2023 PROGRAMME
Our lectures and visits in 2024
The lectures in 2024 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 in 2024 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.
Born and bred in Louth, in his younger days Chris was able to experience going shopping in the town, when it was full of traditional shops.
The first Supermarket in Louth opened in the 1960s, and in the space of a decade began to end the way we did our daily shopping. But one shop in Little Eastgate, Platt’s Provision Stores, which Chris first visited in a pram, survived longer than most. Eventually Chris shopped there for himself, and it was a shop that had strong family ties. Finally, it closed in the 1980s. Chris’ Auntie was Mr Platt’s assistant, from both he obtained so much knowledge of Louth and the people they met, he will tell stories and memories passed on by them.
This lecture will be held in Louth Methodist Church, Nichol Hill.
Simon has retired from professional archaeological work but is still lecturing for the WEA and doing fieldwork with Northern Lincolnshire Archaeological Society. He is also an air photographer and a former colleague of David Start.
Simon will talk about ‘conventional’ archaeological air photography in the digital world and what the modern flier can do from a less than modern aeroplane. He will be using Lincolnshire examples.
This lecture will be held online, using Zoom.
Dr Claire Kennan is a Medieval Historian specialising in the social and cultural history of Britain between c. 1300 and c. 1500. Claire completed here PhD in 2018 and is currently working on a proposal for her first book; she is the co-editor of the Brepols series Reinterpreting the Middle Ages: From Medieval to Neo. She has taught Medieval History at King’s College London, Royal Holloway, University of London and Bader College, Queen’s University (Canada). In 2019 she was one of the AHRC’s Creative Economy Engagement Fellows at The National Archives (London) and between 2017 and 2020 she was the Medieval Specialist on the £1 million National Lottery Heritage funded Citizens Project. Claire is currently the Research Impact Manager for King’s College London.
The 1388-9 guild enquiry ordered by Richard II’s government constitutes the first substantial body of evidence for the existence of parish guilds in England. While the evidence generated by the enquiry is geographically uneven and incomplete, it offers a unique window into guild activity at the end of the fourteenth century. One of the newer saints’ cults which was significantly represented in 1389 was that of Corpus Christi, the feast of which had only been established some sixty years before. Out of the 507 surviving guild returns, forty-four guilds were dedicated to Corpus Christi, eighteen of which came from Lincolnshire. Therefore, over forty per cent of England’s Corpus Christi guilds, according to the enquiry evidence, were based in Lincolnshire. This lecture will focus on the prevalence of Corpus Christi guilds in the county, examining their foundation, location and, where possible, membership and office holders, along with their continental connections and influence in their localities. We will consider why Lincolnshire had so many Corpus Christi guilds and what this can tell us about patterns of popular piety in the county at the end of the C14th
This lecture will be held online, using Zoom.
Jean Wilson was educated at Cambridge and taught at universities in the UK and the USA. She has published widely on Elizabethan Court culture, renaissance playhouses and funerary monuments, with a particular interest in the depiction of emotion. From 2013-18 she was President of the Church Monuments Society and in 2019 was awarded an MBE for services to heritage.
There are many conventional symbols of death and resurrection on funerary monuments, but these do not necessarily provide the most interesting imagery. Subsidiary allegorical figures relate to the lives of those commemorated, but they can be difficult for modern spectators to interpret. They may be surprising, specious or comical, but they enable us to understand the lives of the dead, or at least the way in which the dead wished to be remembered.
This lecture will be held in Louth Methodist Church, Nichol Hill.
This lecture will be held in Louth Methodist Church, Nichol Hill.
Rachel is Property Operations Manager for the National Trust and is based at Gunby Hall.
In 2020, the National Trust purchased their first piece of land on the Lincolnshire Coast. The vision is to transform the former golf course into a nature reserve – a haven for wildlife where everyone can enjoy being outdoors and get closer to nature. The National Trust hopes to play a leading role in helping build nature’s local resilience to threats such as climate change and habitat loss. Join us as we share our plans and aspirations for the site.
