Talks
Programme 2024-2025
All talks
start at 2:30 pm.
Entry to the
talks is free for members (a donation
towards the costs would be appreciated).
Non members are
most welcome to attend any talk, there
is a charge of £3 for each visitor.
2024
Date: September 27th 2024
Subject: The
Geological Evolution and Landscape
of the Farnham area
Presenter:
Professor
Dan Bosence
Location: The Garden Gallery
This talk,
given by Professor Dan
Bosence, Emeritus Professor Earth
Sciences, Royal Holloway, University
of London.
He will explore the origin
of the sand, clay and chalk that
form the landscape around Farnham.
The sands forming the heathlands,
the clays the pastures and oak
woodlands to the west and the chalk
the Hog’s Back and Farnham Park
ridges.
Professor Bosence will
detail when these deposits were laid
down, later deformed to create the
Hog’s Back and subsequently eroded
into hills and valleys to form our
present day landscape.
Date: October
18th 2024
Subject: Three
Around Farnham after fifty years
Presenter:
Raymond
Williams
Location: The Garden Gallery
Raymond Williams’s “Three Around
Farnham” after fifty years: Looking
again at a Writers’ Landscape’
In his classic 1973 study The
Country and the City, Raymond
Williams included a memorable
chapter with the title ‘Three Around
Farnham’. It was a snapshot of a
landscape (“round a thirty-mile
triangle of roads… on the borders of
Hampshire and Surrey”) at a time of
revolution – the early decades of
the nineteenth century.
The three
writers in the frame were the
journalist and campaigner William
Cobbett, the novelist Jane Austen,
and the naturalist Gilbert White.
Williams wanted to show how at a
moment of historical transformation
the same landscape could be looked
at in three absolutely different
ways: as a backdrop for social
change, as a location of profound
settlement, and as a purely natural
environment, abstractable from human
activity.
In this talk Dr Paddy
Bullard, Associate Professor of
English and Book History, University
of Reading, will reconsider the
value of Williams’s analysis after
fifty years. Is it possible now to
think about the area around Farnham
with a spirit of landscape
synthesis, rather than division?
Date: November 15th 2024
Subject:
Sun Lane Bronze Age and Saxon
Cemetery, Alresford
Presenter: Robert
McCulloch
Location:
The Garden Gallery
Sun Lane Bronze Age and Saxon
Cemetery, Alresford Digging for
Britain, the BBC’s archaeology show
recently featured an excavation at
Alresford that has uncovered Bronze
Age and Saxon treasure
The excavation, on Tichborne Down,
has revealed the remains of a Bronze
Age (2300 BC – 800 BC) barrow
cemetery and one of the largest
Anglo-Saxon cemeteries found in
Hampshire, with more than 120 graves
identified dating back to the 7th
century AD. Among the discoveries is
a poorly preserved skeleton of a
young woman buried with a rare gold
disc pendant, adorned with intricate
gold filigree forming a cross shape.
Many of the other graves included
small iron knives, while one was
buried with a sword.
Archaeologist Robert McCulloch of
Pre-Construct Archaeology will talk
about these important discoveries.
Date: December
13th 2024 
Subject:
The Tidal Thames – its Folklore and
Traditions
Presenter:
Mark Lewis
Location:
The Garden Gallery
Mark Lewis is a freelance artist,
designer-silversmith and retired
university lecturer. He also has a
passion for lighthouses and is a
keen folklorist with an interest in
unusual local customs and rituals.
In 2013 he published a book on the
folklore and popular customs of the
church.
His talk will explore the rich
tradition of lore and legend in the
tidal reaches of London’s River,
including pagan gods, riverside
taverns, ghosts, ceremonials, frost
fairs, tales of smuggling and
pirates.
2025
Date: 24th
January 2025
Subject:
Flaggoners of Farnham
Presenter:
Guy Singer
Location:
The Garden Gallery
This talk will look at social
history featuring a selection of
tradesmen from Farnham through the
medium of their flagons: innkeepers,
grocers, mineral water bottlers and
brewers, to name but a few.
These stoneware containers,
frequently used through the 19th and
20th centuries, contained everything
from beer to vinegar to Scotch
Whiskey [sic]. The linking of the
town’s families can make your head
spin at times, but Guy will chart a
way through and briefly show the
interweaving of the trees. An
occasional odd sideline will bring
in Blind Henry Vernon and Knight’s
Farnham Bank, amongst other
historical interests.
Local author Guy Singer recently
published a book on the subject
(19th and 20th century Flaggoners of
Farnham), which he will use as the
basis for this talk.
Date: 21st
February 2025
Subject:
George Wither
Presenter:
Barrie
Lees
Location:
The Garden Gallery
Local
poet George Wither, who died in
1667, was a best-seller in his day,
with over 100 books to his credit.
But he was also famous for failing
to guard Farnham Castle during the
Civil War. He was much mocked for
abandoning it before the enemy
Royalists even arrived.
He didn’t
accept the taunts meekly, publishing
an angry explanation of how he had
done the best he could under the
circumstances.
He was also
noted for being jailed four times
(for various reasons including being
too outspoken), both under monarchs
and the Commonwealth.
He was born
in Bentworth near Alton, but lived
for a while in the Farnham area and
died in debt in London.
His works
and extraordinary life are neglected
today, but Bentworth man Barrie Lees
believes he should be better known –
especially in this area. Barrie is a
retired journalist who has been
giving talks on history to members
of Alton U3A for almost 15 years.
Date: 21st
March 2025
Subject:
John Nichols, Gentleman’s Magazine
Presenter:
Julian
Pooley, Surrey
History Centre
Location:
The Garden Gallery
This talk
tells the story of how the purchase
of an anonymous pocket diary in a
London
bookshop led Julian Pooley to
discover extensive and previously
unknown archives of John Nichols
(1745-1826).
Nichols was
one of Georgian London's most
prominent printers and a leading
antiquary whose History and
Antiquities of the Town and County
of Leicester 4 vols (1795-1815)
transformed the way that English
local history was written and
illustrated. For three generations
he and his family edited and printed
the Gentleman's Magazine.
The vast
archive of family and business
papers which he and his successors
accumulated inspired his
granddaughter to form her own
collection of autograph letters,
augmented by exchange with other
collectors and by purchases in the London and Paris
salerooms.
This
internationally significant
collection, which includes many
documents relating to
Surrey, is now part of
the 20,000 Nichols papers calendared
and accessible via the Nichols
Archive Database which is available
via appointment at Surrey History
Centre.
Date: 11th
April 2025
Subject:
An
Eclectic Extravaganza; Victorians at
Leisure
Presenter:
Dr.
Richard Marks
Location:
The Garden Gallery
The nineteenth
century saw a shift towards shorter
working days and increased leisure
time. This talk will delve into the
consequences of this shift. We will
investigate the growing popularity
of theatres and music halls among
all the social classes.
We will uncover
the wide array of Victorian
pastimes, from collecting cigarette
cards and trainspotting to indulging
in botany and science, as well as
some very unique parlour games. Find
out more about how the Victorians
spent their time away from work.
Dr Marks is a
freelance professional historian
residing in
Berkshire. He
specialises in industrial, military,
and railway history, as well as the
history of science. His
current research focuses on
industrial and social change during
the Victorian era, the progression
of
Britain's
railway and canal systems in the
latter half of the 19th century, and
the broader history of British
industry. He earned his PhD in
history from the University of Reading.
The talk will
be followed by the AGM.
