for more details.Lecture Programme
Meetings are held in the Lady Joanna Thornhill School at 7.30pm on the first Wednesday of the month from October to April.
Please click on the title of any of our previous lectures to see a summary of the talk.
Lectures
| 2nd October 2024 | From the Battlefields to the Big Screen |
Melody Foreman |
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| 6th November 2024 | The History of Ashford Market 1856 - 2024 |
Roger Lightfoot |
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| 4th December 2024 | The Development of the Kent House |
Sir Paul Britton |
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| 8th January 2025 | Members' Evening |
| 5th February 2025 | Sir Christopher Wren |
Dr Hubert Pragnell |
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| 5th March 2025 at 7.15pm | Annual General Meeting followed byHidden clues, naughty jokes and Becket's lost mitre. New discoveries in the Miracle windows at Canterbury Cathedral. |
Léonie Seliger |
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| 2nd April 2025 | Edith Cavell |
by Melanie Gibson Barton |
Please click on the title of any of our previous lectures to see a summary of the talk.
Previous Lectures
| 4th October 2023 | Renè Mouchotte - Free French Spitfire Hero. |
Jan Leeming |
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| 1st November 2023 | The Luttrell Psalter |
Imogen Corrigan |
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| 6th December 2023 | Perfume in the Bible |
Charles Sell |
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| 3rd January 2024 | Members' Evening |
| 7th February 2024 | Ashford's Worst Day. The Great Raid of 24th March 1943 |
Ed Adams |
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| 6th March 2024 | Antique Maps |
John Tattersfield |
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| 3rd April 2024 | KCC Archives and items of local interest. |
Elizabeth Finn |
| 5th October 2022 | Flying Past - The History of Aviation in Kent |
Guy Bartlett |
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| 2nd November 2022 | Hopping in Kent |
Sue Duckworth |
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| 7th December 2022 | The History of Godington House |
Betty Joynson |
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| 4th January 2023 | Members' Evening |
| 1st February 2023 | Elizabeth Barton |
Melanie Gibson-Barton |
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| 1st March 2023 | The Museum at Quex House - an Illustrated Talk |
Hazel Basford |
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| 5th April 2023 | Restoring London's Victorian and Edwardian Railway Architecture |
Benedict O'Looney |
| 6th October 2021 | A Spitfire Girl: Mary Ellis |
Melody Foreman |
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| 3rd November 2021 | The History of Zoos: from Royal Menageries to Global Conservation Centres. |
Prof. Richard Griffiths |
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| 1st December 2021 | Rupert. The Anthropomorphic Bear |
Howard Smith CANCELLED |
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| 5th January 2022 | Members' Evening |
CANCELLED |
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| February 2022 | Ashford's Hidden Treasures: The Top 10 Hits |
Jasper Pleydell-Bouverie |
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| 2nd March 2022 | Kent and Turkish Piracy in the 17 th Century |
Prof. Jackie Eales |
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| 6th April 2022 | Three Castles and an Ironmaster's House |
David Clarke |
| 2nd October 2019 | The Green Man in English Churches |
Imogen Corrigan |
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| 6th November 2019 | The Bronze Age Dover Boat |
Peter Clark |
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| 4th December 2019 | Catherine the Great and her Lovers |
Patsy Erskine-Hill
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| 8th January 2020 | Members' Evening |
| 5th February 2020 | Music in the Armed Forces |
Emma Hanna
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| 4th March 2020 | Smuggling in Kent |
Peter Ewart |
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| 1st April 2020 | Kent and Turkish Piracy in the 17th Century - CANCELLED |
Prof. Jackie Eales |
| 3rd October 2018 | The Pre-Raphaelites: Lives, Loves and Legacy |
Delia Taylor |
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| 7th November 2018 | Lister's Antiseptic Surgery: a Medical Revolution |
Dr Michael Heeley |
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| 5th December 2018 | Victorian Philanthropy: a Golden Age? |
Hugh Cunningham
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| 9th January 2019 | Members' Evening |
| 6th February 2019 | Continental Painted Glass in Kentish Churches |
Leslie Smith
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| 6th March 2019 | AGM followed by President's Lecture: Some Houses in Church Street, Wye |
Reverend John Makey |
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| 3rd April 2019 | William Hogarth's Perambulation of Kent |
David Parker |
| 4th April 2018 | Portraits in Kent Houses: New Discoveries |
Maurice Howard |
