Programme 2020
Meetings take place on Thursday evenings at 7.30pm in Warmington Village Hall. Members free, guests, £2
(Page updated 13th January 2020)
16th January
Tweets from an ancient desert.
A talk by Michael Macdonald, Honorary Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford.
This is a talk not to be missed. A brief summary of what we can expect:
“Some 2000 years ago when the Romans ruled what is now Syria, Jordan and north-west Saudi Arabia, the nomads in the deserts learnt to read and write. However, since they had nothing to write on except rocks this was not very useful to them except that it allowed them to carve graffiti to pass the time when doing boring jobs like watching over the flocks and herds while they pastured. They left tens of thousands of these graffiti which are like tweets in that they are self-expression in a public area where once it is out you cannot withdraw it. Because they had all the time in the world some of these graffiti are quite long and together they tell us an enormous amount about their society and its relations with the outside world, as well as very personal things. The result is that we know far more about the nomads at this period than we do about the contemporaries in the cities or the countryside where no such graffiti have survived.”
20th February
Paul Baker
The Lost Railway. The story of the efforts of the inhabitants of Henley-in-Arden to have their own railway.
A lively, illustrated, account told against the background of the early Victorian railway mania, the role played by one of the greatest railway builders of the era and a financial panic caused by the biggest bank failure of the nineteenth century.
19th March
(Postponed from the AGM, November 2019).
The ITHAS Project.
(The Itinerary Triangle History and Archaeological Society)
A talk by Mark Bletchley
ITHAS: ‘A society which looks to form an amalgamation of local historians and archaeological groups, committed to sharing knowledge with the objective though research and survey, to define the ancient societies and region created by natural geology, ancient roads and trackways’.
This recently formed group is looking into the history contained in our local area within the triangle bordered by the Roman Fosse Way, Akeman Street and Watling Street. This should be a talk of interest to many in this area.
16th April
Jenny Hanscombe and David Beaumont
Jenny will give a presentation on the project to transcribe the loss accounts from the civil war (Warmington, Mollington and Shotteswell) and David will speak about the new Radway Civil War Exhibition in Radway Church.
21st May
Chris Pickford.
“Revising Pevsner’s Warwickshire – including Warmington and district”.
Chris has been updating Pevsner’s book and will have some copies of the update for sale at the talk.
2nd June (Tuesday evening) 5.30pm
Liz Newman: A Walk and Talk around Warmington. Meet at Springfield House, 5.30pm.
18th June
Dr Stanley Ireland from the University of Warwick will give a talk on the Warmington Hoards.
July
August
17th September
Colin Clay.
Orchids (Details to follow).
15th October
Members Miscellany
19th November
AGM
Peter Spackman will give a talk about the 17 garden urns found during the dig at Hanwell