Saturday 11th December 2021

3:00pm - 6:30pm, Bremhill Village Hall

Register on Eventbrite

As previously announced the History Festival will take place at 3pm on Saturday 11th December in Bremhill Village Hall, followed by the launch of the parish history book. The event is free, but you do need to register on Eventbrite for tickets as they are strictly limited.

The programme includes the following speakers:

3:05pm - 3:45pm

• Simon Kerry – on the Lansdowne family in Bremhill parish. Dr Simon Kerry wrote the much-acclaimed Lansdowne, The Last Great Whig (2017), a biography of his great-great grandfather, the 5th Marquess of Lansdowne. He is currently researching a book on his American ancestors.

3:50pm - 4:30pm

• David Wood – Ghosts from the Churchyards, stories of people buried in the parish. David Wood, since retiring over 20 years ago, has continued his research on local history within the parish and has often published his findings for the benefit of all, including profiles of the people from the parish who died during the First World War.

4:30pm - 4:50pm

• Break for tea and cake

4:50pm - 5:20pm

• Simon Draper – Roman and Anglo-Saxon settlement in the parish. Dr Simon Draper is assistant editor for the Oxfordshire Victoria County History (VCH). He is a landscape archaeologist with a keen interest in place-names and the Anglo-Saxon period. His doctoral thesis on his native Wiltshire was revised and published as Landscape, Settlement and Society in Roman and Early Medieval Wiltshire (2006).

5:20pm - 5:50pm

• Julian Orbach – on notable buildings in the parish. Julian Orbach is author of two of the revised editions of The Buildings of England series - Wiltshire (2021) and Somerset: South and West (2014), and co-author of Pembrokeshire (2004), Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion (2006), and Gwynedd (2009) in The Buildings of Wales series.

5:50pm - 6:30pm

Louise Ryland-Epton and John Chandler will lead a panel discussion and Q&A on “What’s so special about our history project and parish?”

• Dr Louise Ryland-Epton is a contributing editor of the Wiltshire and the Gloucestershire VCH. She is a Visiting Fellow of the Open University and was awarded an Early Career Fellowship of the Royal Historical Society in 2021. This is her first book.

• Dr John Chandler has been exploring, researching and writing about Wiltshire for more than forty years. He is consultant editor for VCH Wiltshire.

After the talks there will be a chance to buy copies of the wonderful Bremhill Parish book, a fully-illustrated, limited edition hardback with 232 pages, priced at £20.

You can also reserve a copy by emailing hello@bremhillparishhistory.com

Refreshments will be served.

We will endeavour to ensure that the village hall is well ventilated. The wearing of masks will be optional. Please do not attend if you have any Covid symptoms.

If you are not able to come, we plan to make a video recording of the event, highlights of which will be made available in due course on the website.

Register on Eventbrite