NEWSLETTER 16th May 2021
AS THE VILLAGE HALL REMAINS UNAVAILABLE OUR TALK ON MAY 21th WILL TAKE PLACE BY VIA ZOOM. OUR CONTINUING APOLOGIES TO OUR MEMBERS WHO DO NOT HAVE ACCESS TO THIS SERVICE
Our forthcoming talk on Friday 21st May at 7.30 pm will be presented by Dr Stanley Ireland of Warwick University. He will describe the two South Warwickshire Roman Coin Hoards found locally in recent years, in particular the most recent one of over 450 silver denarii recovered as part of a more extensive archaeological excavation. Both hoards have been acquired by Warwick Museum and are on display – as covid restrictions permit. Dr Ireland has carried out the formal identifications for the Museum and recognised some extremely rare items amongst the assemblage. Altogether the hoards represent an early period of the Roman occupation of Britain, and their deposition poses some questions about the purpose of their burial, and wider issues about the site of the find. A Zoom invitation will be emailed on Thursday 20th.
Back Tracks: detecting the past: report on our talk on 16th April.
Colin Clay and Phil Taylor showed how the historic landscape can be investigated using remote sensing techniques, coupled with maps and field survey. Colin took us through the discoveries made possible by LiDAR surveys, revealing with extraordinary clarity features previously hidden in woodland or obscured by the subtleties of topography. He used many local sites, such as the circular churchyard at Chadshunt and the iron age banks at Wappenbury, to demonstrate the capabilities of the methodology. Both Colin and Phil showed how to access the rich resources available to the researcher on the internet. Phil especially expanded on the potential of map resources to reveal earlier landscape patterns, suggesting that there is a widespread “ladder” plan, based on the standard Roman actus measure, and a preferred orientation, which was used by in the Roman period to set out settlements and fields. Phil observed that these factors are still discernible in the layout of modern villages and in the landscape. This ambitious suggestion requires much detailed historical examination to ensure that the elements used to support it are indeed survivors from the Roman period and not more recent features.
Summer Outings. Isobel has been working hard in the covid situation to arrange our June, July and August outings, and we are confident that the evening visits will go ahead in June to Stoneleigh, and in July to the Warmington historic landscape, but it is considered not viable to book a coach to Croome Park in August. Reluctantly this trip is postponed, and may be reviewed for 2022.
Our June 25th evening visit to Stoneleigh village will be led by Sheila Woolf, whose delightful talk on Cordelia Leigh of 
Stoneleigh Abbey many of you will remember. The trip will include a visit to the church as well as examining the outstanding collection of vernacular buildings in the village. Please note the date is now rescheduled for 25th June. Refreshments may be provided, subject to covid restrictions. The cost is £5.00 per head. Could members who intend to go please let us know as soon as possible so we can tell Sheila how many to expect.
The evening walk around the fields at the Warmington Herb Centre on July 16th will be led by David Freke who carried out the excavations there. The local topography is the key to understanding how prehistoric, Roman and later communities lived and exploited this landscape, and it has implications for the wider region. The cost will be £5.00.
Booking is necessary for both trips, please email or phone David Freke (frekedj@globalnet.co.uk; phone 07876 290044) or Isobel Gill (isobel.mirador.gill@gmail.com) to book a place. You can pay by cheque made payable to Kineton and District Local History Group, sent or delivered to Ted Crofts, 5 Bank Close, Butlers Marston, CV35 0NL , or by BACS to our bank business account, name: Kineton and District Local History Group, sort code: 40-43-19; acc no. 71281992. Please be sure to include your full name so we can correctly attribute your subscription!
2021 Programme update:
May 21Dr Stanley Ireland: The South Warwickshire Roman coin hoards:
June 25 Sheila Woolf: Guided Tour of Stoneleigh, subject to covid regulations
(NB change of date}
July 16 David Freke: A walk in a prehistoric and Roman landscape at Warmington
Aug. Day trip to Croome Court, postponed
Sep 17 Peter Coulls: Warwick and Leamington Tramways
Oct 15 Michael Luntley: From This Ground: songs and stories about 19thcentury Warwickshire agricultural workers (a performance, so subject to covid restrictions)
Nov 19Ellie Reid Dressing up the Past: the 1906 Warwick Pageant and the 20th century pageant movement in Warwickshire.
