PROGRAMME
Our lectures and visits
The lectures will be held either in the Methodist Church in Nichol Hill, LN11 9NQ, or online using Zoom. Visitors or members may request a Zoom link by emailing start.david@btinternet.com.
The lectures will be held either in the Methodist Church in Nichol Hill, LN11 9NQ, or online using Zoom. Visitors or members may request a Zoom link by emailing start.david@btinternet.com.
This lecture will be held in Louth Methodist Church, Nichol Hill.
Dr Andrew Walker has a long standing interest in the history of Lincolnshire. Between 1992 and 2010 he worked at the University of Lincoln and its predecessor institutions, latterly as Head of the School of Humanities and Performing Arts. Between 2010 and 2020, he was Vice Principal of Rose Bruford College of Theatre & Performance in Kent. He now lives in Worcester but maintains close links with our county. He is a member of the Lincoln Record Society and The Survey of Lincoln and has served on the History of Lincolnshire and Local History teams of the Society for Lincolnshire History & Archaeology. Andrew is currently Chair of SLHA.
Agricultural shows were opportunities for the latest agrarian knowledge to be transmitted and technology to be exhibited. However, they were much more than that. This talk will focus particularly upon the Louth shows arranged by the North Lincolnshire Agricultural Society between 1838 and 1868, and the Lincolnshire Agricultural Society between 1878 and 1949. It will plot agricultural developments in the locality as displayed on the showground, but, as will be explored, changes in the nature of the shows at Louth also reveal much about the transformation of the town socially and culturally. Civic pride, too, was on display during the period of the show’s visit, and will also be considered.
Attention will be paid to the showgrounds themselves, focussing upon their locations and layouts, which revealed much about the agricultural societies’ priorities.
This illustrated talk will draw upon a range of sources, most notably newspaper reports, and agricultural society records, including maps and plans of the show sites.
Wednesday 15 April, 10 am to 12 pm in Louth Museum.
Featuring Dr Lisa Brundle of the Portable Antiquities Scheme.
Members of the public are invited to bring in items for identification and recording. This service is free, but a monetary donation to support the work of the museum would be appreciated.
A town walk led by Louth Museum volunteer, Bob Maddams, starting and ending at Broadbank Car Park. The walk focuses on the buildings and people that make up the history and heritage of the market town of Louth and includes one hour free entry to Louth Museum at the end. The duration of the walk is approximately 90 minutes. Starts and ends at Broadbank Car Park.
The cost is £5 per person. Please come to the museum (open 10am to 4pm Wed to Sat) to book and pay for your walk.
This walk is part of the Lincolnshire Wolds Outdoor Festival.
This guided walk, led by Louth Museum volunteer Richard Gurnham, follows the course of the River Lud with a description of the many dramatic and tragic events of the Louth Flood of May 1920. The duration of the walk is approximately 90 minutes. Starts at Bridge Street Car Park (near the Old Cem) and finishes at around 3.30pm near the Woolpack Inn, at the Riverhead.
The cost is £5 per person. Please come to the museum (open 10am to 4pm Wed to Sat) to book and pay for your walk.
This walk is part of the Lincolnshire Wolds Outdoor Festival.
Join Julie Bounford from Louth Museum on a guided walk around the cemetery, visiting the resting places and memorials of a few well known and some not so well known Louth residents, plus a look at the intriguing symbols, superstitions and rituals associated with Victorian burial practices.
The duration of the walk is approximately 90 minutes. It begins and ends at the Linden Walk cemetery gate.
The cost is £5 per person. The size of the group is limited to 12 due to the location and only those aged sixteen and over may attend. Please come to the museum (open 10am to 4pm Wed to Sat) to book and pay for your walk. If you arrive at the start of the walk without a booking, you will be allowed to join only if spaces are available.
Please be aware that while the walk is taking place within the boundaries of the cemetery, some of the ground may be slightly uneven and challenging for those with limited mobility.
Friday July 17th 10.30 am to 5.00 pm. Visit to the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre, East Kirkby Airfield, PE23 4DE with special guided tour of the exterior of the Lancaster.
The centre opens to the public at 9.30 am so members might like to arrive early to have a drink in the NAAFI. Once we have enjoyed our guided tour of the Lancaster bomber we will be given a map of the extensive site and be free to explore as we wish. Members are free to leave at any point in the day. The site is extensive and includes the wartime control tower, several other aircraft, military vehicles and several buildings with exhibitions. The NAAFI building also contains merchandise including books, prints and clothing. More information on https://www.lincsaviation.co.uk/
Please note that no refreshments are included in the admission + tour price. Members may like to know that dogs are allowed on site but must be kept on a short lead. Please park in the public parking area. (PE23 4DE; footpath.routines.daily)
Cost £13 per person. Booking essential as numbers limited. Contact Jean Howard, jrbh@btinternet.com
Join Julie Bounford from Louth Museum on a guided walk around the cemetery, visiting the resting places and memorials of a few well known and some not so well known Louth residents, plus a look at the intriguing symbols, superstitions and rituals associated with Victorian burial practices.
