repair work. 021
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 26/09/2026I love an ancient doorway - and the 12th century church of Saint Pierre in Sers, Charente, has a particularly pleasing one (nice tower too). 160
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 25/09/2026About 720 Accrington Pals, from Lancashire, went into action from this position on the first day of the Battle of the Somme - 235 were killed and 350 injured in just half an hour. This is their memorial. Listen to Mike Harding's moving song about them, in the link below. 1348
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Duilio Donzelli (1882-1966) was an Italian sculptor who was forced out of Luxembourg in 1924 because of his Communist membership. He set up a studio in Lacroix-sur-Meuse, France, where he produced this remarkable war memorial, among others, later fleeing the Nazis in 1940. 040
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 23/09/2026The classical fountain in Lacroix-sur-Meuse was built in 1838 and restored in the 1920s - but it still shows clear signs of First World War damage. 060
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 22/09/2026The Voie Sacrée (Sacred Way) is the road that took troops and supplies to defend the vital city of Verdun in the First World War. The road is now numbered RD1916 in tribute to its vital role in that year, and since 1923 it has been marked every kilometre by one of these bornes. 0101
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 21/09/2026Memorial debate after the First World War: should they be purely commemorative (eg a cross) or functional (such as a village hall)? The town of Holyoke, Massachusetts, went for the latter, providing a modern wash-house for the people of Loupmont, Meuse, in honour of US troops who died nearby. 130
Reposted by Nick JenkinsBlue Wave @votebiue.bsky.social · 20/09/2026Tell me this doesn’t give you chills. Japan opened the 12D theater. It is beyond your imagination. 42338031249
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 20/09/2026The Tranchée de la Soif (Trench of Thirst), in the Meuse, France... in May 1915, troops of the French 172nd Infantry Regiment were cut off in a captured German trench after advancing too quickly. They held out for three days without food or water before finally surrendering. 021
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 19/09/2026Then and now... this IWM picture (October 2 1918) shows Brigadier-General John Vaughan Campbell addressing British troops who had crossed Riqueval bridge over the Saint-Quentin canal, breaking through the Hindenburg Line and helping to end the First World War. The scene today is far more peaceful. 062
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 16/09/2026There are 5,590 German soldiers in this First World War cemetery in France - two to each cross. The graves that stand out, though, are those of the Jewish men who died for their German homeland. 191
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 13/09/2026Portsmouth raised money to help the ruined Somme village of Combles after the First World War. That didn't stop the residents of Combles taking the mickey out of the visiting dignitaries of Portsmouth in their village's theatrical revue. (Some knowledge of French required...) 030
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 10/09/2026Impossible to imagine the pain of losing four sons to war. This window is in the post-First World War church in Metz-en-Couture, Pas-de-Calais, France. And there are five members of the Raingeval family on the village war memorial. 030
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 09/09/2026Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) was descended from enslaved African-Americans but graduated from the Royal College of Music and became a popular composer. He tore up this last movement of his only symphony after it was criticised, but a fellow student stuck it back together. 020
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 08/09/2026Just an ordinary farmhouse in north Dordogne, but it was a dangerous place in 1944. That June, more than 1,000 Résistants passed through this arch to sign up for the RAC brigade, formed by Rodolphe Charles Cézard, which fought to liberate several cities across the region. 060
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 07/09/2026Kathleen Brown was sentenced to seven days solitary for throwing stones in Whitehall, London, in 1909. She returned home to Newcastle after release and was greeted by a big group of supporters at Central station, before giving a speech to a large crowd at the Haymarket. 060
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 06/09/2026These blue plaques on houses in the Tynemouth area were part of an admirable project, presumably to mark the centenary of the First World War. Shame the URL link now takes you to an Indonesian cryptocurrency site. 120
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 04/09/2026Everyone knows of Horatio Nelson, but few remember Cuthbert Collingwood, his number two who took over at Trafalgar after his death. He was from Newcastle, and his statue at the mouth of the Tyne is monumental - flanked by four cannon from his Trafalgar ship, the Royal Sovereign. 081
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 03/09/2026It probably needs a banana for scale to appreciate how small it is, but this military surcoat was worn by Jacob Astley as he led royalist troops at the Civil War Battle of Edgehill in 1642. He wore a breastplate over it as he ordered: "March on, boys!" 040
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 02/09/2026Love this playful wallpaper in a National Trust property toilet. I suspect, though, that conservative NT members would hate it almost as much as explanations of how slavery paid for many historic houses. 050
Reposted by Nick JenkinsHallie Rubenhold @hallierubenhold.bsky.social · 31/08/2026RIP Polly Nichols. 05711
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 31/08/2026Britain declared war on Germany on August 4, 1914, at the end of the Bank Holiday weekend - hence the crowds. It wasn't until the 1960s that the August Bank Holiday moved to the end of the month. And the man responsible for that move, in 1964, was future prime minister Ted Heath. 040
Reposted by Nick JenkinsLondon Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 29/08/2026‘The miners said that if some pits really were uneconomic, they should shut. The owners wanted to make all pits profitable again by squeezing the workers.’ Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite on the general strike. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...lrb.co.ukFlorence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite · An ’ell of an ’eadache: The General StrikeBetween 4 and 12 May 1926, nearly three million workers – 20 per cent of the adult population – downed tools, and... 0145
