Hidden in Plain Sight:

Why We Overlook the History on Our Doorstep

I recently wrote about the village of Bathford, and I received a number of comments from subscribers. One of them, Andrew Eberlin , wrote that he had lived in Bathford for six years in the early noughties and that he wasn’t aware of much of the history I wrote about. Andrew’s comment has inspired this article.

Do we take where we live for granted?

It’s possible that we all can take for granted where we live. Some of my readers may well live in places where tourists from around the world come to visit, and yet don’t see the same beauty or find places as interesting as they do.

Is there a name for this phenomenon? I don’t know, but it certainly is a condition we can be prone to. When I started Roland’s Travels, I started digging into history on my doorstep, and it opened up a whole new perspective on where I live. There is so much history to uncover without going many miles. There are also views hidden away from those who choose to drive and stick to the roads. Walking opens up things to see and discover, and strangely enough, even in towns along main thoroughfares. By properly looking around as I walk, rather than concentrating on getting from A to B, I have discovered many things that open up more opportunities to learn and research for stories here on Substack.

Here’s a recent example.

Whilst visiting family in Chesterfield, I spotted a plaque on a wall which, as I approached it, looked interesting as it formed an old entrance. See the photos below. The sign told me that a hole in the wall was where chains were dragged across the road to stop traffic whilst trains crossed between the gas works and brewery - both long gone along with the train tracks. I showed my son-in-law, Craig, a lifelong Chesterfield resident. Whilst he recognised the entrance, he had no knowledge of what this was, and I am sure thousands of other locals don’t know either, even though thousands of vehicles pass it each day.

A relic of industry, Chatsworth Road, Chesterfield Photos: Roland Millward

A check on Rail Map Online shows where the tracks used to cross and spread out into this former industrial area of Chesterfield. Of course, this opens up an opportunity for further discoveries if time permits! Chesterfield was once home to many industries, glass, pottery, engineering, and more due to the availability of coal, clay, and good transport links, first the canal, and then the railway.

There are many relics of former industries and other human activities that can easily go unnoticed unless we train our eyes to look for the unusual. There are also many things that we might call ‘usual things’ that we miss, simply taken for granted because we live in an area. We might use the term, ‘hidden in plain sight’ to describe them.

Next time you take a walk, look around, up and down, and see what you can spot. Many shops have facades hiding once-beautiful houses that when we look up, we see that there is more to the building than the shopfront. Trowbridge town centre (my hometown) is full of such buildings, thankfully not destroyed in the 1960s rebuilding schemes that took place across the country.

Lloyds Bank - Trowbridge, a former home of wealthy clothiers. Photo: Roland Millward

Let me know in the comments (or message) if you spot or have spotted anything in your town that you never knew about until you took the time to look or research.

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