Programme 2024
Our talks and activities in 2024
The Bridges of Dartmoor From Medieval Clapper Bridges To The Present Day
A Zoom talk by Andy Crabb on 9th January 2024
Andy Crabb is an archaeologist with Dartmoor National Park and Historic England. He has worked on Dartmoor for over 15 years.
Andy’s role is wide ranging and diverse covering all aspects of archaeological management, providing advice, and even organising the occasional excavation!
Andy has been a regular contributor to our programme of talks and oversees our summer archaeological walk and picnic.
The Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549
A talk by Zoom Professor Mark Stoyle on 16th April 2024
This talk tells the story of the Western Rising of 1549 – the so-called ‘Prayer Book Rebellion’- which saw thousands of ordinary people in Devon and Cornwall rising up against the protestantizing religious reforms of the boy-king Edward VI. The talk will draw on new evidence to explore both the causes and the course of the rebellion. It will also consider the terrible consequences which ensued when the protestors were eventually crushed by a powerful royal army, and will argue that the rising was the most catastrophic event to occur in Devon and Cornwall between the Black Death and the Civil War.
Mark Stoyle grew up in rural mid-Devon, and, after leaving school, worked for a time as a field archaeologist in Exeter. He is currently Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Southampton, and has particular research interests in the British crisis of the 1640s; in witchcraft; in urban society; and in Tudor rebellions. He has written many monographs and scholarly articles and his latest book – A Murderous Midsummer: The Western Rising of 1549 – was published by Yale University Press in August 2022. He is also one of the co-investigators on the major AHRC-funded research project, ‘Conflict, Welfare and Memory: Maimed Soldiers and War Widows of the English Civil Wars’. Mark has served on the Council of the Royal Historical Society, on the advisory board of the Victoria County History and on the editorial advisory panel of BBC History Magazine. He has also appeared on many radio and TV programmes.
The South Hams During the Napoleonic Wars
A talk by Roger Barrett in Harbertonford Village Hall on 14th May 2024
A fully illustrated talk about the impact on the South Hams of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars between 1793 and 1815. Topics covered will include the Invasion scares, coastal defences and battles, the locally recruited Sea Fencible, Militia, Yeomanry and Volunteer units, the barracks at Totnes, Modbury and Kingsbridge, and the 1801 food riots at Harberton, Modbury and elsewhere.
Roger Barrett is the former curator, now Chairman, of Salcombe Maritime Museum and a former curator of Salcombe Lifeboat Museum and Station Manager at the Prawle Point National Coastwatch Station. He has written six books and many research papers on the history of Salcombe and surrounding coast.
Summer Picnic and Guided Walk
A guided archaeological walk with Andy Crabb on 6th July 2024
An Audience with The Lady Katherine
A talk by Rosemary Griggs in Harberton Parish Hall on 3rd September 2024
Travel back in time with the Lady Katherine and learn about her life in Tudor Devon. Born into a well-connected Devon family Katherine Champernowne spent all her life in the county and lived to see her name in print. She was the mother of the explorers and colonisers Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh.
Author and Speaker, Rosemary Griggs has been researching Devon’s sixteenth century history for years. She has discovered a cast of fascinating characters and an intriguing network of families whose influence stretched far beyond the West Country. She loves telling the stories of the forgotten women of history — the wives, sisters, daughters, and mothers who stood behind more famous men. Her novel, A Woman of Noble Wit tells the story of Sir Walter Raleigh’s mother and features many of the county’s well-loved places.
Rosemary also researches, creates and wears sixteenth century clothing to bring history to life in talks for museums and community groups all over the West Country. Out of costume she leads heritage tours of the gardens at Dartington Hall.
3000 Years of History from Under the Sea
A Zoom talk by Ron Howell on 12th November 2024
In 1995 a team of amateur divers working in the Erme Estuary in South Devon moved their operation to the waters off Salcombe due to bad weather. Little did they know that weekend, their lives were about to be changed, and the history books rewritten with three of the shipwrecks. For the next 27 years work has continued on what the British Museum has described as the most important maritime discovery of the Bronze Age period in the world, proving for the first-time trade between the Mediterranean and Northern Europe.
Lying next to the Bronze Age wreck, is a 17th Century cannon site named as the richest wreck discovery carrying Islamic Gold in Northern Europe. The team can now proudly boast that they now have their finds displayed in three cabinets at The British Museum and showcases at Plymouth Art Gallery and Exeter Museum.
In the years prior to South Devon, the team dived on many treasure and historic wreck sites around the British Isles.
The talk covers four shipwrecks from different time periods in one area of seabed.
The speaker Ron Howell is the secretary of the South West Maritime Archaeological Group the team who made the discovery. Ron has been diving for over fifty years after leaving the Royal Navy and is the man responsible for the amazing discoveries after breaking the surface on that day in 1995 with his hands clutching gold coins, nuggets and jewelry in his gloves. The rest is history.