:-: Norris Museum :-:

Publications

The Friends of the Norris Museum publish books about local history. Some books by other authors, and some items published by St Ives Town Council, are also available through the Friends.

Here's what's in print at the moment.

The Life and Miracles of St Ivo
S.B. Edgington, 1985.
The story of the saint who gave St Ives its name. A saint with a nasty temper - to doubt or mock him was to run the risk of anything from rheumatism to shingles!
92pp, 210 x 148mm, contemporary illustrations.
ISBN 0 9507209 4 1
£3.95

What's so Special about Huntingdonshire?
Bob Burn-Murdoch, 1996.
The flattest county in England, birthplace of the sandwich, home of King Canute and Oliver Cromwell, noted for its volcanoes and its bustards and for its good-looking but sober inhabitants.
64pp, 210 x 148mm, drawings, photographs and maps.
ISBN 0 9525900 1 8
£4.50

St Ives Bridge & Chapel
Bob Burn-Murdoch, 2001 (Revised edition, first published in 1988).
The story of the unique 15th-century bridge with its chapel in midstream, with appearances by Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, and the sad end of Joshua Mann while trying to avoid paying his toll!
48pp, 210 x 148mm, drawings, maps and photographs.
ISBN 0 9525900 3 4
£4.50

Old Industries of St Ives Revisited
Ken Ballard, 2002.
Some remarkable St Ives industries, from Scotney's joinery firm to Fowell's traction engine works, and the Victorian mill where Clive Sinclair made the world's first pocket calculator.
72pp, 210 x 148mm, photographs and maps.
ISBN 0 9525900 5 0
£4.50

Away with the Learning of Clerks
Mary Carter, 2003.
St Ives in the Middle Ages. The town was built by the monks of nearby Ramsey Abbey, but as St Ives grew rich the townspeople took advantage of the devastation caused by the Black Death and the Hundred Years War to break away from the Abbey's iron grip.
56pp, 210 x 148mm, photographs and maps.
ISBN 0 9525900 6 9
£3.95

Victorian St Ives
Bob Burn-Murdoch, 2007.
A tour through the town as it used to be, in more than 60 photographs. The shops and the businesses, the livestock markets, and the great rebuilding of the town's churches and houses. And controversy and drama, with Thomas Carlyle describing the "dingy little town" and the sudden tragedy of the St Ives Explosion.
64pp, 148 x 210mm, 66 photographs.
ISBN 978 0 9525900 7 1
£4.50

The Pubs of St Ives
Bob Burn-Murdoch, 2008. (Revised 3rd edition, first published in 1992).
The 120 pubs that used to throng this small town, from the Grunting Hog to Little Hell, with tales of the landlord drunk in charge of a horse and cart and the Murder at the Temperance Hotel.
64pp, 210 x 148mm, drawings and maps.
ISBN 978 0 9525900 8 8
£4.50

The Shaping of St Ives
Bob Burn-Murdoch, 2009.
Why is St Ives the way it is? A look at how the past has shaped our town, from the Ice Ages to the Guided Bus. With contributions from St Ivo and Henry VIII, including the Great Fire and the Great White Bridge, the problems of ploughing with a team of oxen and how to date a brick.
80pp, 210 x 148mm, drawings, maps, diagrams and photographs.
ISBN 978 0 9525900 95
£5.95

The Fowells of St Ives
DVD compiled by Ken Ballard, 2010.
The Fowell family opened their engineering works in St Ives in 1876, in a factory that can still be seen in New Road. Over the next 50 years they built more than 100 traction engines of which seven are still in existence. This DVD traces the history of this remarkable local business, with films and animations to show how a traction engine works. And there is film of the moment in 2007 when all seven surviving Fowell engines paraded together - for the first, and perhaps the last time!
Running time about 65 minutes.
£10.00

The New Bridges
Bridget Flanagan, 2005
The 15th-century chapel bridge at St Ives is famous - but Bridget Flanagan shows that we have neglected the viaduct that carries the approach road across the water meadows to the south. Built in 1822 the "Great White Bridge" was the longest brick-built viaduct in the country. Bridget's new research uncovers the fierce arguments, the legal actions and the technical difficulties that surrounded this remarkable project.
128pp, 148 x 210mm, prints, photographs and maps.
ISBN 0 9540824 2 7
£7.00

The St Ives Problem
Bridget Flanagan, 2003.
"As I was going to St Ives, I met a man with seven wives." The old nursery rhyme has baffled children for centuries, but Bridget Flanagan's research takes it back much further, to a mathematician in Italy in the Middle Ages and even to an Ancient Egyptian riddle nearly 4000 years old!
32pp, 210 x 148mm, drawings.
ISBN 0 9540824 1 9
£4.50

Artists along the Ouse
Bridget Flanagan, 2010
The artists' colony at St Ives in Cornwall is well known. Now Bridget Flanagan shows that the Huntingdonshire St Ives had its own remarkable flowering of artistic talent from the 1880s to the 1930s. Her large format book is lavishly illustrated in colour throughout.
106pp, 270 x 210mm, prints, photographs and maps.
ISBN 0 9540824 3 5
£10.00

(The St Ives Problem and The New Bridges are not Friends of the Norris Museum publications, but are made available through us thanks to the generosity of the author)

Published by St Ives Town Council:

St Ives, Slepe by the Ouse
Noel Hudson, 1989
A full-length history of St Ives from prehistoric times up to the present day, with chapters on St Ivo, Domesday Book, the fairs of the Middle Ages, Oliver Cromwell, politics and religion in the town, the Town Council and much else besides.
132pp hardback, 210 x 148mm, photographs and drawings.
ISBN 0 9515298 0 3
£9.95

You can order any of our books and publications directly from the Museum.

Sorry, but we can't make online sales or accept credit cards

Just send your order to the Norris Museum, The Broadway, ST IVES PE27 5BX.

Please add £1.00 to the cost of your order for post and packing - just £1.00, no matter how many books you want.

Make cheques payable to "The Friends of the Norris Museum".

You can telephone us on 01480 497314 to confirm the availability of the books you want.