Reposted by Nick JenkinsAbdul El-Sayed @abdulelsayed.bsky.social · 28/08/202663 years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led the first historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. They understood that equal economic and voting rights were the path to ending racial inequality in America. 221108263266
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 27/08/2026Most people passing Fulham Broadway in London will have been unaware that this grand building was paid for by theatre boss Oswald Stoll to house First World War veterans. Most of it has now been sold to neighbouring Chelsea FC, with current veterans rehoused elsewhere. 060
Reposted by Nick JenkinsYashar Ali 🐘 @yasharali.bsky.social · 26/08/2026This morning, the Coldstream Guards at Buckingham Palace performed a tribute to Dolly Parton. The last time I remember the guards at the palace honoring the memory of an American entertainer was when they paid tribute to Aretha Franklin after she passed away. 412380643
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 25/08/2026If you have time to kill at King's Cross or St Pancras, call in at the nearby British Library and visit its treasures exhibition. Shakespeare First Folio, Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence... and Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition sketch. Nobody expected that... 0131
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 24/08/2026James II stayed in this house, Maison Bigarré in Ploermel, Brittany, in December 1690. I think the front door might have changed since then. The crescent over the door is apparently a bit of a mystery. 060
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 23/08/2026Then and now (but a bit closer to home)… the bottom of our road, in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, where large hats were much more in evidence in 1900. 150
Reposted by Nick JenkinsHistory and Heritage Yorkshire @handhyorkshire.bsky.social · 23/08/2026🧵A church much loved by writer J B Priestly, St Michael and All Angels at Hubberholme in Wharfedale is worth visiting to see a rare surviving example of a Rood Loft. The loft and screen were installed as part of a reordering of the church in the 16th century. 2667
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 22/08/2026Most British regional and national newspapers have been forced by falling circulations to downsize from their former grand head offices. Not so Ouest-France in Rennes, Brittany, the top-selling French daily paper. It still has a circulation of more than 750,000. 170
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 20/08/2026The Monument of the Flame at Ouistreham - Sword Beach on D-Day 1944 - is on a former Atlantic Wall blockhouse and incorporates a French armoured turret from the Maginot Line. It commemorates French commandos and was unveiled by President Mitterrand in 1984. 060
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 19/08/2026If you drive across northern France, you might notice some of the 1,146 Voie de la Liberté (Freedom Road) posts marking every kilometre of the route taken by liberating troops after D-Day in 1944. Photographing them, however, can be difficult as they are often beside busy roads! 050
Reposted by Nick JenkinsBrian Groom @groomb.bsky.social · 18/08/2026The 'fiddly and frustrating' work removing 10,000 coins from Giant's Causeway columns in Northern Ireland. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...bbc.co.ukGiant's Causeway: 10,000 rock damaging coins removed from landmarkConservationists remove the equivalent of 10,000 coins that had been wedged into the Giant's Causeway's pillars. 2458
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 15/08/2026An interesting doll museum exhibit in a French chateau that hosted wounded soldiers during the First World War. Surely never intended as a child's toy? 050
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 14/08/2026How old is your local post office? Have you even got a post office? I love this modern post office in a medieval building in Rennes, Brittany. 191
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 12/08/2026There was an eclipse in 1919 too - and it proved Einstein's theory of relativity. While politicians were deciding the shape of the post-WW1 world in Paris, physicists were busy looking at the sky. www.bbc.com/reel/video/p...bbc.comThe eclipse that proved Einstein rightOn May 29, 1919, the sun disappeared for 6 minutes and 51 seconds, changing science forever. 040
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 11/08/2026I hate the word "iconic" unless it applies to a religious image - but I'm prepared to make a rare exception in this case. 060
Reposted by Nick JenkinsMerchant Adventurers’ Hall @merchantshallyork.org · 11/08/2026Calling all arty people! Yes you with the easel and paints! Join us and Clavis Mentis in the Hall's garden for an arts session with a difference! Bring your own sketchbooks and favourite materials, find a comfortable spot and simply enjoy drawing outdoors. 25615
Reposted by Nick JenkinsNick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 09/12/2025Love this poster in our kitchen (from the IWM) and we try to abide by it. Reminds me of an Alexei Sayle joke in a documentary from the 80s about the restrictive licensing laws that were still in place then: "Pubs have to close in the afternoon in case we lose the First World War." 031
Reposted by Nick JenkinsBrynley Heaven @brynleyheaven.bsky.social · 10/08/2026For people interested in official signage, this has to be unusual. The MoD are engaging in a moral debate with their critics via Road Sign? Loving the 'tired reasonableness' on display 3257
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 09/08/2026My great-grandfather William and his twin were reluctant soldiers (they appealed unsuccessfully against conscription). William clearly felt he was worth more for his work. Mind you, even for a Thames boatman, crossing the Channel in barges in WW1 must have been hazardous work. 130
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 08/08/2026The Corderie Royal (royal rope factory) was built in the naval arsenal of Rochefort, west France, in 1666 on the orders of Louis XIV. At 347m - to allow longer ropes to be made - it was the longest industrial building in Europe until the 20th century. 061
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 07/08/2026Following on from yesterday's "then and now", here's the same Normandy boulangerie from a different angle, photographed in the aftermath of D-Day in 1944. 050
Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 06/08/2026I love a "then and now". This is Courseulles-sur-Mer, Normandy, where Canadian troops went ashore on Juno Beach on D-Day. Amazingly, the 1944 shop is still a boulangerie today. 090