The duration of the walk is approximately 90 minutes. It begins and ends at the Linden Walk cemetery gate.
The cost is £5 per person. The size of the group is limited to 12 due to the location and only those aged sixteen and over may attend. Please come to the museum (open 10am to 4pm Wed to Sat) to book and pay for your walk. If you arrive at the start of the walk without a booking, you will be allowed to join only if spaces are available.
Please be aware that while the walk is taking place within the boundaries of the cemetery, some of the ground may be slightly uneven and challenging for those with limited mobility.
Sunday August 16th 10.30 am to c 1.00 pm. Guided tour of Lincoln’s Late Medieval Buildings led by Prof. Mark Gardiner.
Meet at the Cathedral outside the new cafeteria which will be open from 10.00 am to allow for a comfort stop before beginning our walk. The route will be chosen by Mark depending on the day but members should remember that Steep Hill is likely to be descended and climbed! The buildings examined will include not only the well known - Jew’s House and Norman House - but also some of the less apparent timber-framed houses. The tour will consider what can be said about the history of Lincoln from the surviving buildings
Please wear adequate footwear for the day. Please park in any of the public carparks. Possibly the easiest is on Greetwell Gate (PE11 4UA; prop.meals.trip).
Cost £11 per person. Booking essential as numbers limited. Contact Jean Howard, jrbh@btinternet.com
This lecture will be held in Louth Methodist Church, Nichol Hill.
Mick has lived in Partney for 21 years since moving from Hertfordshire. He organised an annual Village History event for 15 years. He has written two self- published books about the village and has gathered a collection of local cine films etc. spanning the last 70 years. He gives talks on the connection between the village and Matthew Flinders, the history of the Partney Victory Hall and the men from the village who served in the Great War.
Mick will show three of his films. The first two are ‘Home Movies’ shot by the same local man almost 50 years apart. The first captures farming life during 1958 and brings home the changes caused by mechanisation. The second is a film in the style of ‘Time Team’ and records the archaeological dig before the construction of the Partney bypasses in 2004. The last film is a pictorial slide show accompanying a talk given by a local man about his recollections of life in the village from the early days of the twentieth century and recorded in the 1970s.
This lecture will be held on Zoom. For details contact David Start.
Judith has been interested in Local History since the late 1990s. After taking a 2 year course in English Local History at the University of Leicester in 2012 her interest has focussed on church buildings and their history.
The talk will consider the churches already lost to Lincolnshire and discuss the possible contributing factors, particularly in East Lindsey. It will document the changing trends in what has happened to closed churches and how some of them have been re-used, though not always successfully. What is the future of our dwindling number of these special buildings? Is it already too late for some of our remaining churches to survive?
This lecture will be held in Louth Methodist Church, Nichol Hill.
In 1995 Brian ‘retired’ from his previous employment as a bus driver and started courses at the Nottingham WEA, mostly in history, before entering the School of Continuing Education at the University of Nottingham. This ultimately led to a PhD (2013) on the subject of the dissolution of the monasteries in Lincolnshire.
The Gilbertine priory of St. Saviour at Bridgend, just off the present A52 from Grantham to Boston, is, like many other former Lincolnshire monastic houses, completely absent. However, this small, and financially impoverished monastery was unique within the county in being founded specifically to maintain one of the most important highways in the area: the Holland or Bridge End Causeway, one of the few roads in the county that ran east-west’. This talk will illustrate the problems faced by the monastery in conserving and repairing the roughly four-mile-long structure crossing the sometimes-flooded fenland from Bridge End to Donington.
This lecture will be held in Louth Methodist Church, Nichol Hill.
Richard has written and edited 56 books on a wide range of topics: practical reporting skills, media ethics, newspaper coverage of US/UK militarism and the secret state, literary journalism, peace journalism, investigative reporting, journalism and humour. He was chair of the Orwell Society 2013-2020 and is joint editor of George Orwell Studies and Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics. He is a member of Louth Male Voice Choir and Notts County Cricket Club and Honorary Professor of Journalism at the University of Lincoln.
This talk will cover the main topics delivered in the exhibition to be held at Louth Museum from July to October 2026. During the First World War about 20,000 men across Lincolnshire refused to fight on moral/religious grounds. A number of Conscientious Objectors ended up in Lincoln Prison, including the humanist Fenner Brockway. In World War Two, a group of COs set up a peace farm near the villages of Holton cum Beckering and Legsby. The talk will also mention Prisoner of War Camps in Lincolnshire during WWII, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and post-Cold War peace campaigns. During 2025 a group of around 20 people has held a vigil in the Fish Shambles, Louth on Fridays in solidarity with the people of Palestine.
