Talks

September 14th 2023

Tony Singleton

Clothmaking in the Weald of Kent

 The talk covers the growth and decline of high quality woollen clothmaking in the Weald, how it employed a large number of people and the skills required in the several stages of its production.

 Tony Singleton is a retired teacher and has been an active member of the Cranbrook History Society for about 35 years. Since moving to the Weald he has been fascinated by the various apects of its history and has spent much of his spare time researching local history.

October 12th 2023

Claudia Suckling

 Grinling Gibbons, Britain’s Most Famous Woodcarver, 1648-1721

 The talk will cover Gibbons’s background and workshop practices, examining how his style, techniques and materials changed over his 40 year career and why decorative limewood carving became central to the short-lived English baroque interior. His work can be seen in Windsor Castle, Hampton Court Palace, St Paul’s Cathedral, several other London churches, and Petworth House.

 Claudia Suckling has a post-graduate degree in Building Hisory from the University of Cambridge and now works for Spitalfields, the British architectural conservation charity. She is involved at present in the conservation work at the Archbishop’s Palace in Charing.

 November 9th 2023

Matthew Wilson

The Artists who Outwitted the Nazis

 The ingenious schemes of a group of artists during World War ll proved to be a decisive factor in the Allied victory over the Nazis. They created fake tanks and depots to fool enemy reconnaissance planes and turned the front line into a real theatre of war, their artistic skills blurring fiction and reality.

 Matthew Wilson studied History of Art at the Courtauld Institute and is an author, lecturer and educator. As a freelance journalist he has written for numerous publications including Culture, The Spectator, The Economist and Aesthetica Magazine. He has written two books on symbols in art, and his latest book, An Introductory Guide to Art History, was published in September 2023.

December 14th 2024

Social Evening

January 11th 2024

Wayne Perkins

Medieval Graffiti

 The talk will discuss historic graffiti found locally in Kent and then compare it with graffiti found elsewhere, regionally, nationally and internationally.

Wayne Perkins has been an archaeologist for over 20 years. He spent seven years on digs in France and now oversees excavations in the City of London, Sussex, Surrey and Kent. He is currently researching medieval and historic graffiti in the buildings of England and France.

February 8th 2024

Rebecca Warren

 ‘Our World Turn’d Upside Down’: religious revolution in mid-17th century Charing.

From the abolition of the bishops and Book of Common Prayer to the emergence of extreme religious sects, the two decades of Oliver Cromwell’s revolution changed the religious and social life of Britain forever. This talk looks at these changes through the experiences of those who lived in Charing and its neighbours: ordinary people whose lives were disrupted and challenged by extraordinary ‘goings on’.

 Rebecca Warren is an honorary research fellow at the University of Kent, specialising in early modern religious history. Her doctorate was on the church during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell in the 1650s, a subject on which she is currently writing a book. She has a particular interest in religious non-conformity, especially in Kent, but she has also worked, taught and lectured extensively on many aspects of medieval and early modern social, political and religious history. 

March 14 2024

Hugh Cunningham

What Happened to Childhood? A History.

Since the late twentieth century there has been a negative narrative of what is happening to children. People born in the middle years of the century commonly compare their own childhoods favourably with what is happening to their grandchildren. They were told (and often believed) that their schooldays were the happiest days of their life. The negative narrative was preceded by a positive narrative dating back to the 1830s in which childhood was thought to be getting better from a nadir in the early years of the Industrial Revolution. Hugh Cunningham will explore this positive narrative and ask whether it stands the test of time.

 Hugh Cunningham is Emeritus Professor of Social History at the University of Kent. He has written three books on the history of childhood: The Children of the Poor, Children and Childhoood in Western Society since 1500, and The Invention of Childhood ( based on a Radio 4 series done jointly with Michael Morpurgo).

April 11th 2024

Imogen Corrigan

 Viking Life and Legend 

 The popular and not inaccurate view of the Vikings is of thuggish invaders and ferocious fighters who were masters of navigation and great traders; but not much attention is paid to their culture which influenced later church art in Britain. The lecture looks at Sagas, Skaldic poetry, runes and picture stones and how the various artistic styles deceloped over the two centuries of the Viking Age. It may show the more sensitive side of the Viking character but it never forgets that they were warriors at heart.

 Imogen Corrigan has a degree in Anglo-Saxon & Medieval History. She has written: Stone on Stone; the men who built the cathedrals. She has the Freedom of the City of London as a Freeman of the Company of Communicators. She is also a Monuments Specialist for the Diocesan Advisory Committee.