A fascinating tour of Newcastle-under-Lyme's thriving pub scene, charting the city's taverns, alehouses and watering holes, from past centuries to more recent times.

The portable guide to potable purveyors. “From alehouses, inns, and taverns, to the pubs we know today, Gordon Thorburn explains all . . . Cheers!” —Best of British Is there really a pub called The Toad Rock Retreat? Which one town has the pubs with both the longest and the shortest names? How many Lions, Crowns, and Horses are there? How many pubs are called The Speculation, The Triple Plea, and The Welcome Stranger? Why would you give your pub a name like The Geese Have Gone Over the Water? The author, in his valiant attempt to answer these and many other questions, has produced a book which is surely essential reading. What exactly is a pub? What should pubs be like? Why do we think that way? Is there a perfect pub? Can we imagine one that nobody would ever go in? Who does go in pubs, and why, and for what? Where is the straightest pub crawl? So, how did we get where we are, and where do we go from here? Whether it’s to The King’s Head, The Queen’s Arms, The Three Legs or The Eel’s Foot, be sure to take this book with you. “An entertaining, amusing account of pub life and culture. It is a book for dipping into rather than reading solidly, and is definitely memorable.” —Monsters & Critics

Why does the notorious highwayman Dick Turpin have such an extraordinary reputation today? How come his criminal career has inspired a profusion of often misleading literature and film? This eighteenth-century villain is often portrayed as a hero – dashing, sinister, romantic, daring, a Robin Hood of his times. The reality, as Jonathan Oates reveals in this perceptive, carefully researched study, was radically different. He was a robber, torturer and killer, a gangster whose posthumous reputation has eclipsed the truth about his life. In the early 1700s Turpin progressed from butcher’s apprentice and poacher to become a member of the Gregory gang which terrorized householders around London by robbery and violence. Then came his two-year career as a highwayman robbing travelers, his partnership with Matthew King whom he may have killed in Whitechapel, his murder Thomas Morris in Epping Forest, and his eventual capture and execution. Jonathan Oates recounts the episodes in Turpin’s short, brutal life in dramatic detail, basing his narrative on contemporary sources – trial records and newspapers in particular – and he traces the development of the Turpin legend over 250 years through novels, ballads, plays, television and film. The Dick Turpin who emerges from this rigorous and scholarly biography is in many ways a more interesting man than the legend suggests.

Explore Newcastle-Under-Lyme's secret history through a fascinating selection of stories, facts and photographs.

Discover the history of this Staffordshire town and borough across the centuries through 50 of its buildings.

For hundreds of years, the public house in its many guises, from urban gin palace to wayside coaching inn, has been a charming and quintessential feature of British life, and hence the names and signs associated with pubs are a constant reminder of our history, cultural heritage, folklore and local identity.The Wordsworth Dictionary of Pub Names is a fascinating compilation containing nearly five thousand absorbing entries and can be dipped into for fun or consulted on a serious level for intriguing and amusing information not readily available elsewhere. The local pub is an institution unique to the British Isles, but since English literature abounds with references to hostelries past and present, real and imagined, and no tourist's itinerary is complete without a visit to one or several on their route, its virtues are celebrated worldwide and readers everywhere will enjoy an affectionate and, perhaps, nostalgic browse through the pages of this entertaining dictionary.

This popular guide has been fully updated and redesigned to reflect exactly what today's students want to know. It is the most accessible guide to higher education and student life in the UK and provides reliable, lively and unbiased information on what universities really offer. The establishments are listed alphabetically, with each entry providing a wealth of information, from a description of the campuses to famous alumni. A separate section supplies a list of courses and which universities offer them, making it easy for the reader to cross-reference their chosen course with the right university.

This fascinating selection of photographs traces some of the many ways in which Newcastle-under-Lyme has changed and developed over the last century