Listing of web pages within the Victoria County Histories web site

Table ID:

VCH_PAGES     (1253377)

Contents:

Listing of web pages within the Victoria County Histories web site

Approx. number of rows:

7,722

Table type:

Raw Data

Documentation Author:

Humphrey Southall

Geography:

Reporting units are identified by:
   Ancient County
   Ancient district: Hundreds, etc.
   Type of Ancient District
   Ancient Parish

Sources:

1. Information on all pages which related to administrative units within parishes was extracted from index pages to individual volumes on the Victoria County Histories web site on October 26th and 27th, 2006.
2. Additional information for Lancashire and Staffordshire added on February 23rd 2007.
3. Additional information for Cheshire (vol. 5, pt. 2), Hampshire (vol.4) and Sussex (vol. 7) added on May 27th 2007.
4. Additional information for volumes 3 and 5 for Warwickshire added on June 19th 2007.
5. Additional information for Bedfordshire (vol 2), Berkshire (vol. 4), Buckinghamshire( vols. 2 and 4), Essex (vol. 8), Northamptonshire (vols. 3 and 4), Oxfordshire (vols. 6, 7, 8, 10 and 13), and Yorkshire NR (vols. 1 and 2) added on November 5th 2007.
6. Additional information for Yorkshire ER (vol. 1), Cambridgeshire (vols. 2, 3, 5, 6 and 8), and Gloucestershire (vols. 6, 8 and 9) added on March 13th 2008.

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Notes:

1. As the VCH did not respond to a request for this information, these data have been extracted from their index pages. There is obviously some risk that the addresses will change.
2. The crucial value is 'item_id', which holds a number which can be used as follows to extract the relevant pages from the VCH site:
   
   http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=NNNNN
3. The geographical names in this tables have not been and should not be modified from the versions in the VCH web pages, as in broad terms the VCH is a name authority and these names are candidates for being added to the GBH gazetteer. However, there are signs of errors having been made in the computerisation of the VCH material, such as 'Upton Snodsbury' in Worcestershire being listed as 'Upper Snodsbury' in the VCH contents page but not in the page for the parish itself. The columns called 'CORR_DIST', 'CORR_PAR' and 'CORR_SUB' hold, where necessary, versions of the names 'corrected' to match those used in the GBH gazetteer.

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Checking:

1. The data were systematically extracted from index pages down-loaded from the VCH site, but it is possible that the text pages referenced by those index pages did not exist.

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Indices:

Index	Type	Column(s) indexed
vch_pages_pk	Primary key	item_id
vch_pages_idx	Unique	anc_cnty, volume, part, item

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Constraints:

The table has the following associated constraints:

Constraint	Type	Details
vch_pages_pk	Primary Key	See details above for primary key index

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Columns within table:

Column	Type	Contents
anc_cnty	Text string (max.len.=20).	Name of the county. These include the Yorkshire Ridings.
volume	Integer number.	Number of the volume within the county series.
part	Integer number.	Number of the volume part; mostly null.
pub_id	Integer number.	Publication ID number, as used within the VCH web site.
item	Integer number.	Number of the item (web page) within the volume/part.
item_id	Integer number.	A unique ID identifying the item (web page) within the VCH site as a whole.
anc_dist	Text string (max.len.=36).	Name of an ancient district, i.e. a Hundred, Borough, etc. If the item is for a parish this will be the name of the ancient district containing the parish, and otherwise it will be the name of the unit the item is about. NB while this will usually be an 'ancient district' as defined within the GB Historical Gazetteer, it will occassionally be a 'Part of an Ancient County', such as a Suussex rape. This will be blank for web pages about the county as a whole, including corrigenda, indexes, etc.
corr_dist	Text string (max.len.=36).	Corrected version of ancient district name, to match GBH gazetteer.
anc_type	Text string (max.len.=16).	Type of ancient district. In general, this will be a status value as defined for the 'ANC_DIST' type in the GBH Gazetteer, but it also includes status values associated with 'ANC_CDIV' and values like 'Forest' and 'Isle'. Currently defined values are: Borough, City, Forest [of Deane], Half-hundred, Hundred, Isle [of Ely], Liberty, Rape, Wap [for Wapentake], Wd [for Ward].
anc_par	Text string (max.len.=64).	Name of the parish to which the entry relates, if any. This will be empty for rows which relate to the 'ancient district' as a whole. Any name given here will have been extracted from the text held in 'title'.
corr_par	Text string (max.len.=64).	Corrected version of parish name, to match GBH gazetteer.
sub_par	Text string (max.len.=64).	Name of any apparently sub-parish unit referenced within the text held in 'title'. In some cases this will have been explicitly labelled as 'township', but any clear references to specific areas within 'Cities' or 'Boroughs' will also be included here.
corr_sub	Text string (max.len.=64).	Corrected version of sub-parish unit name, to match GBH gazetteer.
title	Text string (max.len.=124).	Title of the item, as listed on the VCH web site.
page_numbers	Text string (max.len.=16).	Page numbers within the printed VCH volume, on which the web page is based. This may be a single page or a range of pages, and may be given as arabic or roman numerals.
seq_num	Integer number.	Unique sequence number, added on loading to keep rows in original order.