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2023 PROGRAMME

2023, January 11th

Landmark Trust – Zoom only

Caroline Stanford

Since 1965 the Landmark Trust has rescued and restored over 200 buildings, from cottages to castles, sensitively restored to maintain their historic character using traditional craft skills. Today, the buildings are let as self-catering holiday accommodation to pay for their onward maintenance. Amongst the buildings they have brought back to life is Culloden Tower in Richmond. This talk by Landmark’s Historian Caroline Stanford will focus on their latest restoration project, Grade I Calverley Old Hall near Leeds.

 

2023, February 1st

Food for Thought: Medieval Recipes and What They Tell Us

Professor Giles Gasper, University of Durham

We have thousands of surviving recipes from the European Middle Ages in many collections and multiple languages, from about 1150 to 1500. What they tell us is intriguing in terms of diet and taste, but also in terms of their value and purpose. Who were recipe collections made for? Why were they preserved? This talk will explore these questions and introduce what is, currently, the earliest collection of the medieval period, a set of sauces from 12th c Durham, alongside later examples from England, Denmark, Catalonia and France.

 

2023, March 1st

The Legacy of the Kearton Brothers

Helen Guy

Richard and his younger brother, Cherry Kearton, were born in the village of Thwaite in Swaledale. By 1890 they were becoming internationally famous as pioneering wildlife photographers. Helen Guy has researched their life and their impact to produce an entertaining and very informative illustrated talk, not to be missed.

 

2023, April 5th

The Middleham Jewel – Discovery, Analysis and Interpretation

Dr Kate Giles

Sitting at the heart of the Yorkshire Museum's medieval galleries is an exquisite gold lozenge- shaped pendant - the Middleham Jewel. Discovered by a metal detectorist in 1984, this remarkable object has been the subject of intense interest and study ever since. Dr Kate Giles, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, shares her thoughts and ideas about it.

 

2023, May 3rd

Fort for the Day

Carol Watson

Whilst working for English Heritage at the Castle, Carol realised there were hundreds of forts marked on Ordnance Survey maps. What followed was the development of a website to give details of a new fort for every day of the year. Carol will talk about the project and the many sites of forts on the Fort for the Day website.

 

2023, June 7th

Tackling Climate Change in the Dales

David Butterworth

David Butterworth is the CEO of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority (NPA) Surprisingly, the Authority has no statutory remit to tackle mitigating the worst impacts of Climate change - the single most important issue facing humanity - other than the legislation that relates to the Government’s net zero target for 2050. That should be about to change. In his presentation he will highlight what the NPA is doing to address the problem internally and what we need to do as a society within the National Park.

Click here for David's presentation (pdf)

 

2023, April 19th

Trip: Auckland Castle and gardens

Visit to Auckland Castle and its beautiful gardens.

Society Trip

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2023, July 18th

Trip: Pickering Church and Castle

Pickering Church and wall paintings followed by Pickering Castle (English Heritage members free).

Society Trip

 

2023, September 6th

Funding What Matters to People

Keith Emerick

In 2022 Historic England launched its new grant fund – “Everyday Heritage: celebrating working class histories”. This is a grant scheme for local groups to propose those heritage projects which matter to them and would likely be ignored by funders. Keith Emerick, Inspector of Ancient Monuments for Historic England, will talk about the scheme in general and two northern projects in particular – Dunston Staith, Gateshead, and the Fountains Café, Oastler Market, Bradford.

 

2023, October 4th

Georgian Theatre Royal

Doug Waugh

As a former trustee, treasurer and guide for many years, Doug has had a close association with the Georgian Theatre Royal 'the most significant, exquisite and unique theatre in the country'. He has recently published a fascinating booklet, which delves into the history of the theatre buildings. Doug will explain how he has researched this history to develop new theories about the origins of the theatre.

 

2023, November 1st

Hurst

Mike Wood

Windswept Hurst, hardly now a hamlet, once thrived. It is the focus of an exhibition at Richmondshire Museum which attracts much attention. The speaker’s lifetime association and distant family memories of Hurst inspired that exhibition, the creation of which unearthed mysteries but left some unsolved. Hurst’s diaspora is central to the story but the surrounding moorland is also fascinating. Gordon, though not a local historian, provides both a history post-graduate and a countryman’s view.

 

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