Dec 10 Christmas treats
2022
Jan 21 George Derbyshire: Arts and Crafts in the Cotswolds
Feb 18 tbc
Mar 18 AGM
Official covid advice and regulations may change for better or worse in the coming months, so we will be assessing the programme one meeting at a time and we will confirm each event when we are reasonably confident that we can run it. Even in a strict lockdown we intend to continue virtual meetings online on the regular dates, but they may not be by the speakers or on the topics set out in the current 2021-22 Programme. Please be patient if an eagerly awaited talk is postponed. We will try to re-schedule any speaker not suited to the Zoom route.
Kineton Village Day Saturday 10th July. The Kineton Art Group and Kineton Camera Club are working together to set up a village “get together” for village groups and clubs to promote their activities following the long lockdown over the past year. This will be associated with the Centenary Re-dedication of the War memorial, originally unveiled on July 10th 1921. K&DLHG members will man an exhibition in the churchyard, joining other village organisations.
Other Society News
Warwickshire Local History Society
K&DLHG is affiliated to WLHS and our members are entitled to join their meetings.
Many other local societies are running their talk series via zoom! Check the Warwickshire Local History Society website for up-to-date lists.
Council for British Archaeology West Midlands
CBA West Midlands have also given details of local history and archaeology podcasts.
Amongst several podcasts about the region CBAWM has recently released podcasts by Dr Roger White of the University of Birmingham on Wroxeter Roman city and the Roman West Midlands. https://historywm.com/podcasts
Other local on-line offerings:
Birmingham Museum virtual tour https://www.birminghammuseums.org.uk/bmag/virtual-tour
Herefordshire Museum and Art Gallery Life through a Lens virtual tour https://www.herefordshirelifethroughalens.org.uk/virtual-exhibitiontours/
Warwick Castle Virtual Tour https://historyview.org/library/warwick-castle/
A fascinating account of local WWII German POWs can be found with this link.
Don’t forget to check our own website at:
Kineton and District Local History Group (kinetonhistory.co.uk)
KDLHG Committee Matters.
Chairman David Freke
Vice-Chairman Roger Gaunt
Secretary Ilona Sekacz
Treasurer Ted Crofts
Outings Secretary Isobel Gill
Programme Secretary Claire Roberts
Other committee members
Catherine Petrie
Peter Waters
Alex Hitchman
Rosemary Collier
Pam Redgrave
George Lokuciejewski
The new committee met via Zoom for the first time on 27th April.
The quartet of Ted, Roger, Richard (Hurley) and Lucie have continued their efforts to unravel the PayPal problem [post-meeting note: success! after only a year of Kafka-esque responses from PayPal].
Ted reported that we have 45 paid up members, and Roger pointed out that we now have a Membership Application Form on our website. Could past members who wish to remain members but have yet to pay the subscription please use this opportunity to re-join us.
Claire and Isobel confirmed the meetings and outings arrangements to date (see Programme section above). Roger was asked to see if Lucie could add a counter to record the hits on the web site.
Date of next meeting. 7.00pm 29th June at Pam Redgrave’s house: 8 King John’s Road, Kineton
DF 16.05.21
Contact: David Freke
Email frekedj@globalnet.co.uk
07876 290044
remote sensing techniques, coupled with maps and field survey. They will explore the possibilities recently opened up by the free online availability of Lidar images, together with the use of metal detectors, aerial photographs and the Portable Antiquities Scheme data resources. Colin and Phil have spent several years using these methods to explore the evidence for historic activities surviving in local landscapes, and we look forward to hearing about these cutting edge techniques, and finding and what exactly “Lidar “ stands for.
Briggs died suddenly recently. Our condolences to Val and his family for their loss. His association with the village went back many decades, long before my tenure as Chairman, and many members will have known him far better than I.
The 15th January meeting will take place as scheduled but unfortunately exclusively as a Zoom meeting via the internet. We will send you an email on Thursday 14th with the Zoom invitation to join the Friday meeting, starting at 7.15pm. The speaker is our founder member David Beaumont, who will describe the background to the 17th-century civil wars and illustrate his work transcribing local claims for compensation following the end of the wars. His work contributes to an ambitious county-wide project initiated by Dr Maureen Harris with the support of the Friends of the Warwickshire County Record Office. The project’s aim is to transcribe the original claims made by each Warwickshire parish, using local volunteers, who have been initiated into the mysteries of 17th century handwriting through seminars and regular contact with Maureen and the WCRO. Those with experience of such scripts were specifically discouraged from taking part, as one of the objects was to encourage new researchers to this field. David was one of our members who bravely set out to decipher the documents for Kineton and neighbouring parishes. The edited transcriptions are due to be published with an analysis by Maureen in due course. In the meantime David will give us a preview of what some Kineton residents claimed they had lost during the chaotic years of the Civil Wars.
