Wed 19th May 2021
Annual General Meeting Postponed
"Euston to Bletchley by train 1930s-1970s as seen through the lens of H C Casserley."
Mary Casserley and Robert Freeman
H C Casserley started taking railway photographs in 1919 and continued doing so through to the1970s, including during WW2! He was a pioneer of railway photography and as such amassed a unique collection of some 90,000 photos showing how the railway scene changed over the decades. He took a photo of every station in Britain except for two tiny halts! His photos have appeared in countless books and magazines, so his name is venerated in enthusiast circles. Here we take a look at some of what he saw on our local main line.
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Wed 21st July 2021
Beacons of the Past; The Chilterns Hill Forts Project
Dr Wendy Morrison
Dr Wendy Morrison is Project Manager of the Beacons Hillforts project. She is also Senior Associate tutor for Archaeology at Oxford University for Continuing Education. She has over a decade’s excavation experience in Southern Britain, the Channel Islands and India. Beacons of the Past is a 3.5 year project to engage and inspire communities to discover, conserve and enjoy the Chiltern’s Iron Age hillforts and their prehistoric chalk landscapes. She will present some of the results of the UK’s largest archaeological LiDAR survey.
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Wed 15th Sept 2021
Orchards – a Regional and Local History
Tom Williamson/Martin Hicks
Tom Williamson is Professor of Landscape History at UEA and is well versed in the origins and history of orchards in the region. The talk is particularly pertinent to Hertfordshire, with the cherry orchards of the Chilterns, plum orchards of Aylesbury Vale, hospital orchards around St Albans and the nationally important Dunsley Bungalow and its associated extant peasant. Tom will be assisted by Martin Hicks who will discuss the WW1 origins of the Tring orchard. The timing of the talk will coincide with Tring Apple Fayre.
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Wed 17th November 2021
The Secret Life of Peter Loxley
Richard North
Richard North is the Treasurer of the Berkhamsted Local History and Museum Society and has a keen interest in the history of the local area and particularly Northchurch. He has co-authored a book on the lives of Northchurch servicemen who died during the two world wars. His talk concerns Peter Loxley who was a member of a family with strong historical links to Northchurch. Following the release of “top secret” government papers his role in the Second World War and the part he played in the planning of the post-war world can now be told. He was killed in an aircraft accident in 1945.
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Wed 19th January 2022
The history and restoration of Wendover Arm Canal
Clive Johnson
Clive Johnson is a volunteer and webmaster with the Wendover Arm Trust. The canal was originally built to carry water from a spring at Wendover to the Tring summit of the Grand Junction Canal (now the Grand Union Canal) at Bulbourne Junction, but it suffered from severe leakage problems and was eventually abandoned in 1904. The purpose of the Trust is the restoration of the canal to full navigation and its former glory. Clive will outline the history of the canal and describe the work undertaken by the Trust’s volunteers towards the achievement of this important long-term project.
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Wed 16th March
The Golden Age of Posters in Britain
Graham Twemlow
TBC
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Wed 18th May 2022
The Art of the Auctioneer
Stephen Hearn
Stephen Hearn runs the popular and successful Tring Market Auctions, which are located on part of the former Tring Livestock Market off Brook Street. He is also a Tring Town councillor and a former Mayor of Tring. The salesrooms are nationally known and the television programmes, Cash in the Attic and Flog It, are regular visitors. Stephen will give a light hearted account of the work of salesrooms and of his early days in the livestock market.
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