Join us for a free evening of stargazing on the Cranborne Chase National Landscape International Dark Sky Reserve. Booking is essential.
And lots here too…
NEW Archaeology in Wiltshire Conference 2024
Speakers include:
Melanie Pomeroy-Kellinger, David Roberts and Denise Wilding (Excavations at Teffont), Sophie Hawke (PAS finds), Roland Smith (‘Seeing the monuments for the trees’. A volunteer project to clear scrub from some of Wiltshire’s Scheduled Monuments.), Alejandra Gutierrez and Lorraine Mepham (Creating a Wiltshire Pottery type series), Fran Allfrey (Avebury Papers), Phil Andrews (Recent Projects from the Archaeology Field Group), Kerry Donaldson (The “Highworth Circles” – some new geophysical discoveries.), Simona Denis (Box Roman Villa), Ben Chan and Josh Pollard (Tracking the Mesolithic and Neolithic at Cherhill: the beginnings of new work) and Richard Osgood (Repopulating Imber: excavations at Wiltshire’s ‘Ghost Village’ on Salisbury Plain).
There will also be a sale of high quality pre-owned archaeological publications at bargain prices and stands from a range of organisations including archaeological contractors and groups such as the Association of Roman Archaeology and Victoria County History.
Date: Sunday 17 March Times: Start 10 am to 5 pm Location: Corn Exchange, Devizes. Tickets: Non-Member – £39.00, WANHS Member – £29.00, Student – £16.00 (with proof of status) Booking: Essential. Ticket price includes lunch and tea/coffee.
Tuesday, 30th January, at 2pm – Snippets from Salisbury Museum’s History: 1860-1950 by Rosemary Pemberton, Volunteer, in the Museum Lecture Hall
Wednesday 24th January 7:30pm Salisbury Military History Society The flier below is available as a PDF here. For more details about further talks and membership please refer to the SMHS website https://salisburymilhist.com
‘Virtual’ Walks:
Join Stephen as he explores the wonderful world of shops in London past and present in this collection of virtual tours:
Thursday 18 January @ 6pm – Are you being served? – the Rise and Fall of Department Stores Thursday 25 January @ 6pm – West End stories – untold tales of London’s great shops Thursday 18 February @ 6pm – By Royal Appointment – London shops with regal approval
LECTURE: Roman Hoards from Wiltshire.An afternoon lecture at Wiltshire Museum, by Richard Henry
For thousands of years, the landscape of Wiltshire has played host to carefully concealed hoards of material wealth, from tools to weapons, jewellery to money. Over the last two hundred years, the discoveries of these previously hidden treasures have led to the rewriting of our understanding of this country and the people who lived in it.
This talk will explore some of the late Roman hoards that have been discovered and the stories that they can tell us, including the Wilcot hoard generously donated to Wiltshire Museum and recently conserved through support from members and supporters. It will shortly be going on display.
Date: Saturday 27 January Time: Start 2.30 pm Location: Wiltshire Museum (we are not able to make this a ‘hybrid’ event) Tickets: £8.00 (£5 WANHS members; £4 students) – booking essential.
For more information and to book online – click the link below.
Date: Thursday 25 January 2024 Tickets: FREE – booking essential to ensure we send the Zoom link. Ticket sales close at 5pm on the day of the lecture. Time: Start 7.30pm Location: An online event, using Zoom webinar – the link will be emailed on the day of the lecture. If you book on the day of the lecture (before 5 pm), you will receive the link before 7 pm.
For more information and to book online – click the link below.
Description: Discover public art in the City created by immigrants and refugees to the UK. Art works range from the 17th to the 20th centuries and include works from artists from Denmark, France, Russia, sculptures by refugees from Nazi Europe and concludes with a work by a refugee from former Yugoslavia.
