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The CHAS lecture programme

Combined Hertfordshire Archaeological Societies (CHAS).

The CHAS lecture season for 2023-2024 has now been set.  The first lecture is on 2nd October 2023. 

Members of CHAS are:

  • The Welwyn Archaeological Society
  • The East Hertfordshire Archaeological Society
  • The North Hertfordshire Archaeological Society
  • The Norton Community Archaeology Group
  • The South-West Hertfordshire Archaeological and Historical Society
  • The Hertfordshire Association for Local History

CHAS lectures 2023

Lectures as part of the CHAS series need to be booked via Eventbrite.  They are free, but we need to set a limit to the number of tickets available in order to keep the cost of the zoom licence to a reasonable level.  If you are not a member of one of the contributing Societies, please consider giving a voluntary donation towards costs.

Community Archaeology in a Royal Park by Andrew Mayfield.

Monday January 8th 2024, 7.45pm.

Andrew Mayfield is a Community Archaeologist with the Royal Parks and he will describe the history of Greenwich Park and the current investigations being carried out under his direction.

Get your free tickets from Eventbrite.

Animals (and some humans) in the La Tène period art of Hertfordshire (c.400BC-AD100) by Rebecca Ellis-Haken

Monday February 5th 2024, 7.45pm.

Animal depictions in late Iron Age (or early ‘Celtic’) art have always been associated with strong symbolism.  Do recent finds support these ideas or is something else going on? This talk will introduce some of the weird, wonderful, and wacky artefacts from England and Wales, and focus on the discoveries of animals (and some humans) in Hertfordshire.

Reb Ellis-Haken is working as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of York; previously Finds Liaison Assistant for the South and West Yorkshire office of the Portable Antiquities Scheme.

Get your free tickets on Eventbrite.

The developing story of a Roman town – Venta Icinorum near Norwich by Mike Pinner.

Monday March 4th 2024, 7.45pm

Our lecturer, Mike Pinner, Chair of Caistor Roman Project says: “Following excavations in the town in the 1930’s then further work by Prof Will Bowden of Nottingham University from 2009-12, we developed a community archaeological group from those taking part who have done considerable work in the environs of the walled town, which has helped to develop the story of both the origins and the aftermath of town’s existence.  Our website caistorromanproject.org will help to fill in the background.”

Get your free tickets on Eventbrite.

Past talks

Sadie Watson: Stamped Roman timbers from London and elsewhere: Tracing evidence of economy and emperors

David Petts: New light on Lindisfarne

Les Capon: What we find and What we know

Stephen Wass: Garden Archaeology: the case of Bacon, Gorhambury and ‘scientific’ water gardens of the seventeenth century

Matt Pope: Neanderthal Archaeology at Lowtide: Results from the Violet bank Survey in Jersey

Jacqui Pearce: A digger’s guide to medieval pottery

John H. Reid: The Windridge Farm Roman sling bullets: small clues to large events

Charles LeQuesne: Excavations at The Grove, Watford (1999–2001)

Nathalie Cohen: Archaeology on the border: National Trust excavations at Smallhythe

Heather Falvey: The Manor of the More, Rickmansworth

Keith Fitzpatrick Matthews: King Arthur: man or myth?

Helen Gibson: Timber framed buildings of Hertfordshire and Essex.

Marion Hill, Hertfordshire and the Slave Trade.

John Duffy, LP and the archaeology of Bishop’s Stortford.

Dr Jarrod Burks, Hopewell Earthworks in Ohio, USA: Rediscovering Ancient (200 BC-AD 400) Monuments.

Katy Whitaker, The Origins of the Sarsen Megaliths at Stonehenge. 

Wendy Morrison, Beacons of the Past: our growing understanding of a Chilterns palimpsest. (Cancelled due to ill health.)

Sophie Adams, The Havering Hoard – a Late Bronze Age find baffling experts or bolstering opinions?

Professor Tom Williamson, Rendlesham in Context: topography and territory in early medieval East Anglia.

Kris Lockyear, Mapping Verulamium.

Graham Everett, Matthew Paris: a 13th century monk from St Albans Abbey.

James Wright, Buildings Archaeology: recording and analysing historic buildings.

Meredith Laing, Who were the potters of prehistory?

Angus Wainwright, Ashridge: a deep history hidden under the bracken.

Mark Hinman, Recent Excavations at Pirton, North Herts.

Hertfordshire Association for Local History

Winter lecture series.

Reconstructing the medieval church of St Mary, Rickmansworth, from wills by Heather Falvey.

Wednesday January 10th 2024, 7.45pm.

None of the medieval fabric of St Mary’s, Rickmansworth, survives. This talk examines what can be reconstructed from the evidence of will, of which some 213 survive dating from AD 1409 to 1539.

Get your free tickets from Eventbrite.