Welcome to Norma Explores
This is the home of Norma Explores. Here you will find all you need to know about my project. If this is your first visit, please take a look at the ABOUT page to get familiar with our origins.
You can see my latest updates below and see where I've been on my latest adventures around the UK.
2024 has been a year of learning. I've spent a lot of time of the road capturing new stories and photos to add to the archive, but I've also learned what works well in respect of sharing this journey with the outside world. I have some changes to make in 2025, which I hope will allow much more time for working on the project and making it interesting for the people that make it all possible - my Patreon, Substack, and Ko-Fi supporters. I encourage you to follow me on those sites, even if you don't wish to support the project financially. I am increasingly moving away from AI driven social media and focusing on building a hub of information and content directly from my preferred platforms.
There are various ways to interact with the project. Using the Gazetteer below you can subscribe to updates from individual county blogs and comment on posts as they are added. My supporters can also direct message me via Patreon and interact with posts there. All support is very gratefully received!
Please use the tabs in the menu to shortcut to specific areas of interest.
COUNTY BLOG UPDATES
I'm building a dedicated blog for each county and as you can imagine, this is quite an ambitious task. It can be also be confusing for casual viewers. It's designed this way for the benefit of the project and allows me to organize images in a way that mirrors the physical archive. Every week or so I publish a new list of the blogs which have new posts via Patreon and Ko-Fi. I am slowly (sometimes very slowly) adding all the photos I've taken, with descriptions and locators. If you actually prefer casually browsing, scroll to the bottom of this home page and read about how to use the gazetteer! Otherwise, click here.... ⬇️⬇️
LATEST PODCAST EPISODE
Join us every fortnight as we introduce you to another story behind another
EPITAPH
Subscribe on YouTube or Substack and listen every time we release a new episode!
SUBSTACK ARTICLES
I have recently started writing longer form articles on a variety of historical subjects on the Substack platform. This is something I intend to do much more of next year. You can follow me on substack app and have these features delivered directly to your email inbox to read in your own time. Substack also offers a paid subscription option for just £3.50 per month, which is a great alternative for those that do not wish to join Patreon. Click any of the images below or the substack tab in the main menu to access the articles.
GUIDL AUDIO TOURS
Guidl is a new app that lets users experience pre-recorded audio tours from their phone or mobile device. Whether you're visiting somewhere new and want to walk the tour in person, or want to listen to it from the comfort of your armchair, its a great way to learn more about interesting places. Below are our most recent uploads, but you can learn more about Guidl and our tours HERE
GAZETTEER
This section is currently under construction! Please bear with me while I populate these pages with all the villages in each county. As I visit each place on my journey, the link will go 'live' and you'll be able to see where I went and what I've learned on my travels! As you will undoubtedly understand, this is a HUGE project and won't be completed over night! I really appreciate your patience and hope you enjoy being on this journey with me! Please read the few words below on how to navigate the gazetteer. I apologise if it's confusing, but its set up to make sense to me and to mirror the physical archive!
Using the gazetteer
To navigate the gazetteer, start by clicking on the country you're wanting to browse above. Under each of these headings you'll come to a list of the historic counties for each country. Each county will eventually have it's own blog feed and from there you can browse the villages and sites of interest within that county. I am only making the blogs 'live' when I have content ready and have uploaded something to view. Any counties with a clickable link (usually shown in bold and underlined) have had their blogs attached and are 'live'. Each blog has a page which lists settlements within that county. The same applies here. If the village/settlement has a clickable link, there will be entries for that place ready to view! At the bottom of each blog is a 'cloud' of labels (like hashtags) to enable visitors to bring up all posts with that label.
WAYS TO SUPPORT THE NORMA EXPLORES PROJECT
The Norma Explores project is entirely funded by our supporters via subscriptions, donations, or art and magazine purchases. These donations cover the costs of research, as well as allowing us to work on the project full time. We have to cover the cost of visiting all the places we talk about, as well as the hours of labour involved in research, writing, and publishing our content. We currently spend around £50 per month on subscriptions to research websites alone! We know everyone has their own favourite platforms and sometimes this just comes down to the places you already have accounts for. If you'd like to help financially support Norma Explores there are a number of ways to contribute. Patreon is our preferred hub, as we endeavor to share all the content and news in one place, but if you prefer to support different types of content, such as writing on Substack or video/podcast on YouTube, we're working to make that happen!
Of course, truly appreciate all support and if you can't or don't wish to financially help with the project, there are a lot of free ways to help! Following us on Patreon, Ko-Fi, and Substack can be done completely free and helps boost our numbers, which in turn helps us get seen on the platforms. Sharing our content with your own followers also helps us be found by new people who enjoy history. Leaving reviews for content you've enjoyed on Spotify, Guidl, and YouTube does the same! We are so grateful for everyone thats made contact this year and decided to join us (virtually) on this tour around the UK.
PAYPAL
To make a general donation without a subscription or membership, you can donate via the button below and choose your own amount.
KOFI
Ko-Fi allows users to buy us an individual coffee for £3 or make recurring monthly donation. It's also where you can download and buy our digital publications! You can also choose to follow us for free and get updates while we are travelling.