talk, and at short notice your Chairman filled in. The simple Zoom arrangement, where the Host (me) and the Speaker (me!) were the same, seemed to work and we hope that future Zoom talks will continue to run as smoothly. The title Graffiti in Local Churches: devotion or desecration? turned out to be too simplistic, as the variety of marks in churches are often both devotional and scurrilous and much more besides. It is clear that although many of these vernacular inscriptions survive in pre-Victorian churches, many have also been lost to some vigorous cleaning and refurbishment regimes. As an archaeologist, the speaker is well acquainted with the problems posed by incomplete material, and so any conclusions, especially those based on where surviving graffiti are found, have to be cautious ones. That said, some locations do seem to have attracted graffiti makers, – eg the porch, chancel and tower arches, aisle pillars, and door and window surrounds, whereas blank walls, the favoured canvas of the contemporary graffiti artist, were largely ignored. Mystery still surrounds the meanings and motives of much church graffiti, and there is a growing research interest in documenting and recording it.
With the Village Hall still unavailable for our traditional December mince pies and mulled wine meeting your committee appealed to members to present short memorable personal recollections of Christmas via Zoom. Thank you so much to the dozen who informed and entertained us with their stories, and to the 25 participants who supped festive drinks and joined the meeting from their homes. Claire Roberts kicked off with an account of an exotic pre-Christmas festival in Oaxaca, Mexico, where oversized radishes are carved into intricate designs. Her photos of turkeys and entire Nativity scenes fashioned from radishes were extraordinary. As was her account of being warmly included in a family party, attended by accident – a welcome reminder of the kindness of strangers.
BBC1 transmissions to the Orkneys, and then had to endure a very rough ferry crossing from Scrabster to Stromness (and back) to sort it out, apparently by flicking a reset button. Jane Waters described how her family of bakers in Sevenoaks produced elaborately iced three-tiered cakes for the local gentry. Tiers mean something a little less festive nowadays. Jane’s mother, born in 1912, could remember villagers bringing their Christmas turkeys to be cooked in the baking ovens on their way to church, and picking them up on the way home. The same was happening in Kineton at Fred Baker’s bakery at the top of Manor Lane.
Closer to home Pam Redgrave revealed a history of swimming instruction, life saving and swimming pool construction. Forty years ago she helped build the High School swimming pool, a pioneer solar heated facility. On Christmas day morning 1980 she was one of a party invited to swim in the newly completed pool by the retiring headmaster, Mr Turner. She managed 40 lengths in an hour.
of catering and entertainments at an Oxford hotel the pre-booked Father Christmas met with an accident before he was due to entertain a party of 30 children aged 3 to 10 years old on Christmas day. Ted was pressed into service but had to squeeze into a borrowed costume, too small for him, obtained after many panic phone calls. Presents appropriate to each child’s age had been wrapped and name tagged but several children had the same name, so Ted had to rely on his elf assistant, who had bought the presents, to advise him which ones to give to whom. Opportunities for disaster were many, but luck was on Ted’s side. I hope he got a bonus.
Local historian Martin Greenwood has informed us of his new book called ‘
have Keith Westcott talking about his recent discovery of the extensive Roman villa on the Broughton Castle estate. As a keen metal detectorist he considered the landscape context and previous local discoveries and set about systematically investigating his hunch that there was some significant Roman activity in the area. His persistence was rewarded, and since his discovery he has been working with evangelical zeal to consolidate his findings. and to integrate the amateur, specialist and professional interests he has generated in researching the site. 
worsted spinning mill in England at the time, employing 500 workers, and it was the first factory in Warwickshire to bring all the elements for producing worsted yarn into one place – “vertical integration”. The factory system was a blow to the cottage industries and was not welcomed by all, although the frame breaking by Luddites experienced elsewhere did not affect Warwick. The Warwick factory’s efficiency enabled it to supply Leicester and Hinkley hosiery manufacturers and Kidderminster carpet factories. It benefitted from the innovations of the industrial revolution taking place in the west midlands, with a Bolton and Watt steam engine and a patented “Smoke Consumer” to meet the requirements of the 1821 Steam Furnaces Act, an early anti-pollution measure. The factory contributed to Warwick’s prosperity and growth in the early 19th century, although the living condition of the workers was appalling, with the factory district a notorious slum of “pauper squares”. The decline of the business came about through a combination of personality clashes between the partners’ heirs, the economic decline following the end of the Napoleonic wars and stiff competition as other centres with better resources caught up with Warwick. Our thanks to Tim Clark for his stimulating talk, and for agreeing to be our first semi-virtual speaker, and thanks also to our membership.
