The Borough Journal. Free editorial magazine HTML & Astro template

About The Borough Journal

The Borough Journal is a ten-page editorial website with a newspaper-like story hierarchy, section navigation and four complete original example stories. A story index and a Culture section provide useful browsing routes, while publication/contact pages explain the fictional editorial identity. Reading tools are conveniences around the included articles rather than a simulated publisher account system.

Best suited to: Small independent magazines and local journals publishing a limited, manually maintained set of original stories and clear publication information.

Desktop and mobile screenshots

Captured from version 1.0.0 on 30 October 2026. Open a screenshot to inspect the full page.

Choose your download

Both ZIPs contain the same 10-page design. Neither requires an account, subscription, or license key.

What’s in the design

• Four complete sample stories cover a market morning, a reading room, a maker’s workshop and a slower weekend. Each included story card opens its own full article page. The narratives are illustrative original writing, not actual reported events.
• Stories combines topic/text search and newest/oldest date ordering over four included records, with result count, empty state and reset. Culture presents the two culture stories.
• All four articles include byline/date, contents anchors, related stories and print styles. Save controls store only allowed story IDs in the scoped freecss-borough-saved-v1 browser key; the reading list has a clear action and current-page fallback if storage fails.
• About and Contact explain a publication’s editorial identity and contact routes. The real publisher must replace fictional office information, attribution and editorial policies with accurate details.
• PUBLIC_NEWSLETTER_URL accepts a valid HTTPS provider. Without a valid value no newsletter link is shown; HTTP, JavaScript and malformed values are ignored. The template has no mailing-list backend or campaign sender.
• Original stories, dated cards and licensed photographs are included, with local fonts and complete attribution/license records in the downloads. Stock imagery does not verify a reported person, place or event.

Verified page layouts

These 10 pages are included in both archives. Each link opens the live preview.

• Home / front page ↗index.html
• All stories ↗stories.html
• Culture ↗culture.html
• Market morning ↗market-morning.html
• A place to read ↗a-place-to-read.html
• The workshop visit ↗workshop-visit.html
• A slower weekend ↗slower-weekend.html
• About the journal ↗about.html
• Contact / editorial enquiry ↗contact.html
• 404 ↗404.html

How editorial contact and newsletter routes work

Editorial contact validates required name, email and message, with fixed topic choices and allowed subject preselection. It prepares a reviewable email draft only; the visitor reviews and sends it in an email app. Replace [email protected] before publishing.

The sample stories and publication are fictional. They do not constitute verified reporting, business endorsements or public-event listings. A real publication needs its own accurate attribution, editorial/contact policies and content checks.

Saved story IDs remain in the current browser under one scoped storage key, synchronize across same-origin pages/tabs and can be cleared without touching other site data. There is no account or cross-device sync. An optional HTTPS newsletter URL links to the publisher’s own provider; it does not subscribe anyone automatically.

Set up the Astro edition

Extract the source ZIP and run these commands from its folder:

npm ci
npm run dev
npm run check
npm run build

The build produces a dist/ folder for static hosting. The source includes its shared template kit under vendor/template-kit, so it builds independently of our development workspace. Astro 7.4.4 and the Astro checker 0.9.12 are pinned; TypeScript 6.0.3 is the latest supported by that checker’s declared peer range.

Before you launch

• Choose HTML for direct file editing, or Astro for shared layouts and source-driven content.
• Replace sample stories, publication details, dates, bylines, editorial/contact policies and photographs with accurate, properly licensed original reporting/content.
• Edit story records in src/stories.json; the source build derives the saved-story ID/title map from that same file. Keep article pages and links aligned. Test topic/text/date controls, saved-list clear/persistence, print, contact drafts and any newsletter route.
• Replace imagery with licensed content. Keep responsive variants, intrinsic dimensions, alt text and ASSETS.md credits aligned.
• Set PUBLIC_SITE_URL to the real domain/folder URL with a trailing slash for canonical/social metadata, robots.txt and a 9-page sitemap. Leave PUBLIC_PREVIEW unset for production.
• Upload the entire HTML folder or Astro dist/. Configure unknown paths to return 404.html with HTTP 404. Test enquiries or configure a separately tested delivery route if direct sending is required.

A static editorial site with no CMS, automatic publication feed, paid subscription, comments backend, user account, message delivery or mailing-list database. Any reading-list behavior stays within the visitor’s browser as documented by the source.

License and assets

The original template code is released under the included MIT license. It permits personal and commercial use; retain the license notice when redistributing the code. Visible footer attribution is optional.

Library, pottery and market photographs are by Olga Lioncat, Yan Krukau and Megan (Markham) Bucknall under the Pexels License. The garden image by david Griffiths retains the Unsplash License. These illustrate fictional stories. Borough Serif/Sans are renamed OFL derivatives of Literata and Source Sans 3 with complete notices; code, writing and identity are MIT. Pexels License. Full asset credits.

Release verification

The page inventory and screenshots document the included layouts. The HTML and independent Astro editions contain the same design, local assets and license notices. Build, browser and laboratory-audit evidence is kept with the release source. Automated scores do not establish complete accessibility compliance or guarantee performance after customization.

Version 1.0.0, reviewed 30 October 2026. Live preview. Plain HTML checksum. Standalone Astro source checksum. The Borough Journal and its example stories are fictional. Photographs are illustrative; no real reporting, named contributor, circulation, subscriber total or endorsement is claimed.