Bloody History

Swansea has long been a busy industrial port and has always had an edgy history. Explore the hidden stories from its long and dangerous past, with tales of rebellion, shipwreck and murder. From Romans to the Red Lady, Viking raids to English attacks, deadly diseases, slums, cholera and Nazi bombs, you'll never see the city in the same way again. Why were all those men trapped in the hold when the Caesar hit the rocks at Pwlldu? What happened when Hitler came to Swansea? Find out who you can turn to for help when you have just dismembered a body and want to put it in your van. All this and more awaits you within.

Death, Danes and disaster in Dark Age Ipswich! The castles are burning! Attacks, rebellions, battles and wars in ancient Suffolk! Queen of Blood and Fire! The dark days of Bloody Mary revealed! Sea of blood! Smugglers, sea battles, U-Boats and invasions along the Suffolk coast! The Zeppelins are coming! Bombs and bodies in the First World War! Suffolk has one of the most amazing histories of any British county. Betrayals, conspiracies and invasions have left their mark on this eastern frontier. Discover how vicious power struggles between the Danes and the Vikings shaped the history of not just the county, but the United Kingdom as a whole. Read of the troublesome Bigod dynasty, the Suffolk city under the sea and the strange story of the thousands of burnt corpses that washed up on the county's beaches during the Second World War. Discover the dark truth inside!

Manchester has one of the darkest histories in Britain. From the Screaming Skull of Wardley Hall to an epidemic of deadly factory fires in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, you will find all manner of horrible events inside this book. With coffins washed from their graves and swept away into the city after the River Medlock burst its banks, and the streets of Salford, Gorton and Openshaw overrun by gangs in the latter quarter of the nineteenth century, as well as murders, riots, battles and plagues, the grimmest events in Manchester's history are all here for you to explore. Read this gory and glorious book ... if you dare!

Razed by Vikings! Deadly Danish assaults and demolitions. Neolithic murders! The tragic tale of Britain's earliest recorded homicide! A deadly game of thrones! The last remains of two royal victims in the Abbey. Murdered by the Ripper! Was one of Jack the Ripper's victims from Peterborough? Find out inside! 'I Can't Stop While There Are Lives to be Saved': The incredible story of British spy nurse Edith Cavell. There is the darker side to Peterborough's history. All manner of incredible events have occurred in the city: Roman occupations; Saxon murders and miracles; riots and revolts; battles, diseases, disasters and plagues. Including more than 60 illustrations, and with the history of institutions such as the prisoner-of-war camps of the Napoleonic era and the slums and workhouses of the Victorian age, you'll never see the city in the same way again.

Hereford has a darker side to its history, filled with strange – and sometimes unlikely – true tales. Was King Arthur a Hereford man? Why was its patron saint murdered by his would-be father-in-law? Why did another of its saints become the only saint to die excommunicated? Was a Bishop of Hereford involved in the murder of a king by the most frightful method imaginable? Did bones from the Cathedral graveyard really cure every disease known to man? Was a ghost really responsible for the destruction of the cathedral's west front? Was the Hay Poisoner really guilty? Was a Hereford clerk the rightful King of England? These, and many other strange stories, will be revealed in this book…

Glasgow has one of the bloodiest and most tumultuous histories on record, riddled with plagues and pirate attacks, religious divides and reconciliations, bombs, executions, fires and floods. A city of slums and grandeur, of razor gangs and rebels, of sectarian violence and cultural assimilation, here you will find the best of the worst of Scotland's greatest city.

Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities in the world – with one of the darkest histories on record. Sweeping through the centuries in a blood-soaked catalogue of assaults, assassinations and all-out attempts at annihilation, this volume reveals the hideous tapestry of death, disease and disaster that lies beneath Edinburgh's stunning façade. You'll never see the city in the same way again…

Death to them all! The story of Shrewsbury Castle where an entire garrison was executed! The true story of the three-hour battle which left over 6,000 men dead or dying! The admiral who used his enemies' heads as evidence! The tightrope artiste who dived to his death! Just a few miles from the border with Wales, the town of Shrewsbury has an incredible history. It has been attacked by the English and by the Welsh; Welsh princes have died in its streets, whilst thousands of English soldiers perished just outside the town in one of the most brutal battles ever to take place on British soil. Containing some truly bizarre facts about Charles Darwin and the true story of a Victorian serial killer's visit to Shrewsbury, read it if you dare!

Aberdeen has been inhabited for 8,000 years, since the first Hunter-Gatherers settled on the banks of the River Dee. 4,000 years later, Bronze Age peoples left their mark on the landscape by constructing a huge number of recumbent stone circles, once thought to be places of sacrifice. Invaders including Celts, Romans and Vikings met violent, bloody resistance, and the victorious Roman army left thousands of Caledonian corpses for the crows following the Battle of Mons Graupius. From the slaughter of Aberdeen Castle's English garrison (part of a citizens' uprising in support of Robert the Bruce) to all-out assaults on the city by Kings, Royalists and Nazis, no century has left the city unmarked. Plague, wars, clan feuds, murderers, witches, covenanters and slavers – all have stained the silver city red with blood!

This is the history of York as you have never encountered it before! Travel back to a time when Erik Bloodaxe was resident monarch, or when William the Conqueror was in the middle of his relentless 'harrying of the north'. There are no tea rooms or hanging baskets in this York, but the severed heads on the walls have a certain decorative effect and there are plenty of places to stay if you don't mind risking cholera, plague and typhus! York has been the backdrop to some of the most significant and bloody events in British history. Read on if you dare!

Witches, martyrs, bodysnatchers, Zulus and rioting peasants! The Black Death in Chelmsford! The horrible true stories of the Moat Farm Murder and the death of Jael Denny! The terrible tragedy of the Great Flood of 1880! The incredible histories of Hylands House and Beaulieu! Nazi bombers over Chelmsford! Chelmsford has one of the darkest histories on record. From the skeletons lying underneath the city – which include a woolly mammoth – to the executions of thieves, witches, martyrs and murderers at Chelmsford's gaol, this book will change the way you see the town forever. Robert the Bruce was most likely born here; Bloody Mary Tudor lived here; infamous murderers Samuel Dougal and Thomas Drory died here. Including more than sixty rare illustrations, plus an eight-page colour section, read it if you dare!

Built by the Romans, looted by the Danes and conquered by King William I (who devastated the town to build a castle and a cathedral), the city of Lincoln has had a long and most dreadful history. Containing medieval child murder, vile sieges of (and escapes from) the castle, the savage repression of the Lincolnshire rising by King Henry VIII (who had the ringleaders hanged, drawn and quartered) and plagues, lepers, prisons, riots, typhoid, tanks and terrible hangings by the ton, you'll never see the city in the same way again.

Bread riots and bodysnatchers! Pirates and privateers! Hell holes for Boney! The disgusting true story of Plymouth's Napoleonic prison ships! 'A very daughter of Hell!' In 1675, a poisonous nursemaid was hanged on Prince Rock – but was she innocent of the crime? Find out inside! Death aboard the Titanic! Blitz, bombs and Plymouth men's battles on Omaha Beach! Plymouth has one of the darkest and most dreadful histories on record. Beginning with the discovery of the bones of cave men and rushing through French attacks, outbreaks of leprosy and the plague, Civil War sieges and deadly Spanish ships, disasters, demolitions and the enormous death tolls of the Plymouth Blitz, it will change the way you see the city forever!