Description: An extended version for the 400th anniversary of the First Folio, not only will we explore the “Viper’s nest of vagabonds and thieves” of Elizabethan Bankside, we will also venture north of the river into The City to explore the the origins of the book that saved the words of Shakespeare
Thursday, 14 December, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM A 17th-century Christmas With Tim Healey, cost £10 / £6.50 SoG Members
Dame Elisabeth Frink’s deep connection to Dorset is celebrated with a major exhibition at Dorset Museum
One of the most celebrated sculptors of recent times – and the first female sculptor to be elected as a Royal Academician in 1973 – Dame Elisabeth Frink (1930-1993) produced over 400 sculptures throughout her illustrious career, a significant part of which were produced at her Woolland studio in Dorset between 1976 and 1993.
Thirty years after her death, this first ever exhibition dedicated to Frink’s time in Dorset showcases over 80 sculptures, drawings and prints at Dorset Museum, including the never publicly displayed working plasters that informed her famous bronze sculptures.
A significant cultural gift was given to 12 public museums across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, with Dorset Museum receiving more than 300 works in 2020, making it one of the largest public collections of Frinks’ work. The Frink Estate gifted 31 bronze sculptures, more than 100 prints and drawings along with several original plaster sculptures, studio tools and equipment.
As part of this new exhibition, her Dorset studio is recreated featuring her tools and the working plasters that formed the basis of some of her most well-known bronze sculptures. But beyond the insights into how she worked and her artistic process, visitors will get a chance to explore the influence of her private Dorset life, with a selection of personal possessions on display including letters and photographs.
Works in A View from Within draws from this illuminating collection, augmented by pieces from the Frink Archive at the Dorset History Centre, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and The Ingram Collection of Modern British and Contemporary Art. The result is a show revealing the breadth of Frink’s subject matter and mastery of different techniques, from works that have been seen by millions in public, to those she privately pursued.
The exhibition includes Frink’s response to the then-recent discovery of two life-size Greek bronzes near the Italian coast with her sculpture Riace III (1988), a masterpiece of movement and muscle standing over 2 metres tall, inspired by the visual concept of the warriors as well as the scholarly commentary which designated them as ‘thuggish’.
The natural world was also important to Frink, especially the relationships between those that populated it. Animals would routinely be her subjects, both in sculpture such as with Small Standing Dog (1991), and printmaking with Little Owl (1977) and Blue Horse Head (1988). Frink was well known for her fascination with the form of horses and the spiritual properties they possessed. One of the last sculptures that she ever completed, Standing Horse (1993), was finished at Woolland only weeks before her death from cancer and is included in the exhibition.
Other work she produced during her illness offers an insight into her own spirituality. Green Man (1992) was inspired by the book of the same name by poet William Anderson, which looked at ideas of regeneration and healing through nature. Frink was raised in the Catholic tradition, and although she professed ambivalence to organised religion during her life, her sculptures reflect a broad knowledge of religious ideas and thought.
Walking Madonna (1981) is a rare study of a female body by Frink, which casts Mary in movement, striding with strength despite the grief that clearly consumes her face. It is one of several of Frink’s sculptures that has been located at places of worship or nature during the last few decades.
On this specially-priced 3-week evening course, Mia Bennett will help us uncover the basics of DNA testing for genealogy & how to make best use of it: Demystifying DNA TestsTest Taken, Now What?Starting to Use Your DNA Results in Family History
With Mia Bennett cost £30 / £19.50 SoG Members
NEW LECTURE: The Hunt for Stourton Castle An afternoon lecture at Wiltshire Museum, by Martin Papworth
In July this year, following clues from historic maps and geophysical survey, National Trust archaeologist Martin Papworth with a team of volunteers, excavated a group of trenches in the parkland in front of Stourhead House. Would Stourton Castle be revealed in the 10 days available? Despite all the earlier research; success was not guaranteed.
This talk will provide the background to the search for Stourton Castle and then consider what the archaeological trenches eventually revealed.
Date: Saturday 25 November Time: Start 2.30 pm Location: Wiltshire Museum (we are not able to make this a ‘hybrid’ event) Tickets: £8 (£5 WANHS members; £5 students) – booking essential.
