Current Events - Speaker season
Information on our speaker season appears below. The talks take place at St Marks Church Hall, Lincoln Road, PE1 2SN.
NON-MEMBERS are welcome to attend our meetings, but please be aware that we rely entirely on subscriptions and voluntary contributions to cover our expenses. We therefore request that a donation of at least £3.00 is made for each non-member attendance at the meeting, or the non-member can join while at the meeting. Details of our subscription rates are on our Join Us page.
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Can you help us? We are always on the look out for speakers. If you would like to nominate yourself and your subject matter or can recommend a speaker and their subject matter, please contact our talks organiser Jeremy Roberts on telephone 01733 343943 work or 01733 576144 home, and if leaving a message remember to leave your contact details, or email him jeremyroberts.co@btconnect.com. Thank you.
Our speaker season for 2018/2019
8 May 2019 (Wednesday) 7.30pm - Ely Cathedral - its History and Symbolism with Jan Munt
Just as in our own case, Ely Cathedral began life as a Benedictine abbey within the Diocese of Lincoln. The difference is that whereas Peterborough gained cathedral status only in 1540, Ely's elevation took place much earlier, in 1109.
In the 1830's, Ely's boundaries were expanded to take in from Lincoln the archdeaconry of Huntingdonshire, including all of what is now Peterborough south of the river. This perpetuated the odd circumstance by which our own successive bishops have been able to view part of their neighbour's territory from their own cathedral.
No-one can deny that Ely's glorious cathedral is fully worthy of its episcopal status, as attested by the 250,000 visitors it receives each year.
Jan Munt is the Cathedral's Education Officer and will be able to outline for us the Cathedral's rich history, including the outstanding programme of restoration that took place between 1986 and 2000. This will perhaps lead many of us to contemplate a summer day trip across the Fens later in the year.
Our previous speakers and their subjects can be found here.
Completed talks so far for 2018/2019 season
10 September 2018 7.30pm - Breeding Birds, Grazing and Flood Management in the Washes
Our speaker is Charlie Kitchin, site manager of the RSPB Nene Washes Reserve
photo ack RSPB
The Nene Washes were created primarily to act as a flood storage area to protect the surrounding arable land from flooding but they have now emerged as probably the premier nature conservation site in the Peterborough area.
The Washes stretch for thirteen miles from Stanground to Guyhirn, bounded on the southern side by Morton's Leam (created on the orders of Bishop Morton of Ely in the fifteenth century) and on the northern side by the main cut of the river Nene. They cover in all 3,700 acres, including 1,200 acres that are now owned and managed by the RSPB.
The Nene Washes reserve is primarily made up of wetland, with numerous grass fields divided by water filled ditches and washland. The site is still regularly flooded, particularly in winter.
A wide variety of birds are present throughout the year. Breeding species include such national rarities as black-tailed godwits, cranes and spotted crakes, while the site has also been the subject of a pilot reintroduction programme for the corncrake, which has otherwise become extinct in England. Other seasons of the year see gatherings of many wader and wildfowl species, sometimes in huge numbers, together with a wide variety of herons, raptors and owls.
Charlie Kitchin joined the staff of the RSPB in 1985 and has served as site manager for the Nene Washes reserve since 1991. He therefore has an unparalleled knowledge not only of the birds and other species that frequent the site, but also of the intricate drainage and grazing operations that are essential to maintaining its attractiveness for the future.
8 October 2018 7.30pm - Peterborough Cathedral - a Glimpse of Heaven
Special meeting - booking recommended and there is a charge for this event
This will be held at the John Clare Theatre, Peterborough Central Library
Our speaker is Dr Jonathan Foyle
For this special meeting, we are delighted to welcome Dr. Jonathan Foyle, whose splendid book, "Peterborough Cathedral ‐ a Glimpse of Heaven" was published earlier this year as a fitting tribute for its 900th anniversary.
Whether one can lay claim to knowing a lot, or just a little, about the history and architecture of our famous Cathedral, there is always scope for gaining new gems of information and additional insights. Dr Foyle is just the person to provide us with these benefits.
Dr. Foyle grew up locally in Market Deeping and attended the Deepings School. He holds degrees in Architecture, History of Art (M.A.), and Archaeology (Ph.D.) and served for eight years as Curator of Historic Buildings for Historic Royal Palaces. Since then he has expanded the scope of his work as the author of numerous books and articles, together with many appearances as a television presenter, including his "Climbing Great Buildings" series on BBC2. His book about our own Cathedral is one of a series that also includes volumes on Canterbury, Lichfield and Lincoln Cathedrals.