This lecture will be held in Louth Methodist Church, Nichol Hill.
Mark is a retired biology teacher, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and resident of Little Steeping.
Edward Steere was a rector of Little Steeping. After accompanying William Tozer of Burgh le Marsh to Nyasaland, Steere took up a post in Zanzibar where he worked with David Livingstone to abolish slavery. Steere was a considerable linguist and produced dictionaries, grammars, hymn books and a New Testament in East African languages. He died in Zanzibar in 1882. 140 years later, a journey to Zanzibar by our speaker uncovers the achievements of this forgotten hero of the Lincolnshire marsh.
This lecture will be held in Louth Methodist Church, Nichol Hill.
Clare grew up near Louth, developing a love of nature and wildlife. She volunteered at Louth Museum while studying her A-levels, researching the geology display with the support of David Robinson OBE. Clare subsequently read Earth Sciences at Oxford University. Valuing opportunities to collaborate with others and learn new skills, Clare has worked in heritage, retail, hospitality, the Army Reserves, and Lincoln Coronavirus Test Centre. She is happiest when outdoors, walking or working to protect the environment.
Clare’s talk will focus on her job in Antarctica as the Postmaster of the world’s most southerly public post office. Clare has spent six incredible months at Port Lockroy, a historic scientific base surrounded by glaciers, mountains, seals, whales, and over a thousand penguins. She found living in a small team on an island the size of a football pitch, without internet or running water, to be an amazing experience. By monitoring the wildlife and historic buildings, and welcoming visitors to the museum, post office, and shop, Clare supported the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust to conserve British Antarctic history and the environment. She will share unique stories and photos that capture what life is like at the bottom of the planet.
This lecture will be held in Louth Methodist Church, Nichol Hill.
Mr Peter Bates has been the Churchwarden and Secretary at St. Edith’s Church, Grimoldby since 2019. Miss Julie Markham was appointed Hon. Curator at Louth Museum in 2023. Professor Lynda Payne is an historian and was appointed Chair of the Volunteers at Louth Museum in 2023.
From 2024 to 2026, Louth Museum is mounting a major exhibition showcasing the history and exploring the cultural context of two of the restored fifteenth-century oak-carved angels from Grimoldby.
In this talk, Peter Bates first discusses the history of St. Edith’s Church, Grimoldby, the poor condition of the angels in 2019 and their ongoing conservation at the University of Lincoln.
Julie Markham then considers the relationship of the angels of Grimoldby to the Book of Revelation.
Finally, Lynda Payne analyses the carvings of the angels for what they might reveal about the ways medieval people experienced and imagined angelic bodies and their own physical selves.
This lecture will be held in Louth Methodist Church, Nichol Hill.
Duncan is Lecturer in Medieval Archaeology and Archaeological Fieldwork Convenor within the School of History, Classics, and Archaeology at Newcastle University. He studied undergraduate archaeology at the University of Exeter, and completed an MA in Medieval Archaeology at the University of York. He then returned to Exeter to complete his PhD in 2013, and remained at the institution as Research Fellow working on the Anarchy: War and Status in Twelfth-century Landscapes of Conflict project. He moved to Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln, where he led the Archaeology and Heritage Programmes, before joining Newcastle in 2020. Duncan is external examiner for the MA in Landscape Archaeology and the MA in Cultural Heritage Management at the University of Sheffield. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists, and Deputy Editor of Medieval Archaeology.
