• a map of Britain with GIS data on the left hand side
    Workshops

    March 16: Online maps and other resources – a practical workshop

    January 29, 2024 - By 

    Until recently, local historians faced many barriers to accessing historical maps and other landscape resources. During the last ten years, many powerful landscape tools have become freely available online. This workshop will give an overview of the many invaluable websites for local historians and how to access and use them. The first session in March will focus not only on how online sources can be used for historical research, but how local historians can produce their own maps, publications and displays.

    A second session in April will give participants a chance to look at practical issues and support. It will be based on feedback and requests from the first session.

    The workshop will be run by Mike Smith of Wheathampstead Local History Society, who has used these mapping tools for many years. Welwyn Garden City library , Saturday 16 March and Saturday 13 April. Doors open 10:00 for a 10:30 start and finish at 1pm. £10 per session including coffee/tea.

    To RSVP, contact Helen Hofton, Chair of the Hertfordshire Association for Local History, at helen_hofton@hotmail.com

  • A view of Knebworth House, a stately home in Hertfordshire, with a beautiful spring garden in the foreground
    Walks

    March 28th: Guided tour of Knebworth House, Park and Gardens

    January 29, 2024 - By 

    By former Head Gardener Kevin Hilditch

    Thursday, March 28th, 10:30 am

    Hertfordshire Gardens Trust has arranged a guided tour of Knebworth Park and Gardens to be led by Kevin Hilditch, the recently retired Head Gardener. This is an amazing opportunity to hear Kevin share his expertise on a spring walk around the site.

    As this will be a private visit, RHS membership will not apply. The following programme has
    been arranged.
    10:30                     Arrive at Knebworth
    10:45                     Morning refreshments
    11:15                     Walk and Talk Garden Tour with Kevin
    12:30                     Lunch in the Garden Terrace Tea Room
    13:45                    Guided House Tour & exhibitions or free time in the gardens and park
    15:00/15:15         Depart Knebworth

    The cost of the visit is £18.00 for members of the Hertfordshire Gardens Trust and £20 for
    non-members. Please let us know as soon as possible if you would like to attend by contacting
    zoomevents@hertsgardenstrust.org.uk.

    Refreshments and lunch are not included in the ticket price, but further details of catering
    arrangements will be given once a booking is made.

  • A view of a beach, with wooden pilings in the background. In the foreground are fossilised sediments showing human footprints, which have been shown to be 900,000 years old, the oldest evidence of humans in Britain
    Conferences

    Community Archaeology 2024: Coast Climate and Community Conference

    January 28, 2024 - By 

    6 April 2024 at the University of East Anglia

    Norfolk is a coastal county with a vast array of heritage found on its coastal fringe. From tools and footprints, found at Happisburgh, dating from around 900,000 years ago, through to 20th century military installations placed to protect against invasion, much of this heritage is vulnerable to erosion.

    With climate change, rates of erosion are set to rise through increased sea level height and
    stronger storms resulting more energy in weather systems. Storm and surge events, such as those experienced on the coast in the 1953 floods and 2013 Christmas storms are likely to become more common and their destructive potential will result in loss of archaeological sites and structures. River systems will also change with a likelihood of more volatile events creating more inland floods and in some parts of the county, such as the Fens and the Broads, the salination of underlying freshwater conditions which are currently preserving archaeological and palaeoenvironmental deposits. How can communities deal with these losses?

    We will hear from community archaeology practitioners, academics, health specialists, and there
    will be an opportunity to take part in a Training Workshop on recording archaeology on the coast
    led by the Nautical Archaeology Society.

    There will also be an invitation to participate in the inaugural meeting of the Norfolk Community
    Archaeology Forum, being proposed as a new space for conversations and skill sharing for all those interested in community archaeology in Norfolk.

    Speakers and workshop participants will include:

    – Andrew Farrell, Project Director, Broads Authority
    – Neil Redfern, Executive Director of the Council for British Archaeology
    – Laura Drysdale, Director of the Restoration Trust
    – Andy Hutcheson, Research Fellow in the Centre for Archaeology and Heritage at the
    Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Culture, UEA
    – Mike Pinner, Chair of the Caistor Roman Project
    – Michael Curtis, Trustee and Executive Board Member of the Nautical Archaeology Society
    – Joanne Clarke, Hon Professor of Archaeology at UEA and contributor to the
    Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
    – Claire Harris, MOLA, Deep History Detectives Re-mixed and Pathways to Ancient Britain

    Booking now at https://www.nnas.info/activities/#conferences.

