We are experienced former Wikipedia editors who have created this site in the belief that the wiki model of collaboration was a success in quickly starting an online encyclopedia, but is not a sustainable model for maintaining one. We focus, but not exclusively, on UK-related subjects. So no articles on Japanese railway stations, abandoned villages in Vietnam or US baseball players, but you will find articles on the paintings of Salvador Dali
Painting by Salvador Dalí created in 1939, "celebrating" the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler., Antoine Wiertz
Belgian Romantic painter and sculptor. His output, featuring such macabre scenes as violent suicide and premature burial has persuaded some critics to consider it the work of a madman. and the tragedy of the Donner Party
Group of American pioneers who set out for California in a wagon train. Delayed by a series of mishaps, they spent the winter of 1846–1847 snowbound in the Sierra Nevada, where some of them resorted to cannibalism to survive., when they align with the topics we aim to cover.
Those topics include, but are not confined to, the weird, the unexplained, perception and gullibility, witchcraft and magic, and local history, the latter so important for reminding us of where we came from, and why we should care about our local communities.
What we are not
Engole is not a Wikipedia mirror, and we do not allow “anyone to edit”. About twenty per cent of our content has no equivalent on Wikipedia, and the rest, much of which we wrote ourselves while on Wikipedia, has all been improved in terms of accuracy, sourcing and general readability, something that is inordinately contentious under the policy of “anyone can edit”.
We do not, and never will, publish articles on the biographies of living persons. So you won’t find an article on Nigella Lawson if you’re searching for a list of “english cooks”, but you will find articles on Elizabeth Raffald
18th-century English entrepreneur, author of The Experienced English Housekeeper, and possible inventor of the Eccles cake., Martha Bradley
18th-century English cook, author of The British Housewife. and Mary Eales
18th-century writer on cookery and confectionery, author of Mrs Mary Eales's Receipts (1718). But that does not mean we ignore current events, such as the recently announced restoration of Southport Pier
Pleasure pier in Southport, Merseyside, England. Opened in August 1860, it is the oldest iron pier in the country., or a new episode of the BBC series Ghost Stories at Christmas
Horror story by the English novelist and historian E. F. Benson, first published in 1912..
It’s worth noting that of the English Wikipedia’s 7 million articles as at November 2025, thirty-seven per cent are make-work “List of …” pages, which we have no need of owing to our use of a more intelligent search engine. Or to put it another way, 2.6 million English Wikipedia articles are a waste of electrons. In addition, it has been reported that the majority of article pages in the English Wikipedia are redirects, so that figure of 7 million articles needs to be taken with a very large pinch of salt.[1] The English Wikipedia in reality probably has somewhere between 2 and 3 million articles, which is a significant accomplishment. Or it would be if so many of them weren’t unmaintained, poorly cited and out of date.
Added to which, probably only about one half of a per cent of Wikipedia articles are of interest to us or our intended readership, so that’s 10,000 articles. Still a substantial number, but most of those are in need of special care; you’d be lucky to find one without dead links.
We do not have the hubris to claim that we will ever be a repository of all human knowledge, an impossible goal. Our aim is to provide reliable information on those topics that we do cover, fully supported by good quality references to source material that provides the reader with opportunities for further research. And we use a consistent, centralised citation system, and continuously monitor for link rot, so any broken links are quickly updated.
Please feel free to contact usGet in touch! with any comments.