Understanding of sites and landscapes occupied by early medieval (5th to 11th centuries) hermits in Britain largely relies on later evidence, with serious archaeological investigation rarely undertaken. Excavation of Anchor Church Field, an alleged hermitage near Crowland, Lincolnshire, sought to rectify this lacuna but researchers encountered a site with a far deeper and more complex history of use than anticipated. During the Neolithic or Early Bronze Age a substantial henge was developed, the largest so far recognised in the wetlands of eastern England. After a period of apparent abandonment the interior of the henge was reoccupied around the seventh century and by c.1200 the abbots of Crowland had built a hall and chapel complex on the site. While interpretation early medieval activity on the site is challenging, the later appropriation of the site by the abbey demonstrates how places of genuine antiquity were curated in order to claim legitimacy from illustrious saintly antecedents.
This lecture will be held in Louth Methodist Church, Nichol Hill.
Heather was born and brought up in South Africa. She trained as a historian at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. She taught at the University of Natal in Durban, South Africa, and was a researcher for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. In 2001 she moved to Lincolnshire to join the University of Lincoln. Since then she has overseen the heritage interpretation for the International Bomber Command Centre in Lincoln and continues to head up the digital archive associated with that project. Other research interests include uncovering marginalised and neglected stories from Lincolnshire’s past – such as Albert West’s!
Albert West was born in Louth in 1879. He trained as a printer in Leicester, before travelling to South Africa after the Anglo-Boer war. A chance encounter with the young Mohandas Gandhi in Johannesburg changed the course of his life. He was to play a founding role in Mahatma Gandhi’s first ashram and was central to the elaboration of Gandhi’s philosophy of passive/non-violent protest against injustice. In turn, it was through West that Gandhi twice visited Lincolnshire. The talk concludes with a look at West’s later life and return to Lincolnshire in retirement.
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.
Today the term Purgatory refers to an unpleasant situation that is both lengthy and unavoidable, e.g., contacting a utility company by phone. In the Medieval period however, Purgatory was much more consequential. According to Church doctrine, Purgatory was believed by Christians to be an intermediate state between Heaven and Hell, where souls were painfully cleansed of unconfessed sins and uncompleted penance prior to the Day of Judgement. The Church did little to disabuse parishioners that, other than its assured conclusion, the purgatorial process was nothing other than lengthy, tortuous and harrowing. This talk will discuss the history of Purgatory and its gradual progression to become officially acknowledged as Church doctrine. Also considered will be the emergence of the concept of indulgences, designed to reduce time spent in Purgatorium; a process finally outlawed in England by Henry VIII as part of the Reformation process.
This lecture will be held in Louth Methodist Church, Nichol Hill.
Stuart is the former CEO of the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust; Trustee of the Sir Joseph Banks Society; Secretary of the Lincolnshire Branch of the Betjeman Society; and member of the Advisory Committees for Snipe Dales and Gibraltar Point Nature Reserves.
The Sir Joseph Banks Society has unearthed a stunning collection of botanical paintings in a cloth bag where they had lain undisturbed for over a century. They are the work of Wyberton born May Lane-Claypon who married Revd E M Cheales of Friskney. May had trained at the Slade School of Art and also in Germany. A knowledgeable botanist from an early age, she developed a passion for illustrating the wild flowers and fungi she found growing around her home. In later life she turned her talent to portrait and landscape painting and religious subjects for Friskney church. Our speaker will illustrate her talents.
The Burgess collection consists of a large number of postcard sized plant watercolours arranged by botanical family. The watercolours were painted by Dr. J. T. Burgess of Spilsby, Lincolnshire in the 1890s and donated by Miss Norah B. Burgess (his daughter) in July, 1955 to the Lincolnshire Naturalists’ Union. In 2021 the collection was transferred to the Sir Joseph Banks Society for cataloguing and digitisation.
This lecture will be held in Louth Methodist Church, Nichol Hill.
Denise is one of the founder members of the Spirit of Sutterby, a community heritage project which has been running now for nine years. The project is based on the tiny church and Deserted Mediaeval Village of Sutterby in the Lincolnshire Wolds and has gathered people and skills to enable a wide range of research into the history of Sutterby and its archaeological landscape.
