AS THE VILLAGE HALL IS UNAVAILABLE BECAUSE OF THE NEW NOVEMBER LOCKDOWN, THE TALK ON NOVEMBER 20th WILL TAKE PLACE AS AN EXCLUSIVELY ZOOM PRESENTATION. OUR APOLOGIES TO OUR MEMBERS WHO DO NOT HAVE ACCESS TO THIS SERVICE.
There have been unhappy failures in our Zoom presentations from the Hall, and we appreciate your patience through them. My thanks to those who gave feedback on their experiences. We now believe that some at least of the problems were the result of not fully understanding how to manage the dual nature of the presentations – both projected on the Hall screen and simultaneously shared via Zoom. We hope that the more straight-forward November set up of a single host (me!) sharing with participants (you!) will work effectively. We hope your patience has not been exhausted, and that you will grant us another try at getting it right. We will send you an email on Thursday 19th with the Zoom invitation to join our November 20th meeting at 7.15pm.
16th and 17th century graffiti on the porch of Wardington church (highlighted in red )
The November 20 meeting. The short notice of the lockdown, and our reluctance to subject another visiting speaker to the risk of a less than satisfactory evening, has meant that your Chairman will fill the November slot. His title is Graffiti in Local Churches: devotion or desecration? This topic is a very recent area of study and still holds many mysteries. The discovery of graffiti in churches often requires the detailed examination of overlooked surfaces, and searches in nooks and crannies, although, surprisingly, many examples are in plain view, just not expected or acknowledged. The date of a mark is often difficult to establish, or is controversial. Who made them and how? And, ultimately, what do they convey? Mindless vandalism, covert religiosity, personal markings, magical invocations, publicly sanctioned expressions of communal acts of faith — all these have been proposed as motivations. The presentation will take us into many churches now temporarily inaccessible due to covid regulations, and will hopefully prompt us to visit them when the restrictions are eventually lifted.
Report on 16th October meeting.. The 18 members attending in the Hall were treated to a wide-ranging illustrated talk by Keith Westcott. Those at home were less fortunate as we struggled again to get the Zoom system to deliver the talk to their computers. My apologies to you, and to our speaker. Those of you who stuck with it at least heard Keith’s talk, but lacked his illustrations. Keith turned out to have come by a circuitous route to archaeology and history, from diving on historic wrecks to metal detecting. He recently set up training courses with Oxford University for detectorists to learn responsible procedures for systematically detecting and recording finds. The account of his recent discovery of the massive Roman villa on the fields of the Broughton Estate demonstrated his ability to read the landscape, find and appraise the existing evidence, and carry out field work.
Artist’s impression of a British Roman villa, Historic England. Picture: Ivan Lapper
He collated these various strands to predict the likelihood, and location, of the previously unsuspected villa, and then instigated the fieldwork to prove its existence. Much work remains to be done to follow up the discovery.
Keith is also involved in a project to co-ordinate of Roman studies on a regional scale. This aims to bring together and make available the records and the fieldwork carried out in several midlands counties, whose boundaries cut across Roman territories in an arbitrary fashion. It’s an ambitious scheme, and we hope it succeeds.
Other Matters
All members who had paid for the cancelled outings have been re-imbursed. It may be possible to reschedule the outings for 2021.
The November lockdown has forced a further modification of our programme presentations one meeting at a time and we will confirm each event when we are reasonably confident that we can run it. As predicted last month in a strict lockdown we intend to continue virtual meetings online on the regular dates, but as for this month, they may not be by the speakers or on the topics set out in the 2020-21 Programme leaflet. Please be patient if an eagerly awaited talk is postponed. We will try to re-schedule any speaker not suited to the Zoom route.
Other Society News
Other societies are exploring ways of reaching their members, and members who can use the various virtual meetings apps can usually join them.
Tuesday 17th November 7.20 for 7.30 start. Warwickshire Local History Society is hosting a virtual talk by Professor Jonathon Reinarz of Birmingham University entitled Forged by Fire: Burn Injury and Identity in Warwickshire. K&DLHG is affiliated to WLHG and our members are entitled to join their meetings, so visit the WLHS webpage, which will take you to “future events” where you can sign up via their event organiser Evenrite. The WLHS site also lists the talks being arranged via Zoom by other local societies and organisations, most of which are free.
KDLHG Committee Matters.
