Winter Programme 2024/2025
Meet in Hill Ridware Village Hall WS15 3RJ.
7.30pm for 7.45pm start. Licensed bar or tea/coffee available.
Non-members are welcome. £2 per visit
For information on how to join please contact: Membership Secretary: Helen Sharp 01543 490873.
Monday 7 October 2024
AGM followed by Richard Totty – The Bawdy Courts of Lichfield
Richard is the chairman of the Friends of Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent Archives. His talk will explain the role of ecclesiastical courts in passing judgement on moral matters, including fornication, defamation and clergy discipline, led to them gaining notoriety in the 17th century. The salacious nature of the cases and the statements of witnesses earned them the moniker ‘bawdy’. The court records cover over 350 years of cases from the diocese. Cause papers are a rich source of information, not only about the parties in the case but also the wider community. They include cases of immorality, cases about the conduct of clergy, and disputes relating to slander, marriage, probate and tithes. A local issue raised was whether the area known as Rowley Park, in the manor of Agardsley, was actually in the parish of Yoxall as the churchwardens maintained or Hamstall Ridware.
Monday 4 November 2024
Katy Shore Kapsis
Katy is chairperson (Trustee) of the Sandfield Pumping Station Trust. Her talk will focus on John Robinson McClean – great engineer and philanthropist of his time (contemporary with I.K. Brunel), although not as well known – the genius behind the water scheme that included Sandfields pumping station. He was also an astute businessman who made time to help his fellow man whenever he could.
Monday 2 December 2024
Anita Fernandez
Anita, who is a member of the Dickens Fellowship, won’t give a talk exactly – it will be a one-woman performance of A Christmas Carol. She wears authentic Victorian costume and use Dickens’s own script to illustrate a lot of the Christmas traditions we still use.
Monday 6 January 2025
Ann Hughes – The Impact of the Civil War on the People of Lichfield and its Environs
Retired from Keele University where she was Professor of Early Modern History for almost twenty years, Ann specialises in the history of the English Civil War or Revolution of the mid-seventeenth century. Her latest publication is a co-edited edition of the household accounts of Robert, Lord Brooke, the parliamentarian commander killed in Lichfield in 1643. Her talk will focus on the impact of the civil war on the people of Lichfield and its environs – looking at the personal and financial burdens imposed by the major garrison in the city and at the political and religious upheavals.
Monday 3 February 2025
Shane Kelleher – County Archaeologist
This illustrated talk by Shane Kelleher, the Staffordshire County Archaeologist, will provide an insight into the archaeological work that has been carried out and give an update on the results of this fieldwork in a talk which will flit from medieval weirs on the county boundary with Derbyshire, to a prehistoric ‘arena’ near Lichfield, and from a medieval moated site near Uttoxeter, to a multi-period site near Tatenhill with its origins in the Mesolithic period, amongst other things. An update will also be provided on archaeological work being carried out as a result of the construction of HS2
Monday 3 March 2025
Dr Mark Knight – Cultural Heritage Project Work in the Trent Valley.
Dr Mark Knight, Senior Cultural Heritage Officer with the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, will give an overview of the cultural heritage project work in the Trent Valley that connects communities with their historic environment through research and practical conservation to help understand, monitor and improve the current state of our heritage at risk.