    • Waged tickets £25, including lunch.
    • Unwaged tickets £12.50, including lunch.
    • Virtual attendance tickets £12.50
  • A page from an old book: The Remonstrance of St Albans, 1648
    Lectures

    April 8: Successes and dead ends – researching the military history of the Civil Wars in western Hertfordshire

    January 28, 2024 - By 

    In 2021, John Morewood started researching the events of the 1640s in St Albans and Western Hertfordshire as they applied to the struggle between King and Parliament. Looking at archives and publications of the period, he uncovered how important the area was to Parliament, so much so that Parliament sent the leading Dutch engineer to fortify St Albans.

    This has led to a project to find the lost fortifications, as well as seeking to explain why the preliminary steps which would lead to the execution of King Charles I began in St Albans. John will talk about his journey, discoveries and frustrations along the way, and next steps.

    Dr John Morewood is President of St Albans Architectural and Archaeological Society. He specialises in the 18th and early 19th centuries but has a strong interest in the Civil Wars – his ancestors fought for Parliament and sat on the governing committee for Derbyshire. He is co-authoring a book on St Albans and the 17th century Civil Wars.

    All welcome. Please book your place (it’s free!) via Eventbrite.

  • A Roman cavalry soldier's helmet
    Exhibitions

    Legion: Life in the Roman Army

    January 15, 2024 - By 

    February 1 – June 23, 2024 at the British Museum, London

    What did life in the Roman army look like from a soldier’s perspective? What did their families make of life in the fort? How did the newly-conquered react? Legion explores life in settled military communities from Scotland to the Red Sea through the people who lived it.

    Expansive yet deeply personal, this exhibition transports you across the empire, as well as through the life and service of a real Roman soldier, Claudius Terentianus, from enlistment and campaigns to enforcing occupation then finally, in Terentianus’ case, retirement. Objects include letters written on papyri by soldiers from Roman Egypt and the Vindolanda tablets – some of the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain. The tablets, from the fort near Hadrian’s wall, reveal first-hand what daily life was like for soldiers and the women, children and enslaved people who accompanied them.

    Tickets available online at the British Museum website.

  • An ornate gold and garnet cross found with the bones of a 7th century teenage girl near Cambridge in 2012
    Exhibitions

    Beneath Our Feet: Archaeology of the Cambridge Region

    January 15, 2024 - By 

    Until April 14, 2024 at the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, Cambridge

    This exciting exhibition explores what local archaeological discoveries can tell us about the lives of those who walked this landscape centuries before us.

    It includes objects from the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology’s collection, as well as loans from: The British Museum, the Fox family, Girton College, Cambridge, Museum of Cambridge, Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery, Oxford Archaeology, Cambridgeshire County Council and Robert Law.

    Material on display includes Neolithic axes, textile fibres which are remarkable survivors from the Bronze Age, a mysterious Roman lead tank which continues to baffle experts, the stunning burial goods of a teenage girl from the early medieval period, evidence of one of Cambridge’s medieval friaries, a 17th century Germanic Bellarmine jug (which were often reused as so-called witch bottles) and much more!

    The exhibition features results of the latest scientific research, particularly the isotopic analysis of the bones and teeth of a 7th-century teenage girl, whose burial was discovered in 2012. The analysis revealed not only her European origins, but also her approximate age when she moved to Britain and the state of her health prior to her death. When excavated by Cambridge Archaeological Unit, she was found to have been buried lying on a bed, one of only 18 so-called bed burials discovered in the UK. For the first time, a forensic artist’s likeness of the mysterious girl will be on display alongside the grave goods she was buried with. These include the gold and garnet Trumpington Cross, another rare discovery. For more information about the Trumpington Cross and what scientific research has revealed about the life of its owner, click here.

    Until April 14 at the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3DZ.