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Start Times
The times quoted below are the start times for lectures so please arrive about fifteen minutes before or login to Zoom at least five minutes before the start. Some other websites list our events. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information they provide so please check here.
Zoom Meetings
Talks sometimes appear on Zoom as well as live. If so, you may receive invites to Zoom meetings by joining the BAHS or signing up to receive our information emails by clicking here.
Free Entrance… but donations requested
Whether attending in person or on Zoom the Society currently doesn’t charge for meetings. With hire charges, speakers’ fees and equipment costs meetings run at a loss. If possible please make a donation to help defray these costs. At meetings you may make a donation by card, cheque or cash. Otherwise, please pay by bank transfer. Details are TSB Bank, Account Blakeney Area Historical Society, Sort code 30-94-34 and Account no. 18327968.
Talks for 2024
Click here for 2024 printable list
Tuesday 30th January 2024 at 2:30pm
Cley Village Hall
Talks by Members
Two interesting finds from Blakeney and Salthouse
Roger Bland
Two interesting objects have recently been found in our area. The first is a silver seal matrix (a stamp for sealing documents), found by metal detector user Steve Lancaster at Salthouse in April 2022, with the name of Robert of Kellingge (Kelling). The first rector named on the board of rectors in Kelling church is Robert. This has now been acquired by Norwich Castle Museum.
The second find, made by Mr and Mrs Bould in their garden in Blakeney, is a very worn religious medal showing St Peter and St Paul. It was struck for the Holy Year of 1750 inaugurated by Pope Benedict XIV. We will probably never know for certain how it came to be lost our village, but Italian Prisoners of War were based locally during the Second World War.
Five Cley Men Went to War and Died
Richard Jefferson
The sad story of loss in World War II.
The first image is a record of imprisonment and the second is Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, Thailand.
Tuesday 27th February 2024 at 2:30pm
Cley Village Hall
Whaling from Norfolk
This is the story of Norfolk’s “Greenland Fishery”, the annual fishery for whales which took boats from Yarmouth and Lynn into Arctic waters hunting for whales from as early as the 17th Century. When did it start?, which ports were involved?, how was it conducted?, when and why did it end?, and what evidence for this industry still survives in the county.
Charles Lewis
Tuesday 26th March 2024 at 2:30pm
Cley Village Hall
Crisis Before the Shipwreck: The Gloucester and Oliver Cromwell’s Western Design, 1654-1656
The discovery of the Gloucester warship off Great Yarmouth in 2007 by Norfolk divers Julian and Lincoln Barnwell has captivated the nation. An important warship to both British and global history, when the Gloucester sank in 1682, it was transporting the future King James II to Scotland. This talk considers the wider career of the Gloucester by focusing on its first expedition as part of Oliver Cromwell’s Western Design in the Caribbean, 1654-1656. Accounting for the ship’s involvement in assaults on Spanish colonial holdings including Jamaica, Dr Benjamin Redding will also explore the experiences of the Gloucester’s crew, revealing how they faced extreme physical and mental hardships in an unforgiving environment.
Dr Benjamin Redding, Senior Research Associate in Maritime History, University of East Anglia
Johan Danckerts’ painting of the Gloucester wreck held by Royal Maritime Greenwich & Ben Redding
Tuesday 30th April 2024 at 2:30pm
Cley Village Hall
The Norwich Architects: Edward Boardman & George Skipper
Edward Boardman 1833 – 1810 and George Skipper 1856 – 1948
The pace of change in Norwich during the second half of the 19th century was extraordinary. By 1900 the population was double that of a century earlier. So there was a huge demand for different types of buildings needed by a modern Victorian city – housing, factories, chapel, hospitals, shops, offices and schools and colleges. Later on the arrival of electric trams presented another challenge to the cityscape.
Two men are largely responsible for reshaping 19th Century Norwich. First, prolific local architect Edward Boardman and, equally important, Boardman’s rival George Skipper, of whom John Betjeman said ‘He is altogether remarkable and original. He was to Norwich what Gaudi was to Barcelona’.
This talk will look at their lives and influences and, most importantly, the handsome buildings they designed in Norwich and beyond.
Susan Riddle