The committee met via Zoom on October 27th. The treasurer reported that our finances have changed little since March, and are satisfactory, with no need to review the subscription for 2021. Sales of Peter Ashley-Smith’s book were just about to break even financially before the lockdown and that remains the position. The HLF application for a grant to build the Village Hall archive room was submitted just before the Covid crisis began, and was turned down to allow all HLF funds to be directed to covid charities. We will re-submit when HLF is prepared to receive bids for our sort of project. In the meantime our store at Arc remains in use. Ruth and Brian Morgan have made a useful donation to the archive project. The poor experiences of the September and October talks was considered and ways of improving future presentations. The programme for 2021-22 was discussed and Claire Roberts tasked with following up suggestions. Catherine Petrie was thanked for undertaking to submit our programme to the various local newspapers and other outlets, in addition to providing and distributing the posters as usual, in a bid to widen our membership. The next meeting of the committee was planned for November 24th via Zoom at 7.00pm.
DF 13.11.20 Contact: David Freke email frekedj@globalnet.co.uk 07876 290044
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.
On the beat he seems to have found ways to liven up boring night shifts. One device was to play cat-and-mouse around Redditch with a fellow panda car patrol, in the course of which, on one occasion, he chased and apprehended a pair of safe crackers by accident, thinking that their car was his fellow officer’s. He felt his subsequent commendation was possibly unearned. On another occasion he drew his truncheon and bravely confronted a sinister noise coming from a narrow, darkened passage, only to discover a cat. We did learn the Correct Use of the Truncheon however.
Peter’s local history essays, edited by our President Robert Bearman, have now been printed and members and friends are invited to the launch on October 4th at 7.30 in the Village Hall.
Our first evening talk after the summer break is on Friday 20th September entitled Shadows of the Past: WWII, to be given by Paul and Terry Gaunt, cousins of our Vice-Chairman Roger Gaunt, about the exploits of Roger’s uncle, Phillip “Tubby” Gaunt, as a WWII bomber pilot. Paul Gaunt has written a book about his father’s career, from training to a crash landing in Croatia. You will have to come on Friday to hear the end of that story …..
We were looking forward to visiting this World Heritage Site, a cradle of the industrial revolution, which includes Blists Hill Victorian Town, the iconic bridge itself and other historic industrial sites in Ironbridge Gorge, and it did not disappoint. The drizzle which greeted us at Blists Hill quickly evaporated, helped by a quick coffee and visits to the Bank, the grocers, the carpenters shop, the haberdashers (under 40s won’t know what that is!) and other nostalgic delights (eg fish and chips). A highlight for some was the steam locomotive, constructed to Trevithick’s 1802 designs by GKN Sankey apprentices in 1989, puffing up and down its short track, proving its practicality decades before Stephenson’s “Rocket”.
The shire horses also demonstrated that heavy haulage was still mainly horse powered. The extent of the 18th and 19th century enterprise here was clear from the ruins of the blast furnaces at the bottom of the town, and the sundry bits of iron machinery set up on the roadside, together with pigs and chickens to show that there was a domestic dimension to all this industry.
reminded a few of us of their own school days, although we had inkwells not slates. Various craftworkers demonstrated their skills such as woodcarving, and bread making. We moved on to see the iconic bridge, surprisingly high above the Severn, and now in a settlement whose existence is entirely due to its presence.
Ice cream was needed before our third and final stop at the Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron, re-opened in 2017, full of new exhibits explaining the development of ironworking and the history of the Coalbrookdale industrial complex. It is approached through an example of the wonderful brickwork achieved by Victorian engineers and builders – one of a series of skewed brick arches supporting a railway viaduct – although it proves an awkward access for today’s coaches. The museum’s objects and displays chart the increasing sophistication of ironworking technology, which was not always matched by a correspondingly sophisticated taste.
of “campa denu” – valley with cultivated fields – which had become a village by the time of the Domesday survey. The “chipping” – market – was added by Hugh de Gondeville in 1185, who also laid out the plan of the new town with regular burgage plots running back from the wide market street, still clearly visible in the town’s plan.
that survives are the banqueting houses and stables. The later 17th century was a period of construction, as evidenced by the many date stones proudly displayed on buildings, either newly built or added to in this period. 
The town’s later decline was arrested in the early 20th century by the revival of the arts and craft traditions, specifically CR Ashbee’s decision to move the Guild of Handicraft to Campden in 1902. The silversmithing operation set up by the Guild is still run by David Hart, 
the grandson of George Hart who joined Ashbee 1901. The workshop in Sheep Street is fascinating, with the traditional tools around the walls and on benches, and bunches of old invoices hanging from the ceiling like wasps nests (also made of paper!)
Our route
Pre Chipping Campden : Cotswold Stone, Chipping Camden 1
and Woolstaplers House
All sites have disabled access except for the upper floor of the Toll House near the bridge