In August 2024, in a change to our usual programme, we hosted a BONUS online lecture!

Uncovering Folklore, History and Archaeology - James Wright
  

Thursday 15 August 2024 – online via Zoom

We are grateful to our speaker, James Wright, for taking time out of his nationwide book tour to bust some historic building myths, uncovering folklore, history and archaeology. More details about the talk and James, below.

Go to any ancient building and there will be interesting, exciting, and romantic stories presented to the visitor. They are commonly believed and widely repeated – but are they really true? These stories include those of secret passages linking ancient buildings, spiral staircases in castles giving advantage to right-handed defenders, ship timbers used in the construction of buildings on land, blocked doors in churches which are thought to keep the Devil out and claims to be the oldest pub in the country.

James Wright will explain the development of such myths and investigate the underlying truths behind them. Sometimes the realities hiding behind the stories are even more interesting, romantic, and exciting than the myth itself…

James Wright of Triskele Heritage is an award-winning buildings archaeologist. He has two decades professional experience of ferreting around in people’s cellars, hunting through their attics and digging up their gardens. He holds both a BA and PhD in Archaeology from the University of Nottingham and is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. He is a recognised specialist in timber-framed vernacular buildings and has expertise in understanding the development of folklore and myths relating to the historic built environment. He has over 10,000 Twitter followers, is an experienced nationwide public speaker and has made many appearances on TV, radio and podcasts. Read more about James and his work here.

He is the author of the popular Mediaeval Mythbusting Blog and his book Historic Building Mythbusting was released via The History Press on 6 June 2024.

CBG member, author of King of Dust, and past online-lecturer, Alex Woodcock, said about the book:

'If you are expecting a diminished, slightly less colourful sense of the past that you might expect from a ‘mythbusting’ book then think again, for what emerges in these pages is exactly the opposite. Here the familiar gives way to the extraordinary, fiction bends to wild truths, and historic buildings themselves emerge as a living and breathing means of understanding our environment, our ancestors and, indeed, ourselves.'

All photos (c) James Wright / Triskele Heritage

2021 WINTER LECTURE

For our Winter Lecture on Thursday 18 March 2021, Helen Wilson spoke on the work of the Pinwill Sisters and her new book The Remarkable Pinwill Sisters: From 'lady woodcarvers' to professionals.

This was CBG's first foray into the world of a mass Zoom meeting and booking through Eventbrite. We think it went OK, but have picked up on a few things that we can make better.  Thank you for bearing with us! 

If you would like to buy a copy of Helen's fantastic book, or find out more about anything that she talked about visit the website.