NEWSLETTER 1st April 2019
PLEASE NOTE: The date of our next talk has been changed from the one in the Programme Card. Tim Newcombe will give his talk on THE MILLS FAMILY AND THE HISTORY OF THE PILLERTONS on 26th April, not the 12th as advertised in the Programme Card.
Forthcoming Meeting: April 26th.
At our next meeting on 26th April Tim Newcombe is giving an illustrated talk on The Mills Family and the History of the Pillertons. Both the manors of Pillerton Priors and Pillerton Hersey were owned by the Mills family from the late 18th century onwards. Both villages now share the church at Pillerton Hersey, although the churchyard of a chapel at Pillerton Priors, which burnt down in the 1660s, is still consecrated, and is tucked away down a short lane off the Stratford Road. It will be fascinating to hear the history of these two nearby settlements, part of our“ Kineton and District Local History Group”
Report on the 31st AGM meeting 15th March 2019. This was a departure from the format of previous years. As numbers attending the combined AGM + Supper have steadily declined and the provision of the paid-for supper has become unviable, your committee arranged something different for 2019. The business part of the meeting, conducted by our President Bob Bearman, was short with the usual reports by the Chairman (attached) and the Acting Treasurer (many thanks to Peter Waters, who has steadfastly maintained our finances since Richard moved to Devon). The committee elections followed, and we bid farewell to Richard Hurley and Steve Gill, and welcomed Ted Crofts as our new Treasurer. Committee members Catherine Petrie, Claire Roberts, Ilona Sekacz and Isobel Gill then produced and described their Tastes of the Past; samples of food they had prepared from historic recipes, including Pumpes, Banbury Cakes, Shortbread, Oat Bread, Marchpaine. and Pottage, but sadly not the Farts of Portingale so widely anticipated. This was followed the fiendish foody quiz. A tied result needed an even trickier question to settle a winner, whose table was rewarded with pre-Brexit Belgian chocolates (chocolate first appeared in London in 1660). The meeting was suitably surprised, disgusted and entertained by some of what our forebears put in their mouths.
Reminder: , Tim Newcombe’s talk on the Mills Family and the History of the Pillertons is on the 26th April the 4th Friday of the month, not the 12th as in the Programme Card
Other Events.
5th April. Warwick Museum: Bring the Hoard Home. A fund-raising campaign for Warwick Museum to purchase the major Roman coin hoard found recently in South Warwickshire, starting with a Gala Evening at the Market Hall Museum on Friday 5th April, 7.00pm to 10.00pm. Tickets £20.00 to include proscecco and canapes. Call the Museum on 01926 412500 for tickets
18 April. Warmington Heritage Group: Using Old Maps, LIDAR and Metal Detecting to Investigate>Ancient Tracks and Byways by Colin Clay and Phillip Taylor. 7.30 Warmington Village Hall
KDLHG Committee Matters.
The new committee will meet at 7.30pm on April 29th 2019, at 5 Church Houses, Manor Lane, by kind invitation of Catherine Petrie
DF 01.04. 2019
March 15th, 31st AGM Chairman’s Report
Honorary President, Guests, Members, welcome.
The continued success of this group depends upon two things:
1)Providing stimulating output in the form of talks, activities, and research which engages our membership and which keeps you, as individuals, feeling that it is worthwhile coming out every third Friday evening and sitting still for an hour or so, or which stimulates members into engaging with historical issues, and
2) Receiving energetic input from individuals to initiate and facilitate our programme, to pursue interesting ideas through the group and to engage with research.
Parts of our output have been demonstrably successful. Our talks have attracted good numbers of members, and often many visitors as well. Last year we had a wide mix of topics presented by experts and enthusiasts, addressing locally relevant subjects from Tearooms at Edgehill to Treasure from Warwickshire, and not least Treats at Christmas. I shall not remind you of all of them, as they are all reported in the monthly Newsletter. Suffice to say, half of the 2018 programme was provided by our own members, drawing on their own experience and research.
Our trips to Bristol, Long Itchington and the Rollright Stones attracted a hard core of members, who invariably enjoy and appreciate the events, but sometimes in fewer numbers than would make them comfortable economically. Other aspects of our output are more intermittent. It is 20 years since the History of Kineton book was published, 11 years since the Snapshot, 8 years since the Churchyard Survey, 7 since the Battlefield Trust collaboration. The website introduced 5 years ago continues to be accessed worldwide. Of course, individual contributions to research and its dissemination have been made throughout the Group’s existence, for instance Peter Ashley-Smith’s articles about local history appearing in periodicals and academic journals, and the lectures and talks by members about their personal research topics to other groups and organisations. We have also taken opportunities to set up our exhibition material at conferences and other events, most recently at the Village Hall sale in January. This year will see a significant addition to our output: the publication of a book of Peter’s articles gathered and edited by our President and Gill, with photos from David Beaumont’s extensive collection. So much for output.
Continued input to support and contribute to these activities is also required. From what I’ve mentioned it is clear that some members are undertaking research following up their own experiences and disseminating this through our own programme and elsewhere. We are also contributing to wider research, for instance several members are taking part in the Warwick Record Office project to transcribe the Civil War compensation claims in the parishes around us, and we hope to hear more about this in due course. But new ideas and projects generated within the group are always valuable. We would be keen to hear of any pet project which the group could support.
Key to new work is access to resources, and with Peter’s passing we risk losing access to the wealth of material he collected and produced, and this has reminded us that that other members also hold valuable material. Many years ago former Chairman Brian Lewis alerted us to this issue and in my first chairman’s address 11 years ago I also flagged up the management of, and access to, our archives as a priority. It still is, but we are inching our way, Brexit-like, to a solution. On behalf of the Group we have proposed to the Village Hall Users Committee that a new mezzanine floor be inserted behind the stage, to be our secure archive store. We have prepared detailed plans, briefed a builder, and your committee is awaiting his estimates, and if they are acceptable and within our financial scope we will put the proposal to the VHC for their consideration. We hope to have a decision in the next few months.
As well as historical inputs we need to support the administrative structure that maintains the Group itself. Here we are perhaps less robust. We have lost several long-standing and energetic members over the last few years, either through death, relocation or retirement from the committee, and we need to replace them. The election of the committee is coming up, please consider yourself or your best/worst friend/enemy for nomination. I am pleased to announce that Ted Crofts is prepared to stand for the role of Treasurer, a huge weight off my mind.
We also have a declining membership, and I would like to think that the new housing developments around Kineton, whatever else they may be, may also be a source of new members. When you encounter new residents please proselytise shamelessly.
It remains for me to thank the committee for all their hard work and support,
Roger Gaunt,
Steve Gill (who is leaving the committee),
Ilona Sekacz,
Catherine Petrie,
Richard Hurley (another committee loss),
Peter Waters, and
Claire Roberts
And of course our President, Bob Bearman, whose work on our behalf this year has been unprecedented and essential.
Thanks are also due to those members who help out with the teas and coffees, putting out and putting away the chairs, and advising on technical hitches including supplying beer mats when required.
DF 15.03.2019,