The Society arranges a programme of excursions and lectures in Gloucester and Bristol
This list is updated as and when details of forthcoming events are available. However, until then details of immediate past events are displayed as an indication of our activities.
The Committee for Archaeology in Gloucestershire arranges an Annual Symposium
Annual General Meeting on Saturday 31 March 2012 at the Gambier Parry Hall, Highnam, Gloucester.
All meetings will be held in the Apostle Room in the basement of Clifton Cathedral, Pembroke Road, Clifton, at 7.45 pm. £1 charge per visitor (full-time students free). R H Jones is the Hon. Secretary for Bristol Tel: 0117 9830719 roberthjones@blueyonder.co.uk
Monday 19th September 2011
William Tyndale and the origins of the Authorised Version - David J. H. Smith MA FSA
David Smith will explain what is known of Tyndale’s life and career and why he should be especially remembered in this quatercentenary year of the publication of the Authorised Version of the Bible.
Monday 24th October 2011
The Society of Merchant Venturers and the City of Bristol in the 17th century - Dr. Jonathan Harlow, Visiting Research Fellow, Regional History Centre, University of the West of England.
There is virtually no evidence for David Sacks' view that the SMV in this period was engaged in a struggle for hegemony over the city. It was rather, as Latimer and McGrath portrayed it, a trade association, solid in defending Bristol interests against other outports and London, integrated in civic society, and divided, as that society was, in the political and religious issues of the time.
Monday 28th November 2011
Reconstructing Ancient Rome - Dr. Matthew Nicholls
For centuries archeologists and architects have used various techniques to create and present detailed reconstructions of ancient buildings that now survive as ruins. Recent technological developments have allowed the creation of digital models, using computer software to create vivid depictions and fly-throughs of Roman and Greek buildings. Dr Nicholls will talk about this subject, using illustrations taken from his own extensive digital recreation of ancient Rome.Monday 23rd January 2012
Burgum and Catcott, 18th Century Bristol Pewterers - Alyson & Mike Marsden.
They were joined in a very interesting, eccentric and ill matched partnership and their lives had a huge impact on the enduring history of Bristol in the second half of the 18th century.
Burgum's portrait is on the top floor of the Georgian House and a painting of Catcott was in the Bristol Central Library in 1931. (Catcott's painting has been lost for some time, we hope it may resurface in the future.)Monday 27th February, 2012.
The Bristol namescape: some problematic local place-names of the Bristol area - Richard Coates MA PhD FSA, Professor of Linguistics at the University of the West of England, Bristol.
Monday 26th March, 2012
Lodges, garden houses and villas, 1500 – 1800: the second residence and its place in the landscape of Bristol and the wider Atlantic world” - Roger H. Leech, Visiting Professor of Archaeology, University of Southampton.
The author’s book on Bristol Houses is currently in press with English Heritage – this talk is intended to cover one of the areas in which recent research has most changed our understanding of town houses in medieval and early modern Bristol
All talks unless otherwise stated will be held at the Oxstalls Campus, Oxstalls Lane (off Cheltenham Road B4063) Gloucester GL2 9HW at 7.30pm. £1 charged per visitor per meeting. Miss Angela Newcombe is the Hon. Secretary for Gloucestershire Tel: 01452 859308 Email: newcombe@warrentwo.fsnet.co.uk
Wednesday 19th October 2011 2.30pm In the Parliament Room, Gloucester Cathedral
The Architectural Career of Samuel Whitfield Daukes (1811-1880): from triumph in Gloucestershire to right royal trouble in London - Alec Hamilton
Samuel Whitfield Daukes (1811-1880) started humbly as an architect in Gloucester, loomed large in Cheltenham, and finally over-reached himself in London. He ought to be a bit more famous than he is – after all, he built Gloucester’s elegant Friends Meeting House, Francis Close Hall in Cheltenham, the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester, and fashionable churches in Gloucestershire, Hampstead and London’s West End. But he had a nose for trouble. He built one church for Francis Close – and at the same time, another for Close’s opponents. He fell out with the mighty Dean; he upset the Freemasons. He built England’s biggest asylum – but trouble with the foundations led to a court case. Prince Albert, the project’s patron, was not amused. For all that, Daukes’s buildings have energy, wit and appeal.
Wednesday 16th November 2011
Town and Country in the 17th Century - Dr Jonathan Harlow, Visiting Research Fellow Regional History Centre, University of the West of England
It has been argued that Bristol remained very isolated, socially and economically, from the surrounding countryside in the early modern period. This talk examines some evidence, starting with a significant amount of linkage between the Quakers in the City and those in south Gloucestershire
Wednesday 18th January 2012
Mind the Gap: From Roman Forts to Civilian Towns in South-West England - Neil Holbrook Chief Executive, Cotswold Archaeology
The talk will explore the relationship between Roman forts and civilian towns in south-west England. Did the army move out one day and the civilians in the next? Who built the towns, who paid for them and how quickly did they take off? Where did the new townsfolk come from? The evidence from Gloucester, Cirencester and Exeter will be examined, and it will be seen that the relationship between soldier and civilian may not be quite as straight forward as once thought, or indeed perhaps quite as Tacitus would have us believe
Wednesday 15th February 2012
VAD Hospitals in Gloucestershire - Geoff North.
A look at the VAD hospitals in Gloucestershire with particular emphasis on the Cheltenham area.Wednesday 21st March 2012
250 Years of Canal History in Britain - Anthony Burton, Author
Admittedly a few months late as the canals started in 1761, the talk will concentrate on the story of the Duke of Bridgewater and his engineering specialists.
Spring Meeting 28 April 2012
To the newly opened museum in Taunton and Hestercombe Gardens
Details to follow in the Spring 2012 Newsletter
Overseas Meeting 21 to 27 May 2012
Following the successful B&GAS trip to Southern Bohemia in the Czech republic in 2010, Zoe Brooks, of Czech tours - and a B&GAS member, is organising, and will be leading, another trip in 2012. Zoe writes "the majority of the trip will follow in the footsteps of late medieval reformer Jan Hus (John Huss) and his followers, the Hussites. We will be visiting a number of castles (including Rabi and Strakonice) as well as two key towns (the Hussite stronghold of Tabor and the Imperial town of Kutna Hora, with its spectacular church architecture). The second, lesser, part of the tour will look at the Sumava National Park, an area of the south Sudetenland, and the Iron Curtain. we will be staying in Kutna Hora, Tabor and Vimperk." For information on booking please contact the Hon General Secretary, John Loosley.
UK Residential Meeting 2012
There will be no meeting in 2012
The President's Autumn Meeting 13 October 2012
Berkeley Castle and Frampton-on-Severn
Details will be included in the Spring 2012 Newsletter
UK Residential Meeting autumn 2013
This will be to Essex and details will follow nearer the time