Michael Wood and others have recently drawn attention to the ways in which big stories can be told through local histories. Hughes and De Silva report a teaching unit through which they aimed to help Year 7 pupils make history come alive by exploring the history of a local street and the people who lived in it using census materials, the physical environment, maps, old photographs and many other resources. Each group was allocated a house and asked to explore its history, developing both their understanding of historical enquiry and their historical imaginations. Using the history of one locality as a lens, they examined big themes, such as migration, important in both urban and national history. At the end of the enquiry, the students reconstructed the history of their street on their own classroom walls.