We are making an admission charge of £7.00 per person for this event, which will be held at the John Clare Theatre, Central Library and includes refreshments to be served afterwards.
12 November 2018 7.30pm - Annual General meeting followed by
Britain's Hidden Landscapes with Dr Frances Pryor
Our November talk features Dr Francis Pryor who will draw on his latest book, Paths to the Past: Encounters with Britain's Hidden Landscapes, to explain how those landscapes reflect and shape our behaviour. Based on his personal experience as an archaeologist investigating sites right across Britain for over thirty years, he will relate stories of our physical surroundings, both rural and urban, and what they meant to the people who formed them, used them and lived in them.
Peterborians owe Dr Pryor a particular debt of gratitude for his discovery, excavation and presentation of Flag Fen, but his career has covered many different facets. He is a former President of the Council for British Archaeology and has excavated farms, villages and ceremonial sites dating back to at least 3500BC. He appeared frequently on TV's Time Team and is the author of The Making of the British Landscape, Seahenge, and Britain BC and Britain AD, both of which he adapted and presented as Channel 4 series. He has also farmed sheep in the Lincolnshire fens for the past thirty years and has written two novels.
10 December 2018 7.30pm - The Civil War in the Fens with Dr Mike Osborne
The English Civil War was, of course, the struggle between King and Parliament, Cavaliers and Roundheads, that we all learnt about at school. It was also a patchwork in which local interests, grievances and rivalries had significant parts to play. As a cathedral city, Peterborough adhered to the conservative establishment, both in religion and politics, but there were many in the wider locality who took a different view.
The war brought great hardship and suffering but also provided new opportunities for some of the participants, including, in our area, for an obscure country gentleman, Oliver Cromwell, who eventually rose to become monarch in all but name. These circumstances made it inevitable that the Fens would see significant military activity during the course of the war, the remains of which can still be discerned today.
Dr Mike Osborne is a specialist in the study of military structures and, for the duration of the Defence of Britain Project, was its volunteer co-ordinator in the eastern counties. He is the author of many books on the defence of Britain, including Defending Cambridgeshire, Defending Lincolnshire, Pillboxes of Britain and Ireland, and Defending Britain: Twentieth-Century Military Structures in the Landscape. For many years Dr Osborne led the teachers' Peterborough Professional Development Centre (PPDC) at Cottesmore Close.
14 January 2019 7.30pm - 70 Years of Listed Buildings with Dr Melissa Thompson
Until the passage of the Town and Country Planning Act seventy-one years ago, the fate of buildings of architectural merit or historical interest was in most cases a matter of chance, dependent on the good, bad or indifferent intentions of their owners. The Second World War had brought with it a new element of randomness in the form of the depredations of the Luftwaffe.
In the post-war era, it was decided that the protection of meritorious buildings should be a matter of public concern, but the new statutory arrangements were not without controversy. For the owners of property, listing entailed living with a whole new regime of duties, responsibilities and restrictions. There was also wide-ranging public debate about which types and styles of building should warrant consideration within the ever-changing boundaries of public taste. Despite these issues, the arrangements introduced in 1947 have proved to be remarkably resilient.
Dr Melissa Thompson is employed as a Designation Adviser by Historic England. She is therefore ideally placed to guide us through the history of the listing process and to explain the conundrums that it has created.
11 February 2019 7.30pm - The Tavelling Post Office and
40 Years of Nene Valley Railway with Brian White
It's a strange fact that the first railway line to reach Peterborough, in 1845, was not our splendid main line, but the branch of the London and Birmingham Railway that ran in from Blisworth Junction near Northampton. The line prospered and later gained another arm from Rugby, but by the throw-away nineteen sixties and despite the impending designation of Peterborough for new town expansion, the powers that be saw it as an irrelevant relic to be tossed into the rubbish bin of railway history.
That it survived as far as Wansford and then emerged into its new guise as the Nene Valley Railway was the result of the foresight shown by the Peterborough Development Corporation and the commitment of the band of dedicated volunteers who restored, managed and operated the line. Included in that band was, of course, our own long serving Chairman and President, the Rev. Richard Paten.
