Berkhamsted & District Archaeological Society holds lectures on Monday evenings in the Chapel of Berkhamsted School, Castle Street, at 7.45pm

23 SEP 2019  The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

Peter Clayton, FSA, Chairman, BDAS

 28 OCT 2019 Bejewelling the Male Body in Tudor and Jacobean England

Dr Natasha Awais-Dean.  Visiting Research Fellow, King’s College London

25 NOV 2019 Oplontis and the Villas of Pompeii. A digger’s view of the project 2010-2019

Professor W.E. Martin, PhD, PCEng, FIET, FRAS. Member of BDAS

16 DEC 2019 Ivinghoe Monastery, the Women of the Woods

Roger Bolton. British Television and Radio producer and presenter

27 JAN 2020 BDAS Excavations at Ashridge Management College

Ken Wallis. Member of BDAS

24 FEB 2020 Beacons of the Past. The Chiltern Hillforts Project

Dr Wendy Morrison, BSc, MPhil, DPhil. Project Manager

23 MAR 2020 The Work of the Historic Environment Team in Hertfordshire

Andy Instone. Senior Historic Environment Advisor, Hertfordshire County Council.

27 APR 2020 In Search of Ancient Cyprus

Dr Thomas Kiely, Curator Department of Greece and Rome, The British Museum
Followed by the Society’s 48th AGM

This fascinating site chronicles the history of gunpowder and later explosives and propellants as well as Cold War secret research and rocketry.

Visit What’s On at Royal Gunpowder Mills for Walking Tours, Summer Sundays, Woodland Wildlife Safari, Traditional Building Skills Course and Professor Nitrate’s Test Zone.

The Berkhamsted Local History & Museum Society will be running a stall at the site of the original Market Hall in Berkhamsted. We will have a number of local history books for sale and would love you to come along for a chat and tell us some of your local history stories.

Berkhamsted’s mediaeval market had royal favours bestowed upon it. In 1156, Henry II directed that the men and merchants of Berkhamsted were to be ‘free of all tolls and duties whithersoever they go’ and when Edward IV confirmed this privilege he further decreed that no market was to be set up within eleven miles of the town.

(Percy Birtchnell, Berkhamsted Review, Nov 1942).

Is this one of the earliest Southey motorbikes c.1901? It was received in pieces and reconstructed by Kees Koster. Does anyone else have a bike of this vintage?

In 1968, Beorcham wrote this in the Berkhamsted Review: “No one knows whether one of these veteran machines is still in existence. Perhaps not. C.E. Southey and Co… occupied workshops and garages in Elm Grove and Kings Road, and used what is now the men’s outfitter’s shop [Birtchnell’s] at Elm Grove corner as a show-room.”

Visit to the RAF Air Defence Radar Museum 
Neatishead, Norfolk NR12 8YB
Sat 14 Sep 2019

Programme:

10.00 Arrival – meet in reception area
(Car parking available – cafe, toilets; wheelchair access limited to some exhibits)

10:30 Radar during WWII – Battle of Britain

11:15 Presentation in the Cold War Room

11.45 Time to visit the 23 Display Rooms

12:30 Time to visit the café for a light lunch

13:15 Re-park your car for the bunker tour following the red arrows for parking

13:30 Tour of the R3 underground Bunker
(there is a mile plus of underground corridors and stairs which cannot be bypassed)

The cost for the Museum morning visit is £8 per person payable on the day.

The afternoon bunker tour seeks a donation of £5 per person, payable [cash] on the day. The organisers of the bunker tour state that it is undertaken at your own risk.

Email East Anglia Region Coordinator Robert Simmons for more information and background on the two attractions and to confirm details with the venues.

Since the dawn of ‘reliable’ flight, aviators dreamed of increased range and long-distance travel.

This conference – which will be held at No.4 Hamilton Place, Royal Aeronautical Society Headquarters, London W1J 7BQ on Monday 3rd June 11:45-17:00 – marks aeronautical anniversaries which arise this year: the first non-stop transatlantic flight and the first double crossing of the Atlantic by air (both in 1919) and the first flights of Concorde and the Boeing 747 in 1969. There are also papers on British airliner projects which competed for the transatlantic route, and the ferrying of military aircraft from the USA during the Second World War.

MA in History – From the Local to the Global

Our MA History programme takes an innovative approach to the study of history by connecting the local to the global. Covering the period from 1550 to the present, you will explore the impact of big historical forces on everyday lives.

The programme is offered full time (1 year) and part-time (2 years) and is taught through seminars in the evenings. Assessment is through coursework, culminating in a 15,000-word dissertation on a topic of your choice, supervised by an expert in the field.

MA in Folklore Studies

An exciting new programme is now being offered at the University of Hertfordshire for anyone curious about the traditions we follow, the customs we practice, and the legends we tell.

From this September, the University will be running (both full-time and part-time) the only MA in Folklore Studies in England. It offers students with an Honours degree in a range of related subjects (such as History, English Literature, Anthropology, Archaeology, and Sociology) a thorough grounding in the history of the discipline of Folklore and current work in the field.

This distinctive programme combines breadth with depth of study through wide-ranging but inter-connected modules with a focus on legend, ritual, belief, and tradition in British society.

Students will also explore Folklore in comparative international contexts and consider its global importance as an aspect of UNESCO’s definition of Intangible Cultural Heritage. See the UH courses website for further details.

Contact Professor Owen Davies or Dr Ceri Houlbrook if you have any questions.

The Rectory Lane Cemetery, along with Berkhamsted Town Hall, is a venue for the inaugural BerkoFest Book Festival on 12 May (09.30 – 18.00).

There are some brilliant authors appearing at both locations – for both adults and children – but the Friends of St Peter’s are particularly pleased to host Katharine McMahon, a historical novelist (author of 10 novels, one of which The Rose of Sebastopol was a Richard and Judy Book Club choice).

Katharine will be in conversation with BLHMS’s own Janice Boakes, discussing her passion for featuring strong women in her novels based on accurate historical research.  As well as resonating with our own Remarkable Women buried in the Cemetery, Katharine’s novels are located nearby (The Crimson Rooms in Chesham and The Hour of Separation in Watford), and are set in wartime periods – so lots of common ground with the co-author of BLHMS’s Berkhamsted in WW1.   It should be a great session (15.00 – 15.45 at the Cemetery) – do come along!  Click here for more information.

“… a well edited series of scenes, some from old postcards, some from surviving film, some press reports and some useful animation” (Hertfordshire Genealogy News, 2014).

An updated version will be shown by the Friends of St Peter’s at the Court House Berkhamsted on 13 May 2019 at 8:15pm. Free to members of the Friends, otherwise £5 payable at the door.

Also an opportunity to buy Society books Berkhamsted in WWI and Men of Berkhamsted.