Planned Events

Meetings Programme 2024-25

Meetings will start at 8pm. The talks and AGM will be in Chesham Town Hall only, with the exception of those in January and February, which will be on-line only. Non-members are welcome to attend.

For online talks, members and non-members who book with Ticketsource (see below) will receive joining instructions by email shortly before the event. All meetings, INCLUDING THOSE ONLINE, will cost £2 for members and £4 for non-members. Free tea, coffee and biscuits will be provided at the Town Hall meetings.

The entry fee will be payable on the door (cash or card) for Town Hall meetings and via an online booking system for the January and February meetings www.ticketsource.co.uk/cvahs

Friday, 18th October 2024

The Long Roman Glass Industry    Professor Ian Freestone

Roman glass was made from a mixture of eastern Mediterranean sand and natron, a naturally occurring type of soda, from Egypt. The long Roman glass industry can be considered to have begun at the time of the invention of glass blowing in the 1st century B.C. and continued up to the demise of the natron recipe in the 9th century A.D. However, Roman glass continued to provide raw materials for some examples of glass working and enamelling up to the 12th century.

Ian is Emeritus Professor of Archaeological Materials and Technologies at UCL Institute of Archaeology, where he previously taught a masters-level course on archaeological glass and continues to supervise a group of PhD students. He has published widely on glass, ceramics and metallurgy of all periods up to the19th century and is a recipient of the Archaeological Institute of America's Pomerance Medal for scientific contributions to archaeology. He is currently President of the British Association for the History of Glass, and an Honorary Visiting Researcher at the British Museum.

Cursus Monuments of Buckinghamshire and the Great Ouse Valley    Dr David Saunders

Around 6000 years ago climate change allows Neolithic pastoralists to bring domesticated cattle to Britain. Yet within a few hundred years climatic conditions again become less favourable as solar intensity drops producing colder and stormier winters. To sustain the size of their herds, Neolithic communities start to construct cursus monuments to block vital sections of the landscape preventing other forms of wildlife, especially the wild aurochs, from grazing these areas.

It is now recognised that David presents a fascinating, provocative, and innovative response to the unanswered cursus question, presenting a theory for our time in which he links his early rural memories of growing up next to floodplains and spring meadows to the placement of cursus monuments.

Having obtained his PhD in Archaeology at the University of Buckingham, David uses the county’s recently discovered cursus monuments to highlight how, by creating parallel ditches to restrict access to the spring meadow grasslands, Neolithic farmers effectively become Britain’s first climate activists.

After the lecture there will be an opportunity to buy signed copies of David’s book ‘Cursus Monuments of Buckinghamshire and the Great Ouse Valley’.

Friday, 17th January 2025  (Zoom Talk)

The Excavations in the Grounds of Hanwell Castle    Dr Stephen Wass, Polyolbion Archaeology

Dr Stephen Wass is a professional archaeologist who specialises in historic gardens and works mainly for the National Trust at sites such as Stowe Landscape Gardens, The Vyne and Baddesley Clinton. He has recently completed a programme of doctoral research with the University of Oxford into the remarkable gardens at Hanwell Castle north of Banbury. His thesis, recently published as 'Seventeenth-Century Water Gardens and the Birth of Modern Scientific Thought in Oxford', has yet to make the best seller list.

Friday, 21st February 2025  (Zoom Talk)

 A Roman 'Palace' at Verulamium and Other Stories    Kris Lockyear

Kris became interested in archaeology as a result of the school visit to Verulamium when he was ten.  He joined the Welwyn Archaeological Society later that year and became WAS's Director in 2009.  After taking degrees at Durham, Southampton and University College London, he joined the staff at UCL in 1996.  In 2013 he founded the Community Archaeology Geophysics Group who have gone on to survey over 60 sites.  The group's largest survey is that at Verulamium which has revealed a wealth of new information about the Roman City.

Friday, 21st March 2025  

The Church in the Valley: Flaunden Old Church     Dr Tim Leary

In medieval times, the village of Flaunden was down in the Chess Valley, next to the river. Nothing remains of the village itself, although outlines can be seen in certain lights; but enough survives of the church to make out the basic plan. The church dates to about 1235, when Thomas de Flaunden built a chapel-of-ease for the ‘Conveniency of his Tenants’ – who would otherwise have had to attend services in Hemel Hempstead. It continued to serve the Flaunden villagers as the village moved to its present site, until the construction in 1838 of the current church building.

In his talk, Tim traces the history of the church, he discusses the possible reasons for its abandonment, and he talks about the artefacts and materials from the Old Church which were incorporated in the New, and can still be seen.

After the lecture there will be an opportunity to buy copies of Tim’s books on both St Mary Magdalene, Latimer and Flaunden Old Church. The proceeds of any sales all go to support the churches in Latimer and Flaunden. 

Friday, 11th April 2025

AGM, and President's Talk by Dr Wendy Morrison FSA:

Digging for Gold(ingtons) - Investigations Along the River Chess at Sarratt

Dr Wendy Morrison is currently Heritage & Archaeology Manager for the Chilterns National Landscape. She also is Senior Associate Tutor for Archaeology at the Oxford University Dept for Continuing Education. Wendy’s research areas are Prehistoric European Archaeology and Landscape Archaeology. She has nearly two decades’ excavation experience in Southern Britain, the Channel Islands, and India and is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

In 2024, funded by Thames Water’s Smarter Water Catchment initiative in the Chess Valley, the Chilterns Heritage and Archaeology Partnership (CHAP) undertook investigation of the lynchets at Sarratt, below Goldingtons. This talk will outline what drove the project, what was discovered in the first year of fieldwork, and what the future holds.

 

Archaeology Field Group Programme 2025

Digs will be announced to members as and when they are arranged. Participants in all digs must be CVAHS members. If you are interested, but not yet a member, please contact CVAHS via this web site to confirm details of how to participate.

On our digs, we welcome people with experience and also novices - training in survey, excavation and recording techniques is given. For those who find digging difficult, there is valuable work to do on post-excavation cleaning, analysis and recording of finds.