For more information and to book online – click the link below.
ONLINE LECTURE – from the Victoria County History:
Francis Kilvert and tales of Langley Burrell, by Dr Louise Ryland-Epton, Contributing Editor, Wiltshire VCH
A talk combining Kilvert’s anecdotes with historical research and photographs , including tales of murder, ghosts, melting butter and the dog which hung itself!
Date:Wednesday 8 November, 7.30 pm Location: Online via Zoom. The link will be sent on the day of the lecture. Tickets: £10 per screen. All revenue from these talks goes to the Victoria County History.
NEW A one-day conference highlighting the industrial heritage of Wiltshire.
Talks include:
Building Georgian Chippenham – architects, builders and materials, by Mike Stone (previously scheduled for 2022)
Iron stone and Steam: Brunel’s Railway Kingdom, by Tim Bryan, Director of the Brunel Institute
Bath in the 1970s: Industrial Heritage, Environmental Conservation and Festivals, by Stuart Burroughs, Director of the Bath at Work Museum
Restoring the Wilts and Berks Canal, by John Farrow
Taking to the road in Georgian Wiltshire, by John Chandler
Date: Saturday 21 October 2023 Times: 10am to 4.30pm Venue: Devizes Town Hall, SN10 1BZ Tickets: £15 (£13 WANHS members) – held at the 2022 rate. Lunch not included
New Archaeological Finds in BowerchalkeVolunteers on the Champions of the Past project discover evidence of ancient settlement spanning thousands of years during a field survey.
We have had some fantastic new findings as part of the Champions of the Past project. Earlier this month a small band of volunteers made a site visit to a possible new enclosure site in Bowerchalke in response to some interesting results from our new Cranborne Chase LiDAR Portal.
The team visited the site to locate and measure any surface evidence of the possible archaeology beneath the ground. While they were there, the team also carried out a fieldwalking survey of an adjacent field. The team were pleased to discover some pieces as they searched. Roy, one of our brilliant volunteers, carried out the washing of the finds, and conducted a summary identification. Because of his work, we know that the finds represent evidence of more than two millennia of evidence of nearby human habitation. The finds include pieces of early ceramics, metal slag, flint, and Victorian to 20thC pottery. We’ll be revisiting the site early next month to carry out a geophysical survey of the site to start mapping the archaeology and find out even more about what lies beneath this otherwise anonymous field of grass pasture in the Chalke Valley.
Interested to join the hunt? We’re always looking for more team members so why not get involved with the Champions of the Pastproject today?
This year I was able to attend three of the events organised for Volunteers Week – the coffee afternoon at Salisbury Museum involving a walk through the current ‘Salisbury on Camera’ exhibition, the visit to Wiltshire Museum, Devizes, and the Salisbury Cathedral Tower Tour.
The talk ‘Salisbury on Camera, 50 Years of the Salisbury Journal Archive’ was given by Ken Smith, whose parents, incidentally, used to run The Little Junk Shop on Salt Lane. As a teenager I used to spend a lot of time in this shop buying books, and Brooke Bond tea cards especially. I recall that, on the birth of my first child, Ken’s Dad, Jim, presented me with a silver 3d coin, which I still have in her ‘Baby Book’.
During his talk Ken highlighted just a few of the 244 images in the exhibition, explained their background and why they were selected. They were also put into the context of what was happening throughout the country at the time.
Among the photographs I recall being highlighted was Salisbury’s first supermarket, Price Rite’s on Bridge Street (where Wagamama now is); an anti-vivisection demonstration aimed at Porton Down and the legendary Charlie Knight (of ‘Charlie’s Bikes’ fame). Regarding Price Rite, Ken Smith said that shop assistants had to explain to customers how to use self-service as, hitherto, they had been used to being served. Charlie Knight used to appear at local fetes with a range of idiosyncratic bicycles. I recall one where the rider had to pedal backwards in order to go forwards and turn the handlebars to the left in order to turn right.