One of the most curious episodes of Georgian church provision in Lincolnshire concerns the Fen Chapels built between 1812-1840. Built as a direct result of the draining of the last three Lincolnshire Fens - East Fen, West Fen and Wildmore Fen – theirs is an interesting, yet salutary tale.
This lecture will be held in Louth Methodist Church, Nichol Hill.
Nicholas was the Keeper of the City and County Museum in Lincoln from 1970-75 and then the Curator of the Grosvenor Museum in Chester until 1990. After this he joined his wife Eva‘s antiquarian bookselling business and they moved to Mid Wales, where they specialised in selling books on Archaeology, Architecture and Wales. Moving back to Lincoln in 2016 he has become very active in the Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology and in the Local List Group, which works with the Lincoln City Council in compiling a list of buildings and heritage assets that are not covered by Statutory Listing.
Born in Louth in 1822, Pearson Bellamy trained as an architect under William Adams Nicholson in Lincoln and also in Manchester and Liverpool. He returned in 1845, setting up a practice in Lincoln, but also having an office in his parents’ house in Upgate, Louth. Until the early 1860s he was designing nearly all the new buildings in Louth. These included the Louth Town Hall, the rebuilding of the Mansion House, the Corn Exchange, Cemetery Chapels and the Free Methodist Chapel, many new shops and numerous houses. But c1860 he ceased to work in Louth, though his work elsewhere blossomed with the building of Ipswich, Grimsby, and Retford Town Halls, many buildings in Lincoln, impressive Corn Exchanges, and cemetery and Methodist chapels, in an area stretching from Lancashire and Cheshire to Hertfordshire and even to Jersey. There are traces of friction with James Fowler from the building of Louth Town Hall, then Grimsby Town Hall, which was supposed to be jointly designed, but Fowler withdrew. Finally, there was a very public dispute in 1869 with Fowler over the costings for St Swithin’s Church in Lincoln.
This lecture will be held in Louth Methodist Church, Nichol Hill.
Mark Gardiner has worked in University College London (where he was the Deputy Director of Archaeology South-East) and Queen’s University Belfast (where he was joint head of Archaeology-Palaeoecology). He is currently Professor of Medieval Archaeology at the University of Lincoln and Director of Lincoln Conservation. He has particular research interests in medieval buildings and in the twelfth-century peasantry in Lincolnshire. Publications include over 130 papers on aspects of the archaeology of the Middle Ages and five edited books.
Few timber buildings survive in Lincolnshire from the Middle Ages. Outside the towns of Lincoln, Grantham and Boston, it is hard to find more than one or two buildings remaining in most areas of the county. Compared to other counties in the Midlands, this is a depressingly sparse record. However, recent work has begun to identify some remarkable surviving structures and has begun to fill in the enormous gaps in our understanding. The talk examines why we have lost so many medieval buildings, and some of the extraordinary structures which still remain. From these fragments, we can begin to identify the character of medieval Lincolnshire houses.
This lecture will be held in Louth Methodist Church, Nichol Hill.
Lynda grew up on a farm near Louth and read history at Edinburgh University. She spent forty years in America and is professor emerita of history at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She has published books and articles on the history of surgery and gender. Before becoming an academic, Lynda had careers as a social worker in the UK, and as a respiratory therapist and trauma nurse in the US. In 2020 she and her American husband retired to Grimoldby. Lynda is chair at the Louth Museum.
This talk focuses on the fifteen children of Ann and Dan Gresswell (veterinary surgeon and Louth mayor in 1871) for what their stories can tell us about the desire for professional education and long-distance travel in Victorian Louth. The Gresswell siblings included veterinarians, lunatic asylum attendants and infectious disease doctors, several of whom studied and lived in the Middle East, South Africa and Australia. Some wrote books on topics such as the ox and the horse, snake venom and spirituality, and there is even a fairy tale romance about evolution by two of the brothers. Although they may be largely forgotten today, the Gresswells were among Louth’s leading families 150 years ago and theirs is a tale worth telling.