Eastwood on the Home Front exhibition: 5 September - 2 November 2014

Open day at King John's Palace, Kings Clipstone: 6th September

Mercian Archaeological Services are holding an OPEN DAY for their archaeological excavation at King John's Palace, Kings Clipstone in Nottinghamshire. The site is being excavated as part of their field training school and will be open between 11:00 and 16:00 on Saturday for the following: 

• Tours of the site discussing the designed medieval landscape of the palace,

• Tours of the standing ruins,

• Finds and Pottery handling,

• Results from the latest geophysical surveys,

• Display boards for the Sherwood Forest Archaeology Project and from Mercian Archaeological Services, and and news about the latest Sherwood Forest Bus Tours www.sherwoodbustours.com,

• Stalls hosted by local heritage groups including Friends of Thynghowe and the Spa Ponds Nature Reserve.

Visitors can also learn about the latest results and research from the project researching the heart of Sherwood Forest, find out about the latest news from Mercian's Edwinstowe Project and all the other upcoming fieldwork and opportunities coming soon. Further details and a map are available here: http://www.mercian-as.co.uk/fieldschool.html.

Past Lives Project in Nottingham

I've been contacted by Debbie Cooper who is coordinating the Past Lives Project in Nottingham over the next few months. The project is funded by the Arts Council and the Heritage Lottery Fund and is calling out for local cine film, photos and history featuring everyday lives of the region. Local film will be digitised for free to use within the project and the depositor will get a free digitised copy as well.

In 2012 the team worked with MACE to produce a film of the Midlands using cinefilm from 1930s to the 1970s, now they are doing the same for Nottingham. There is a short YouTube video showing how they work.

The project will be organising archive days, memory events, cine film viewing and digitisation.

The first event will be a photo and cine film heritage day on 9th August, 1-4pm.

See the Past Lives Project flier for further information.

D H Lawrence Festival 2014, 5-25 September

This year's D H Lawrence Festival will run from 5th-25th September. According to the organisers, 'the programme is packed with events celebrating both the life and work of D.H. Lawrence and the rich heritage and culture of this part of Nottinghamshire where he was born and raised, and which so influenced his work' and will include:

• Creative workshops
• Drama
• Exhibitions
• Film screenings
• Guided tours and walks
• Lectures
• Open days
• A Mining Heritage Day
• Music
• Reading groups

Download the Festival wall planner for further details.

Talk on 13 September in Retford: ‘Prophets, Martyrs and Pilgrims – the Christian heritage of our region’

British Film Institute video archive

The British Film Institute has recently made a wealth of archival and historical films available free to access online for the first time. Among the many videos now available are several showing life and work in Nottingham.

There are three relating to Raleigh cycles:

• Raleigh: Fred Mitchell
• The TI Raleigh Campagnolo racing team during the 1982 Tour of Romandie in Switzerland
• Nottingham's Lord Mayor launches a scheme in 1973 in which riders in Nottingham will be able to use the new city centre pedestrian streets

There is also a fascinating tram ride through Nottingham city centre filmed in 1902:

• Tram ride through Nottingham

Archaeological excavation at Rufford Abbey

The Community Archaeology team from Nottinghamshire County Council and local volunteers are excavating parts of the medieval monastic church at Rufford Abbey, near Ollerton. Foundations uncovered seem to suggest that the church was larger than originally thought.

Follow developments on the Community Archaeology Facebook page.

Community archaeology project in Edwinstowe, 14-25 July 2014

The Robin Hood's Village Volunteer Dig in Edwinstowe starts work today. It could well turn out to be the largest free community excavation undertaken in the county with over 100 people volunteering to take part in over 13 days of archaeology.

Further information is available on the Sherwood Forest Archaeology website and Mercian Archaeological Services will be publishing photographs and updates on the project on their Facebook page.

The Hucknall Byron Festival, 28 June - 6 July 2014

The Byron Festival in Hucknall has only just come to my attention - not sure how that managed to fly under the radar! The programme is interesting and varied, including a 'Byron Afternoon Tea' at Colwick Hall (with a lecture by Prof John Beckett on Mary Chaworth and Colwick Hall), and various tours, lectures and performances.
The full programme is available on the International Association of Byron Societies' website.

CBA Festival of Archaeology in Nottinghamshire, 12-27 July 2014

Co-ordinated by the Council for British Archaeology, the Festival of Archaeology 2014 offers over 1,000 events nationwide, organised by museums, heritage organisations, national and country parks, universities, local societies, and community archaeologists.