The talk was followed by a very convivial tea, coffee and other refreshments on the back lawn.
The morning of Friday 2nd June saw four of us catching the 10.52 No.2 bus from New Canal to visit Wiltshire Museum in Devizes. As the journey time is 70 minutes, on arrival we ate our packed lunches on The Green (somewhat chilly!) before making our way to the Museum. Here we were met by Nicola Trowell, the ‘Partnership and Digital Lead’ and also, formerly, of Salisbury Museum, who, over coffee and biscuits, described to us the history of the Museum and something of its future, and reminded us that the Museum contains the largest collection of Early Bronze Age gold ever put on public display in England.
In terms of history, Nicola explained that The Wiltshire Museum was established in Devizes in 1874 and is accommodated in Georgian and Victorian buildings, with a number of floor levels and staircases.
In terms of the future, Nicola informed us that The Museum had been awarded Development Funding of £300,748 by The National Lottery Heritage Fund to facilitate relocation to the former Devizes Assize Court. They plan to apply for a full National Lottery grant in 2025 which, if successful, will enable work to start in 3 or 4 years time, with a target opening date of 2030.
Among the very many exhibits, one that particularly attracted my attention on this occasion was the Britton Cabinet (Fig 3).
Fig 3 The Britton cabinet
Made of mahogany and pine, with elm and maple veneer, this piece was made as a talking piece for a gentleman’s drawing room, and was once owned by the travel writer John Britton. At the top is a model of Stonehenge as it was when the cabinet was made in 1824. The sides of the glass are coloured red and orange so that, as demonstrated by Nicola, shining a torch (candle) light through would show how Stonehenge looks at dawn or dusk. The aerial views on the front are from before the days of aerial photography.
In one of the drawers is a model of Stonehenge as it may have been if it was complete. In a second drawer is a model of the Avebury landscape, based on a plan by the antiquarian William Stukeley. The drawer fronts are set with watercolours of prehistoric monuments in Wiltshire, Wales and the West of England by John Britton and leading artists of the day. The remaining drawers and cupboards held books, maps, plans and drawings.
The cabinet and many of John Britton’s books and papers formed the founding collection of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society which, today runs the Wiltshire Museum.
Tuesday 6th June saw another group of us meeting at the Cathedral West Front for a Tower Tour. Although I had been looking forward to, once again, having the opportunity to peer out across Salisbury from the little door at the base of the spire, as there were only four of us, we accepted the Guides invitation to go ‘off piste’ to areas that the general public doesn’t usually get to see. This included being led to see the construction work happening at the east end. Things I learned included:
The medieval clock does actually ring a bell situated in the rafters on the floor above.
Salisbury Cathedral is the only Cathedral in Britain where one has an uninterrupted view down the entire length of the nave and chancel (Fig 4)
Beams organised like one set of football posts set atop another are called ‘Queen Posts’ (Fig 5).
The visit gave me another opportunity to view the graffiti previously pointed out to me on a specialist ‘Graffiti Tour’ and a glass window engraved by Rex Whistler.
Fig 4 The only cathedral in Britain with uninterrupted view down chancel and nave
Fig 5 Queen posts in the roof of Salisbury Cathedral
This was a very informative and worthwhile visit and which reinforced some things which I already knew.
Many thanks to Alan for this, which will have some readers wondering what they missed! Great photographs too. Thanks to Kate, and all others involved, for organising another enjoyable, interesting, week’s activities.
Our own Wil Partridge, Finds Liaison Officer for Wiltshire, will be at Wiltshire Museum, Devizes on Saturday 14 March 2.30 – 4.30pm, presenting a talk:
Recent finds of late Roman pewter from within Wiltshire
Salisbury Museum Volunteers were involved in 2019 with the cleaning and preservation work on a hoard of pewter from the county (which will be included in Wil’s talk). These hoards of pewter are a mystery – unknown in the rest of the Roman Empire, while several have been found in Wiltshire.
Wil and Volunteers cleaning the pewter
Close up of the tank in which the other items were found