Battle and District
                 Historical Society


 

 

News

HISTORY NEWSLETTER MARCH 2024

Next Lecture

The next talk is ‘Life on a Whatlington Farm in late Victorian Times’ by Charlotte Moore at 7.30 pm on Thursday 21 March in the Wynne Room, Battle Memorial Hall. We do hope you will be able to join us.

Date for the Diary : ‘The Portable Antiquities Scheme’ by Jane Clark at 7.30 pm on Thursday 18 April, Battle Memorial Hall.

Society Facebook Page

Don’t forget to check out the BDHS Facebook page. For those who are Facebook users, please find it at https://facebook.com/BattleHistorySociety or by searching for Battle and District Historical Society when logged into your Facebook account. Remember to like and follow the page to get notification of our posts.

Battle Museum

The Museum will be re-opening on Good Friday (29 March). If you are interested in volunteering with them for next season, please leave your details on 01424 775955 (voicemail).

History in the News

Atlas restored: a colossal statue of Atlas that was buried for centuries among ancient ruins has been reconstructed to take its place among the Greek temples of Agrigento in Sicily. The 26ft tall statue was one of nearly 38 that stood in the Temple of Zeus, thought to be the largest Doric temple ever built, even though it was never completed. The statues were found in 1812 by a British Architect who was studying the ruins of the ancient city of Akragas, founded in about 582 BC. According to archaeologists, the Atlases were located on the outer part of the Temple of Zeus, frozen in the act of supporting the temple and helping to sustain the entire entablature of the sanctuary which was never completed because it was still lacking a roof when Akragas was conquered by the Carthaginians. In 2004, the Valley of Temples park launched an extensive research campaign which resulted in the cataloguing of 90 more fragments belonging to at least eight different Atlases: it was decided to assemble a new Atlas and place it upright in front of what remains of the Temple of Zeus.

Bronze Age Axes: Ten Bronze Age axes have been found in a hoard near Shalford in Essex: they are exceptionally well-preserved and are thought to date from 1000 to 800 BC. A typical household would have owned a large selection of tools, including at least seven axes, which were often recycled. They were found with one sword fragment and 12 bun ingots, given the name because of their circular shape, were cut into four to make them easier to melt.

Medieval strap-end: : a rare medieval gilded silver strap-end, engraved with a medieval bird design with a human head, has been found in Norfolk. It is likely that the engraving was probably based on a mythological creature but it could have been the creator’s interpretation of a species that he had heard about but not seen. Medieval people would have heard of lions or camels or the cockatrice but would not necessarily know what they looked like. The find dates from the late 14th or early 15th century, a time of turmoil and social change in the wake of the Black Death. More than 8,000 strap ends have been reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme but only 44 are made of silver, making this a rare find.

Wreck on Orkney beach: the wreckage of an old wooden ship on Sanday beach, in the Orkneys, is beginning to break up: it is thought that the wreck, which could date from 1700 or earlier, was exposed by a recent storm from beneath the sand. Two large sections have been removed from the beach and kept in brine so that they can be analysed more closely. It is hoped to take slices out of the timbers to do tree-ring dating and potentially work out where the trees grew. The archaeologists are also offering to train islanders in how to survey and preserve future marine wreckage found on the island’s extensive sandy shoreline. Sanday author and historian Myra Stockton has catalogued about 200 wrecks around the island, dating as far back as 1596. She said there are records of 14 ships lost near the beach where the wreck was found and there is local speculation that it could be part of the Spanish Armada.

A66 dig: a dig near one of Cumbria’s busiest roads has unearthed artefacts dating back thousands of years including stone tools, pottery shards and a copy alloy Roman broach. Discoveries include a settlement believed to date to the Late Neolithic or Middle Bronze Age (1600-1200 BC) as well as evidence of life in Cumbria when the A66 was a Roman road. The route through the Eden Valley and Stainmore Pass was ancient even when the Romans found their own road nearly 2000 years ago. Road and river junctions are still marked by prehistoric monuments, Roman forts and medieval castles, whilst the fertile valley ahs supported communities since the end of the last Ice Age. A ‘grubenhaus’ – a building typically built above a large rectangular pit and associated with Early Medieval settlements – has also been found.

Other history articles in the press: If any member spots an interesting history article, just email a scan of it to bdhs66@yahoo.co.uk and we’ll feature an edited version of it in the next Newsletter.