As well as exhibiting its resident and visiting gems of rolling stock, the NVR also possesses lineside gems in the form of buildings and structures dating from the Victorian era. Most recently, it has purchased for restoration the original station at Wansford, built for the opening of the line and therefore one of the oldest station buildings still surviving anywhere in the country.
The NVR boasts an established collection of historic travelling post offices and international coaches, which will form the basis of a further initiative in the development of the International Travelling Post Office Museum. The Museum is in the final planning stages and is to be built opposite the station building at Ferry Meadows.
Brian White, the curator of the NVR museum and a former GPO employee, is a long serving volunteer and therefore very well qualified to relate the story of the NVR's trials and triumphs and to outline its exciting plans for the future.
11 March 2019 7.30pm - The Roman Soldier from Invasion to Withdrawal with Jed Jaggard
Remarkably, the Roman Army was in continuous existence for over two thousand years from the foundation of Rome in 750 BC to the fall of Constantinople in 1453 AD. The Roman conquest and occupation of Britain lasted for only a small fraction of that time, from 43-410 AD, during which the Empire stretched from Britain to Syria and from Germany to Morocco with standing armies of around 400,000 men. The sustained planning and effort needed to recruit, train, equip, feed, house, pay, control and deploy such a force is staggering, particularly given the lack of any of the communication aids that we take for granted today.
During the period of occupation, the composition of the army changed greatly, reflecting both economic and social changes within the Empire and the different challenges and threats that it faced. By the time of withdrawal, the classical army, mainly composed of Italian legionaries, had long since become a diverse force recruited from subject peoples right across the Empire and even including mercenaries from outside its borders.
Jed Jaggard has an honours degree in Performing Arts Acting and has specialised in historical re-enactments since 1999, through his company, Up an' at 'em History. He provides bespoke history sessions across the country, promising to educate, interpret, display, entertain and share.
8 April 2019 7.30pm - Vanishing Cambridgeshire with Mike Petty
"In 1925, a group of Cambridge antiquarians set off on a journey into the unknown. They loaded their car with cameras, tripods and glass-plate negatives and their journey took them into a landscape of ancient remains, crumbling churches and dilapidated cottages where residents drank water from wells. While others explored the relics of ancient Egypt, these intrepid explorers never strayed more than a few miles from the magnificent towers of the university town of Cambridge. For this was Cambridgeshire in the inter-war years.
"The explorers ‐ a printer, a doctor, an anatomist and a pathologist ‐ were members of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society and they were reviving a project that had begun at the start of the century. Their mission was to produce a photographic survey of Cambridgeshire, to record both buildings and a way of life, the vanishing landmarks of a region.
"Now Cambridgeshire historian Mike Petty has made a powerful selection of photographs from their pioneering survey to give this insight into a way of life that has disappeared forever. The photographs are supplemented by contemporary reminiscences and newspaper stories that paint a picture in words of the hardship of country life before World War Two. The result is a compelling study of a county that in many ways has changed beyond all recognition ‐ Vanishing Cambridgeshire."
The above paragraphs are taken from the introduction to Mike Petty's book with the same title as our forthcoming talk.
Mike Petty is the best-known authority on the history of Cambridgeshire and the Fens. For more than 30 years he has lectured to schools, adult classes, societies and conferences throughout the region. Mike has daily and weekly columns in the Cambridgeshire Evening News and Cambridgeshire Weekly News and has written several books on Cambridgeshire.
Our speakers for 2018/2019 season yet to address us can be found at the top of this page
Our summer visits for 2018 are now concluded.
Here is what we got up to. Please note these were only available to members of the Society therefore not all details are shown, and are here to give you a flavour of what you are missing if not a member. Our application form to apply for membership of the Society can be found here, please download and print off.
Members have received our latest Newsletter which contains full details of our summer visits along with a separate booking form. If you are a member and have lost your booking form, please contact the membership secretary so your membership can be verified and a replacement form will be sent to you.
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Delapre Abbey (Northampton) and Brixworth Church coach trip in May |
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A day in Boston in June (make your own travel arrangements) |
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Visit to Buckden Towers in July (make your won travel arrangements) |
Committee Meetings
Committee meetings are normally arranged on the first Monday of each month throughout the year, except January and May which are on the second Monday.
Summaries of the society's talks and accounts of its visits appear in our Annual Report. The contents of our most recent Annual Reports are listed here To obtain a copy please write or email our Secretary.