Work starts on the National Civil War Centre in Newark

Contractors have started work converting the Old Magnus Buildings on Appletongate into a £5.3 million National Civil War Centre "where the centrepiece theme will be the deadly struggles for power in 17th century Britain." Newark was a staunchly Royalist town and played an important role in the English Civil Wars: King Charles I surrendered to the Scots Army here in 1646.

• Civil War Centre, Newark on Trent
• Newark Advertiser article

The Battle of Hatfield and Cuckney church

The Battle of Hatfield Investigation Society are putting together a project to determine the location of the Battle of Heathfield (AD632) which led to the death of King Edwin of Northumbria. Traditionally, the battle is assumed to have taken place near Doncaster but the Society think that it was fought near the village of Cuckney in west Nottinghamshire.

Over 200 adult male skeletons were discovered at Cuckney church in 1951 when work was done to protect the building against subsidence from coal mining. Although it has been assumed the burials related to a 12th century battle the Society are arguing that they may be the fallen from the Battle of Heathfield and want to excavate at the church to find and analyse the skeletons.

• The Battle of Hatfield Investigation Society website
• Article on The Chad website
• BBC Nottingham article

Film premiere: 'The Ice Age Journey', 14th November at Newark Town Hall

FARIArchaeology have been running a lottery funded project to study a prehistoric site at Farndon, near Newark. They have produce a short film of their discoveries which will be premiered at Newark Town Hall. See the poster below for further details.

 More information can be found on the project website.

Event: 'Stories of ordinary folk', 19th October 2013

'Stories of ordinary folk', the Nottinghamshire Local History Autumn Day-School, will be held at Ravenshead Village Hall on Saturday, 19th October 2013, 10 am – 4:15 pm.

"The man-in-the-street may not make the history books, but people in the past at least had their rites of passage recorded. If they fell by the wayside the workhouse was there to offer some relief and perhaps a form of escape. Other diversions included the village bands."

The speakers are:

• Valerie Henstock: Reading between the Lines - Stories from Parish Registers
• Peter Hammond: Joseph Woolley, the Diary of a Framework Knitter
• Victoria Preece: A Common Fate - People in the Workhouse
• Chris Weir: When the Bands Played On

Cost: £6.50 (members of NLHA) and £7.50 (non members).

There is no need to pre-book. For further information call 01509 820067

Local History Seminars 2013/14 at Nottingham University

These Local History Seminars are organised by the University of Nottingham's Department of History and are held on the second Saturday of the month at Lenton Grove - where the Department of History is based. They are open to everyone with an interest in local and regional history. Booking is not necessary and the entry fee of £5 covers the cost of attending the seminar together with coffee and biscuits in the interval. In addition there is often a bookstall at the seminar. The seminars start at 10.00 and finish at 12.30. Further details on the Department of History website.

New publications from Mercian Archaeological Services

Mercian Archaeological Services has produced its first newsletter, summarising recent work at King John's Palace in Kings Clipstone, The Sherwood Forest Archaeology Project, plus details of excavations at Ticknall in Leicestershire, Codnor Castle in Derbyshire and elsewhere. The newsletter can be accessed here: www.academia.edu
Mercian have also published the first two papers in their Occasional Papers series, both by James Wright:

• Brammer Farm House & Arundel Cottage - Standing Building Survey Report, and
• The king’s houses a palace or a mere hunting lodge?

The papers are available online here: http://issuu.com/mercianarch

'Pit Talk' research project at Bestwood Country Park, 19 October 2013

Researchers at Nottingham Trent University are studying  the language of the Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire coalfields. The project is called 'Pit Talk' and is led by Dr Natalie Braber and they will be asking visitors to add their own terms and phrases during an event at Bestwood Country Park from 10am on Saturday 19 October.

If you have links with mining and the East Midlands collieries and wish share any examples of pit talk, you can contact Natalie by email at natalie.braber@ntu.ac.uk

The Nottingham Trent University event, at Dynamo House and Bestwood Winding Engine House, Bestwood Country Park, Park Road, Bestwood, NG6 8ZA, is supported by Nottinghamshire County Council and the Heritage Lottery Fund.

New books on Worksop and East Midlands Canals

Amberley Publishing have sent me copies of two new titles in their attractively produced 'Through Time' series.

'Worksop through time' by Retford author and photographer, Sally Outram, includes a good selection of photographs showing how the town has changed over the past 130 years or so. She also includes images of the country houses in the neighbouring Dukeries, such as Clumber, Welbeck and Rufford.

Worksop's history tends to be overlooked so it is good to have reminders of its best built heritage: for example, the early 12th century priory church, the impressive 14th century priory gatehouse, the earthworks of the castle, Worksop Manor Lodge (dating from 1590), the railway station and Albion Mill. Unfortunately, some of the then-and-now images give a sadder impression of Worksop in the early 21st century. For example, the decline of the pub is exemplified by The French Horn on Potter Street, a splendid example of Edwardian exuberance with its distinctive green-glazed tiling and colourful architectural details, which closed in 2007 and now has boarded-up windows. Other photographs record architectural losses in the town, for example, the charming cottage hospital that stood on Memorial Avenue was demolished in 1996 and replaced by an undistinguished Farmfoods store and the fine Victorian Priorwell Brewery was pulled down in 1962; a dull red-brick archway and some office buildings are all that survive.