Our February 21st meeting features an illustrated talk by Andrew Baxter, a speaker familiar to us from his stimulating talk last year on the Edgehill Tea Gardens. Andrew will describe the recent work that he and other enthusiasts have been carrying out on the surviving vestiges of the Edgehill Light Railway. This short-lived enterprise left clear landscape features and some surviving artefacts but has otherwise disappeared from most people’s awareness. We will learn what the light railway project if completed would have meant to the landscape of the area. 
Report on our first meeting in the New Year. For our first 2020 meeting David Freke gave an account of the art of 18th century local village stone masons. In fact David started way back in the 17th century to set the scene for the sometimes extremely accomplished 18th century work still visible in so many of our local churchyards. The very style of headstones can illuminate the religious controversies of the period, as well as the status of the patron and the skill (or lack of it) of the mason. The influence of outside events also played a part, with local craftsmen attracted to London in the wake of the Great Fire, and returning with up-to-date ideas and training. A few proudly displayed the arms of the Worshipful Company of Masons of London on their own headstones. Their work is visible to anybody to see in our local churchyards, and it is hoped that better knowledge will lead to better appreciation and better protection of what still survives after 300 years or so of English weather, and well intentioned but often destructive churchyard tidying episodes. Our President Bob Bearman led the vote of thanks, and the membership then adjourned for refreshments presided over by Ilona.
For our first 2020 meeting David Freke will give an illustrated talk entitled Elegy on Country Churchyards: the art of 18th century local village stone masons. The Group’s survey of St Peter’s churchyard, initiated by Peter and Gill Ashley-Smith in 2010, was the start of this study. It has led to investigations into local genealogy, geology, politics, religion and art history. The thread which binds these elements together has been the search for the many men (always men) who made the thousands of 17th and 18th century memorials which still survive in our local churchyards. These memorials constitute the largest body of vernacular art of the period, far outnumbering folk art objects in galleries, and much more accessible. As Gray’s Elegy might have put it: “Some mute inglorious Mason here may rest” and the hope is that some may not be so mute nor so inglorious when their work is better appreciated.
Which is more than can be said for the final part of the meeting. Tripping over the clutter of mikes, cables and props, Kineton’s Other Dramatic Society aka the committee – aided by Jane Waters in an original Victorian dress (the most authentic element of the whole sorry saga) – the committee stumbled through a doggerel script purporting to be a Victorian who-dun-it, with dreadful puns and mangled syntax. It was farrago of nonsense about a lost gavel, involving mispronounced place-names, a thinly disguised parody of Conan Doyle’s famous detective addicted to sherbet, with some inappropriate violin abuse, all fed through a Dickensian mincer to emerge as a tale, full of sound and fury, and signifying nothing. Congratulations to all involved for the sheer nerve of it, and to the membership for refraining from catcalls and brickbats. Afterwards, with much relief, to quote a line from the performance, the membership fell on the traditional mince pies, provided by the committee, and the mulled wine prepared by Ilona, served by Mark and Jackie Walker.
particular her recordings of people who lived in Birmingham’s “back-to-backs”. She vividly demonstrated the importance of capturing the experiences of “ordinary” people, which might otherwise go unrecorded and unappreciated. Her examples included children and even a titled lady describing the English upper-class dinner ritual of not so long ago. A query from Gill about whether she would edit words or phrases which are now considered inappropriate (she wouldn’t) led on to a discussion about the possibility of bias in the record in favour of politically correct attitudes. Helen described a deliberate attempt to redress this perceived imbalance by seeking out a racist to record, with mixed results. Her point was that the recordings are valuable because they try to reflect the way people actually think, and sound. Another issue was the long-term security of the recordings, given the rapid changes we have seen in sound recording technology. There is the risk of historic recordings being lost either through deterioration of the medium or as the equipment to play them becomes obsolete. Our own oral history recordings are indeed on out-dated mini-discs. Helen conceded that in the future video clips might have a greater role, given their current ubiquity. Ilona led the vote of thanks for a stimulating and entertaining evening.