This lecture will be held in Louth Methodist Church, Nichol Hill.
Rory Waterman is Professor of Modern Literature and Creative Writing at Nottingham Trent University, and the author of four books of poetry published by Carcanet Press, and three critical monographs on modern literature. In 2024-25, he led the AHRC-funded project ‘Lincolnshire Folk Tales: Origins, Legacies, Connections, Futures’. This talk is based on parts of his new book, Devils in the Details: Exploring Folk Tales in Lincolnshire.
This evening will be an exploration of the origins, histories, and locations associated with several folk tales from Lincolnshire.
A tour of the town’s historic streets led by Louth Museum volunteer Caroline Rood, featuring tales of restless spirits and eerie occurrences.
The duration of the walk is approximately 90 minutes. Starts at the entrance to the Northgate car park and ends outside St James’ Church.
The cost is £5 per person. Children are free and must be accompanied by an adult.
This lecture will be held in Louth Methodist Church, Nichol Hill.
Although a Norfolk Dumpling Jean is most at home in Lincolnshire where she was brought at the age of five by her farming parents. She is happiest among books and research materials. During the 70s and 80s her service with Lincolnshire Library Service included dealing with local history enquiries across the east of the county and this continued during the years she curated Louth Museum’s collection. As a Blue Badge Guide for over 40 years she has researched and spoken on many aspects of Lincolnshire’s history and people.
In this talk she will expand on her presentation of three years ago, having now found Jessie’s personal archive with descendants. Jessie was one of seven children born to Wolds farmer Leslie Stephenson and his wife Sarah. As independent spirited as her two brothers who emigrated to Canada, Jessie’s secretarial work in London led to her attending an early meeting of the suffragette movement with which she became passionately involved. A month in Holloway for breaking an MP’s window, followed by heading up Manchester’s 1911 census protest left her exhausted and ill. She returned to her family in South Thoresby, considered their black sheep. Although little known and possibly misunderstood her contribution to women’s suffrage deserves to be better recognised.
This lecture will be held in Louth Methodist Church, Nichol Hill.
Christopher is a former teacher of history, local history and archaeology. Principally interested in the development and repair of old buildings, he subsequently became an Historic Buildings Advisor in Suffolk. Using this experience he studied for the MSc in Timber Building Conservation at the Weald and Downland Museum where he gained a distinction. At the same time, he and his wife Margery created a business selling eco-friendly building and decorating materials, the first in East Anglia and the winner of awards. Having dug as an archaeologist he now digs even deeper as an historian.
This lecture will be held in Louth Methodist Church, Nichol Hill.
Adam Cartwright has written widely on the industrial history of Lincolnshire for local history societies. He’s particularly interested in the history of breweries and pubs, and is the author of Good Honest Tales: 150 Years of Batemans Brewery, and Brewing in Lincolnshire, published by Amberley in 2024 and 2025 respectively. He is the chairman of Horncastle History and Heritage Society and a trustee of SLHA and Boston Preservation Trust. He has a BA in History from the University of Hertfordshire, and is the editor of two magazines in the heritage railway sector.
For over a hundred years, Soulby, Sons & Winch were the dominant brewers across much of east and south Lincolnshire. Until the company was bought out in 1952, their Alford brewery supplied nearly 150 pubs across the county, with branches in Louth and Boston as well. How Soulby’s grew from a small family business into a major brewing and malting operation is a fascinating and at times tragic story.
This lecture will be held in Louth Methodist Church, Nichol Hill.
Nicola Hallam is a professional genealogist and researcher. A member of the Register of Qualified Genealogists; she has carried out research for the BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? She is also the co-editor of Lady Under Fire on the Western Front about Lady Dorothie Feilding and gave a talk on that to our group a few years ago.
In this talk we will find out more about the poachers of Lincolnshire in the 19th century: from Tidley Pop to Slenderman and the nasty Henry Yates we will explore their ages, occupations, motivations and where they poached. How much poaching was going on in the county? What happened to the poachers when they were caught? Join Nicola to learn more.
This lecture will be held in Louth Methodist Church, Nichol Hill.
Kate Witney, originally from Louth, is a singer and singing teacher. She studied English and Education at Homerton College, Cambridge and Singing at The Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. She has worked for the Lincolnshire schools advisory and special education needs services and currently teaches singing for Lincolnshire Music Service.
Music was an important element in Tennyson’s life, both as a child growing up in Lincolnshire and in adult life. Kate’s talk will look at music making at Somersby and at Farringford, Tennyson’s musical friendships as well as some lesser known settings of Tennyson’s poetry, including those by his wife Emily and his friend Edward Lear. She will illustrate her talk by singing some of the songs referred to.