There are a few events running in Nottinghamshire over the period:

• Iron Age Roundhouse Open Day in Calverton (27th July)
• WW1 commemoration display at Worksop Priory (2-3 August)
• Display of glass from the Mansfield Woodhouse Roman villa at Mansfield Museum (5-26 July)
• Dig and exhibition held by The Friends of Moor Pond Wood at Grange Cottage Wood, Papplewick (12-13 July)
• Ice age journeys - guided tours of excavation and display at Fandon
• Rufford Abbey excavation viewing days (14-18 July)

BBC TV programme on Chilwell Shell Filling Factory in World War I

'The Killing Factories', part of BBC's 'World War I at Home' series, is a fascinating look at the story of the Chilwell Shell Filling Factory and those that worked there. The factory produced more than 19 million shells: over half of all the shells fired by the British in the war. The factory was also the site of the worst single disaster on the Home Front when, in July 1918, a massive explosion wrecked it and killed 139 people.
The programme can be watched on BBC iPlayer for another 6 days:

• www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b045ghmj/world-war-i-at-home-the-killing-factories

Project to investigate Newark's Civil War siegeworks

The Archaeology Department at Sheffield University is working on a project with the National Civil War Centre at Newark to study the 17th-century siegeworks that surround the town. The earthworks were the subject of a comprehensive Royal Commission on Historic Monuments publication back in 1964 and the Newark Civil War Project 'will review this report in the light of subsequent archaeological research and will assess the potential of modern geophysical and topographical survey techniques to locate and record both upstanding and destroyed remains.'

• Newark Civil War Project page on the Sheffield University website
• Article on the project on the Newark Advertiser website.

Local history programme on Notts TV

Our new local TV channel, Notts TV, is broadcasting a new series on local history. The series is called 'Nottingham: Now and Then' and the first programme covers Nottingham's trams and the historic Lace Market district. See the Notts TV schedule for when it is being broadcast: www.nottstv.com/schedule

Transactions of the Thoroton Society, Volume 117 (2013)

The latest volume of the Transactions of the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire has just been published. It includes the following articles:

• Archaeology in Nottinghamshire by Keith Challis (editor)
• A romantic royal retreat, and an idealised forest in miniature: the designed landscape of medieval Clipstone, at the heart of Sherwood Forest by Andy Gaunt and James Wright
• The interpretation of field walking finds from Bingham in the post-medieval to modern periods by Peter Allen and Geoff Ashton
• The Soke of Dunham and its Liberties in the Twelfth and Early Thirteenth Centuries by David Crook
• Annual History Lecture: The emotional landscape of Sir Thomas Parkyns of Bunny by Lizbeth Powell
• Fee trees and rogue verderers in early eighteenth century Sherwood Forest by Sara Morrison
• The Newark Navigation 1740-c1850 by Stanley Chapman
• The much lamented late Lord Byron: Nottinghamshire Visitors to St Mary's, Hucknall 1825-1834 by Ralph Lloyd-Jones
• 'Hanging For Sheep Hanging's Sake?' Convicted Murderers and the Nottingham Press 1850-1880 by Matthew Grogan

Further details are available on the Thoroton Society website.

New books (May 2014)

Amberley Publishing have just sent me a copy of Nottingham from old photographs to review. It is yet another book in their attractive series of pictorial local history books. The author, Joseph Earp, is Team Leader of the Nottingham Hidden History Team and a large number of the photographs in the book come from the collection of the late Paul Nix who was a founder member of the team back in 1965.

The book aims to provide a 'new side to Nottingham's ever changing history' by making good use of this collection and it is interesting to see a wide range of hitherto unseen views of the city, particularly those from the destructive 1960s. The photographs of Maid Marian Way under construction and the demolition of the Black Boy Hotel and Victoria Station are a sad reminder of what we've lost.

• Amberley Publishing website

Southwell & District Local History Society have just published Southwell at War: 1914-1919, an account of Southwell during World War I. It contains biographical details of the 650 Southwell men who served in the war and includes a list of over 550 men from the surrounding villages. Other chapters include the news stories covered by the Newark Advertiser, the 8th Battalion Sherwood Foresters on the Western Front, the South Notts Hussars in the Middle East, life on the home front and individual stories of tragedy and heroism.

• Southwell & District Local History Society website