Ray Shill's contribution to the series is 'East Midlands Canals - Soar, Trent, Derby, Leicester & Nottingham - Through Time'. The author takes a chronological approach to the development of canals in the region and has chosen his images well. Nottinghamshire canals mentioned and illustrated are the Nottingham Canal, the Trent Navigation, the Chesterfield Canal and the Grantham Canal.

The Nottinghamshire Bibliography Online is launched

The Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire held an event at Bromley House Library in Nottingham yesterday to launch The Nottinghamshire Bibliography Online. The Bibliography provides a single web-based means of access to bibliographic sources for the history of the city of Nottingham and county of Nottinghamshire.

New book: East Coast Main Line Disasters

Nottinghamshire-based author, Adrian Gray, has recently published a fascinating book examining fatal disasters on one of Britain's premier rail routes, from Newham Bog (Northumberland) in 1847 to Great Heck near Selby in 2001. 

The East Coast Line has run through the east of Nottinghamshire since the mid-19th century and Adrian discusses several accidents along this stretch, including disasters in Retford in 1873 and 1923 and one south of Newark in 1870 that left 18 dead.

The official launch of the book will be held at The Well on Hospital Road, Retford on 16th Spetember at 7.30pm. Adrian will give an illustrated talk about the various key accidents on the route.

• Pendragon Publishing
• 'East Coast Main Line Disasters' on Amazon

Heritage Open Days in Nottinghamshire, September 2013

Heritage Open Days celebrates England’s fantastic architecture and culture by offering free access to places that are usually closed to the public or normally charge for admission. This September over 70 events and places can be seen, including:

• Bromley House Library in Nottingham
• Classic cars and buses at Bartons in Chilwell
• Tour of Lilac Grove Sewage Treatment Works in Beeston (!)
• The thatched dovecote at Thoroton, near Bingham
• Guided walks around the timber-framed buildings of Newark and Civil War sites
• Tour of the D10 factory at Boots and a chance to browse through the Boots archives
• North Leverton windmill
• Trinity Hospital, Retford (established in 1671)
• Worksop Priory gatehouse

Full details are available on the Heritage Open Days website.

Nottinghamshire Open Churches Weekends, July 2013

For the fourth year, churches across Nottinghamshire will be unlocked and welcoming visitors on the 13th - 14th July (northern half of the county) and the 20th - 21st July (southern half of the county).

This year over half of all churches across the county are taking part; either by simply opening their doors
and welcoming visitors, or by offering refreshments and staging additional activities and events.

• Nottinghamshire Open Churches website
• Interactive map
• Advanced search

Festival of Archaeology 2013

The Council for British Archaeology is organising another Festival of Archaeology next month which will offer "over 1,000 events nationwide, organised by museums, heritage organisations, national and country parks, universities, local societies, and community archaeologists."
There are a number of events in Nottinghamshire, including:

• Exploring Lenton Priory- A day of tours, geophysics and public displays (Saturday 13 July)
• Finds roadshow at the University of Nottingham Museum (Wednesday, 17 June)
• Talk on 'Nemi in the new Millennium from potential disposal to research phenomenon' and an exhibition of finds from the Temple of Nemi near Rome (20 July-29 September)
• An exhibition at Mansfield Museum: 'Mansfield's extraordinary antiquarian - Major Hayman Rooke' (6 July-3 August)
• Iron Age roundhouse open day at Calverton (14 July)
• Open days and archaeological exploration on the site of 18th century cotton mills on the River Leen (13-14 July)
• Archaeological excavation at Robert Miles Junior School in Bingham (22-26 July)
• Excavation open days whilst FARI Archaeology volunteers are digging test-pits in the 'Nationally Important' Late Upper Palaeolithic site near Farndon (various dates)

Nottinghamshire's Great War Roll of Honour

Nottinghamshire County Council has commissioned the county's first ever Great War Roll of Honour dedicated to the men and women of the county who died in World War I and will contain the names of 11,500 servicemen and women. The information is being compiled by a team of volunteers using war memorials, stained glass windows and plaques in buildings all over Nottinghamshire.

There will also be a Nottinghamshire Great War Centenary Exhibition at Nottingham Castle from July to November 2014. "Marking one hundred years since the outbreak of World War I, this exhibition will explore the experiences of Nottinghamshire people, at home and at war, whether by land, sea or in the air, through powerful visual images, artefacts and tours of city and county Great War landmarks."

The Roll of Honour and exhibition form part of 'From the Trent to the Trenches', a major programme of events and activities taking place in 2014 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.

Events and exhibitions at Nottinghamshire Archives

A varied programme of events and exhibitions over the summer has been announced by Nottinghamshire Archives:

Wednesday Workshops

19 June: Records of Royalty
17 July: Apprenticeship
21 August: Hospital and asylum records

Each workshop starts at 2.30pm and costs £4.

Archive Skills Workshops

30 July: Reading Parish Registers (English)
6 August: Reading Parish Registers (Latin)
13 August: Interpreting Dates

Summer Talk

9 July: Local, National & International – RAF Ancestral Research
This talk starts at 6.30pm and is free.

Nottinghamshire’s People: Ancestral Stories from the Archives

7 June – 1 September 2013 at the Weston Gallery, Lakeside Arts Centre
Admission free

Lunchtime Talks (to accompany the exhibition)

(All talks are free and can be booked by contacting the Lakeside Arts Centre Box Office on 0115 846 7777)
26 June and 9 July: Students, Sinners and Surveys
3 July: Weaving My Family Tapestry
7 August: Unlocking the Parish Chest:
14 August: Kinship and Connectedness

For further information visit the Nottinghamshire Archives Events page.