A talk by Richard Willmott, a retired headmaster of the Dixie Grammar School and Chairman of the Traherne Association. Thomas Traherne lived in Hereford as a boy during the sieges of the Civil War. After studying at Oxford, he became rector of Credenhill and an extraordinarily prolific writer and poet. Only a small amount of […]

A talk by David Parsons. In 2026 the English Place-Name Society will be publishing a new study of the place-names of the county, principally the work of the late Mr John Freeman. This talk will draw on that forthcoming volume to highlight the linguistic and cultural history that is illuminated by the names, tracing the […]

In 1986, Mike Thexton travelled to Pakistan to say goodbye to his brother, who died in the Karakoram Himalaya three years before. On the way home, his plane was hijacked at Karachi, and he was singled out as a British passport holder to be the next person to be shot. He tells the story of […]

A talk by Dr Keith Ray – The literature on the Iron Age in Britain is replete with descriptions of the form and the excavation of hilltop or hillslope enclosures commonly known as ‘hillforts.’ Areas in – or close to – the upland areas of Britain sometimes have particularly dense distributions of these kinds of […]

A talk by Anthony Lunn.  A nostalgic return to the days when passenger ships looked like ships and passengers had cabins not staterooms. Most of the images are of ships engaged on long distance voyages and not seven night cruises

A talk by Matt Lewis – In the summer of 1381, the first well documented popular rising in England shook the political foundations of a nation. A teenage king sought to deal with a populace pushed beyond what they could tolerate. What sparked the Peasants’ Revolt? Why is the name it has been given misleading? […]