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Winchester Cathedral
A Making History listener has noticed differences in the finish to stonework close to the base of the tower of Winchester Cathedral. She contacted Making History to find out whether the finer of the two styles marked the work done after the tower collapsed in 1107?

Vanessa Collingridge met up with Richard Plant from Christie’s Education, one of our leading experts on Norman architecture. He explained the background to the Norman Cathedral, how in 1070 a Norman Bishop replaced the Saxon one and the existing Saxon Cathedral was demolished to make way for a building that was to be the biggest in Europe for over one thousand years. Work started in 1079 using stone from the Isle of Wight and it is thought that the bulk of the work was finished by 1093.

Rotuli Hundredorum
Laura Bradd in North Devon came across some Medieval manuscripts called Rotuli Hundredorum from Suffolk which included references to someone who shared her surname. Laura wanted to know what these documents were, who was behind them and what why was this Robert Bradd mentioned?

Making History consulted Dr David Roffe the co-director of the Sheffield Rolls project. He explained that these documents were Hunderd Rolls from 1275 and that they were part of an inquiry into the abuses of royal and seigneurial bailiffs and officers in the previous ten year or so. Following the civil war in the mid 1260s, central government lost control of local administration and there had been a degree of chaos with officials of all kinds abusing their powers.

The pressure to do something came from below - we have evidence that the inquiry was the result of popular pressure, just about the first indication of a popular political movement. The hundred rolls of 1275 record the complaints made. They are often some of the most colourful records that survive from medieval England.

Robert Bradd was a sub-bailiff in Baberge Hundred in Suffolk. He, with other bailiffs, arrested a certain Coleman le Hen of Stoke by Nayland who was accused of robbery in the view of ‘frankpledge’. Coleman was bound and taken along with two of his cows, a bullock, a mare, and several measures of corn to the house of Robert Langley. Subsequently he was acquitted of the crime but the bailiffs did not return his livestock and grain.

The Women’s Timber Corp
James MacDougal from Forestry Commission, Scotland, contacted the programme asking for anyone who either served or had a family member who served in the Women’s Timber Corp during the Second World War. These women, known as the ‘Lumber Jills’, worked on forestry projects and were part of the bigger Women’s Land Army.