The Arts Society Rother Valley (ASRV)

This season’s topics include: 2B or not 2B? An illustrated history of drawing; Benevenuto Cellini; what have the Huguenots ever done for us; Joseph Wright of Derby; the Valois Dukes of Burgundy; the music of Dimitry Shostakovich; and the story of the city of Bath. For further details, please check the ASRV website https://www.theartssocietyrothervalley.org.uk or contact Pat Arrowsmith, Membership Secretary, on 07838 214675.

 

Sarah Hall

 

Online Archive Update – September 2021

Exciting news! We now have a great new resource available online. The original Battle Town Index, identified by advisers from the National Archives as potentially the most important item in our archive, was recorded on a series of Index cards. Members of our Society started the Index with the aim of recording information on the use and occupants of all the buildings in the town centre. Information, gleaned mainly from trade and other directories, was recorded up to the early 1990s. The online version of the Index has been edited so that beyond 1940 only information on businesses and a few private individuals reasonably assumed now dead have been included in the online version. This complies with the recommendations of the National Archives on publication of material which is covered by the Data Protection Act. It still, however, provides a wealth of information and is found in our online archive as a series of searchable .pdf files. Go to our archive page The Battle & District Historical Society Archives http://bdhsarchives.com and search for Battle Town Index to see the available .pdf files. When you have downloaded the file you can find the search function by clicking on the magnifying glass symbol and entering your search term.

Website news

The British Library is going to archive our website in the UK Web Archive and to make it publicly available via that route. The UK Web Archive was established in 2004 to capture and archive websites from the UK domain and across the web, responding to the challenge of a digital black hole in the nations memory. It contains specially selected websites that represent different aspects of UK heritage on the web, as well as important global events. We work closely with leading international institutions to collect and permanently preserve the web, and the open UK Web Archive can be seen at http://www.webarchive.org.uk/.
Also an on-line version of the BDHS Journal for 2019 has been added – see Previous BDHS Journals

Meet our new President

Our new President, Professor David Bates, gave his inaugural lecture entitled ‘Writing a Biography of William the Conqueror’ at a very well attended meeting on 16 January. His presentation was well received and afterwards David had the opportunity to meet many members of the Society and be photographed with all members of the BDHS Committee. He also gave another lecture – by Zoom on 15th October. This was about ‘New thoughts on the Bayeux Tapestry’.

Meeting with the new Dean of Battle

The new Dean of Battle, the Very Reverend Lee Duckett, together with his wife Ange, has been presented with some books from BDHS members Keith Foord and Tina Greene, which are concerned with the Church and the Battle Tapestry, currently on display there. BDHS hopes to develop some mutually beneficial projects based on the church’s archives and the use of the church environmental space for exhibitions etc..


The Dark Ages’ greatest Christmas relics were at Battle Abbey

The Guardian and other media have reported that a medieval manuscript listing Battle Abbey’s relics has been analysed and transcribed for the first time by English Heritage historian Michael Carter. It reveals that the relics were the most prestigious given to any abbey, more significant even than those at Westminster Abbey.

A report on this can be found at https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/dec/18/a-bit-of-manger-st-nicholass-bone-the-dark-ages-greatest-christmas-relics.Michael Carter’s paper can also be found in full using this reference: Carter, M: The Relics of Battle Abbey: A Fifteenth-Century Inventory at The Huntington Library, San Marino The Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies 8 (2019)

Video: The Battle of Hastings. No – the Battle of Battle!!

BDHS Members Michael Hodge, Alan Judd and Peter Greene, working in close cooperation with Natasha Williams of English Heritage, have produced a video explaining where the Battle of Hastings actually took place and why we have a town called Battle. The video has been released by Mirador Television and can be found via Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDe8uyKXL9Y

Amazing find by BDHS

In the process of changing over BDHS archivists Gina Doherty and David Sawyer unexpectedly turned up an old small parchment that appeared to originate from Abbot Richard Tovey of Battle Abbey in 1493. Christopher Whittick of ESRO confirmed its authenticity This is a ‘pass’ entitling the carrier to travel freely in England and quoting the old charter rights of the abbey. Gina has produced an excellent summary of this find which can be read in Section A3.4 of Collectanea.  BDHS has also given a facsimile copy to Battle Abbey for future display.

L-R: Neil Clephane-Cameron, Keith Foord, George Kiloh, Gina Doherty, Natasha Williams (English Heritage) handing the parchment to Christopher Whittick (Vice-President of BDHS). Picture Peter Greene







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