News
HISTORY NEWSLETTER AUGUST 2025
75TH Anniversary Season
The coming season marks the 75th anniversary of the Society! Of course, there have been changes over the years, perhaps the most significant being the Museum becoming a separate entity at the turn of the century but a constant has been the lecture programme.
There is an exciting season of lectures planned including on how Britain has changed in 75 years, the Klein Hollandia (a shipwreck off Eastbourne), the La Mora Project, the Duchess of Cleveland and Battle Abbey, archaeology at Bodiam, treachery, deceit and death of the Tudor dynasty and diaries of a Battle doctor in the 1940s. Speakers include Charles Moore, Tracy Borman, Robert Catt and Fiona Stapley, Charlotte Moore and Tina Greene. Please note that in order to use the Main Hall, three lectures are scheduled on a different day to normal.
Full details of the new season’s programme will be available here at the end of August.
The next lecture is “75 years – Britain then, Britain now” by Charles Moore, at 7.30 pm on Wednesday 10 September in the Main Hall, Battle Memorial Hall.
King and Conqueror
The BBC historical epic ‘King and Conqueror’ about Harold and William is due to start on Sunday 24 August. It stars James Norton and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.
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
Why not pop in and see what is new? There are still vacancies for volunteers this season, so if you are interested, please make contact via the museum website http://www.battlemuseum.com.
La Mora Tapestry
Don’t miss your chance to be part of the La Mora Tapestry. Sessions are at Battle Library as follows:
1.00-5.00 pm Fridays
10.00-2.00 pm Saturdays
Christina Greene and her fellow stitchers have already finished the first section and the second section has begun already!
History in the News
Ancient Handprint: a handprint left approximately 4,000 years ago on a clay model crafted to go inside an Egyptian tomb has been discovered during preparations for an exhibition. The imprint was left on the base of a ‘soul house’, a clay model in the shape of a building which would then be placed inside a burial chamber. The model had an open front space where items of food were laid out, in this example loaves of bread, a lettuce and an ox’s head. Analysis suggests that the potter first created a framework of wooden sticks and then coated it with clay to make a building of two storeys supported by pillars. The Soul House will be on display in the ‘Made in Ancient Egypt’ exhibition from 3 October at the Fitzwilliam Museum.
Maidstone Museum: the Museum is launching a new gallery to explore the town’s modern history. Exhibits have been gathered from Tudor times to the present day and the Museum is inviting local community groups to share their stories and artefacts. The new display will link up with the existing Lives in our Landscape Gallery. The exhibits include a miniature tin figure of Sir Kreemy Knut, emblem of Sharp’s Toffee and a mysterious 16th century seat that could hold the key to the town’s name, ‘Maid on the Stone’. The exhibition opened on 19 July and is free to visit.
Archaeological Summer Dig at Highdown, near Ferring: finds have made the site one of ‘national importance’. The history of the site includes a Bronze Age enclosure, a fort during the Iron Age, a Roman outpost and a Saxon cemetery. At the end of July, an undisturbed grave, probably of a 16-year-old, has made the team keen to come back next year because they have also found the beginnings of another three burials. Among the artefacts discovered are swords, rock crystal beads, a bronze hair pin and many late Roman coins. The site had previously been excavated by Victorian archaeologists, who had left their own mark: a bottle of port was found at the bottom of a grave cut!
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.
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