Dating from c.1431-c.1624, the Charterhouse Water Maps are four large manuscript rolls illustrating the water system built in 1430 to serve the monks of the London Charterhouse in Clerkenwell, when it was a Carthusian monastery just outside the city walls. Today, the Charterhouse is a living heritage site which keeps and displays the Water Maps in the original location for which they were intended. In this post, James Spellane and Dr Rachel Delman explain how they tested and identified new avenues for interpretation and public engagement with the Water Maps. In three workshops, James and Rachel brought together academic researchers, museum specialists and members of the Charterhouse community and local area to explore the Water Maps with reference to three themes: Landscape, Object and Community. The project was supported with the award of an RHS Scouloudi Public History Grant, 2025-26.

In this post, Iqbal Singh (The National Archives) and Eleanor Newbigin (SOAS, University of London) detail their recent one-day participatory workshop on colonial history for those working in higher education, the GLAM and creative sector and community-facing roles. The workshop explored audio-zine making as a tool for thinking about historical sources and the construction of history itself. The workshop took place in June 2026, thanks to support of an RHS Scouloudi Public History Grant. The audio-zine method invites participants to work collaboratively to build 2 to 3 minute tracks using layers of short recordings of actor-spoken text taken from official documents, alongside sound effects, ambient effects and music.

In this post, Stephen Dunning describes his recent research trip to Nairobi, and work in the Kenyan National Archives. Stephen is currently studying for a PhD at the University of Exeter and was the recipient of the Royal Historical Society's Martin Lynn Scholarship in African History, 2025-26. Stephen's research considers the history of nineteenth-century civil engineering technologies and their relationship to imperial and social ideologies in domestic and colonial contexts. As he notes in the post, Stephen is the descendant of two brothers — Richard James Church (1863-1928) and Arthur Frederick Church (1868-1939) — who worked on the construction of the Kenya-Uganda Railway. Stephen's research in Nairobi was supported by the Martin Lynn Scholarship, named for Martin Lynn (1951-2005), Professor of African History at Queen's University, Belfast. Applications from PhD students for the 2026-27 RHS Martin Lynn Scholarship are now invited, with a closing date of Friday 4 September 2026.