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| 7th March 2018 | AGM followed by Peter the Great and the Making of Modern Russia |
Patsy Erskine-Hill |
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| 7th February 2018 | Canterbury Pilgrimages |
Fr Rodney Schofield
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| 10th January 2018 | Members' Evening |
Early fires in Wye by Cilla Deeks and Jill Wyld. Followed by a display and short talk about John Moat's finds at the Palmstead plant nursery site on Harville Road, Wye. |
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| 6th December 2017 | Excavating Early Folkestone |
Dr Andrew Richardson
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| 1st November 2017 | The Stewart Dynasty |
Stewart Ross |
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| 4th October 2017 | Great Chart Soldiers in Context: The Great War 1914-1918 |
Dr Emma Hanna |
| 5th April 2017 | Capt John Noel, explorer 1924 Everest attempt |
Sandra Noel |
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| 1st March 2017 | AGM followed by Dickens and the Railways in the 1860s |
Simon Bradley |
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| 1st February 2017 | The Lusitania: the Last Letter |
Dr Michael Wain |
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| 4th January 2017 | Members' Evening |
Maureen de Saxe: 'Wye from our archives' and John Newman : 'The Churchfield development 1946 - 1951'
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| 7th December 2016 | The First Day of the Somme |
Maurice Sherreard
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| 2nd November 2016 | Jane Austen, Kent and the Curious Incident of the £10 Note |
Dr Jennie Batchelor, Director of Learning and Training, University of Kent School of English |
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| 5th October 2016 | Thomas Brock: London's Forgotten Sculptor |
John Sankey |
| 6th April 2016 | A Year in the life of a Blue Badge Guide |
Lt Col Dick Bolton |
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| 2nd March 2016 | AGM followed by Jellicoe and Jutland - the Man and the Battle |
Richard Latham |
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| 3rd February 2016 | The Craft of the Cooper |
Richard Filmer |
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| 6th January 2016 | Members' Evening: |
'Military Gents and their amazing women' by Trudy Sellers 'The Quest for Frank Wild: Antarctic Explorer' by Dr Michael Wain
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| 2nd December 2015 | Digging at the Gateway to Kent: the archaeology of the East Kent Access Road, Thanet |
Phil Andrews |
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| 4th November 2015 | The Tale of the Tulip |
Russell Bowes |
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| 7th October 2015 | The Clergy in Kent and the English Civil Wars, 1640-1660 |
Professor Jackie Eales |
| 1st April 2015 | The Lyminge Dig |
Dr Alexandra Knox
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| 4th March 2015 | AGM followed by: Tales, Titbits and Trivia |
Chris McCooey
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| 4th February 2015 | How Pugin changed English houses |
Dr Timothy Brittain-Catlin
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| 7th January 2015 | Members' Evening |
Various
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| 3rd December 2014 | Passports, Assassins, Traitors and Spies |
Martin Lloyd
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| 5th November 2014 | St Ambrose Church, Wye Diamond Jubilee 2014 |
Fr Rodney Schofield
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| 1st October 2014 | Australian Pioneers: The Story of John and Gregory Blaxland |
Janet Hullett
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| 2nd April 2014 | The Norman Conquest |
David Carder |
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| 5th March 2014 | AGM - followed by 'The Domesday Book' |
Richard Eales |
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| 5th February 2014 | Bryan Faussett, F.S.A. (1720-1776) |
David Wright |
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| 8th January 2014 | Members' Evening |
| Sandra Noel; Graham Bradley | |
| 4th December 2013 | Affectionately Known as Kitty: The Story of the Marlowe Memorial |
Alan Stockwell |
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| 7th November 2013 | Wandering in a Flanders Field |
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Melanie Gibson-Baton |
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| 2nd October 2013 | The Great Floods of 1953 |
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Bronwen Sadler |
| 3rd April 2013 | Emigration: Farewell to Kent |
| Helen Allinson | |
| 6th March 2013 | AGM, followed by: What is a castle? - recent research on the role and purpose of castles |
| Ian Coulson | |
| 6th February 2013 | Ashford Railway Works |
| Clive Young | |
| 9th January 2013 | Members' Evening |
| (various speakers) | |
| 5th December 2012 | Funerals of Tudors and Stuarts |
| Dr John Reuther | |
| 7th November 2012 | The Red Dean: The Life and Times of Hewlett-Johnson |
| John Butler | |
| 3rd October 2012 | Leeds Castle |
| Dr Ann Kneif |
| 4th April 2012 | The First Prize |
| Imogen Corrigan |