EXETER LOCAL HISTORY SOCIETY

WELCOME 

Exeter Local History Society members are hooked on history.  If you share our fascination, why not join us?  We have six lecture meetings a year (details below).  These alternate with six guided walks, plus we occasionally have long distance outings, and we cover an incredibly diverse range of subjects from Roman remains to post-WW2 redevelopment.

However, the pandemic means that we cannot arrange guided walks just at present and our talks are transmitted via Zoom. 

When life is back to normal, our regular bi-monthly meetings at Jurys Inn are usually held on the second Wednesday of the month in February, April, June, August, October and December. Our walks/visits are also bi-monthly, usually on the second Wednesday of January, March, May, July, September and November. Full details of future walks and talks are given below.

The charge for each meeting is normally £3 (free to members) and the annual membership fee is £12 (£16 for joint membership). If you sample a meeting and decide to join, the £3 cost will be deducted from your first annual fee.  Walks and visits normally cost £3 p.p. for members and visitors alike.

We also produce six newsletters a year - how about we email you the most recent as a free taster?  To request a copy just email us at:

ExeterLocalHistory@gmail.com  

And do check out this website  and see for yourself the great selection of subjects with which we entertain our members.  Just click on "Recent Events" or "Visits & Walks" on the banner at the top of this page to explore our programme history!  Click on "How To Join Us" for an application form.

We hope we will see you soon at one of our many events which we are planning for 2021.  Our talks are held at Jurys and for anyone concerned about infection we have been  assured that, as far as ventilation and maintaining social distancing are concerned, all directives are followed.

Jury's airconditioning provides clean outside air at regular intervals and the numbers permitted in the room (which normally takes 60) are reduced to 25.  We therefore recommend that if any member wishes to attend any event it is booked well in advance with Eventbrite. There is no charge for members to attend any of these gatherings but we regret that, due to lack of space, there are no spaces available for non-members.

EXE BRIDGE AND ITS SETTING

At this event, the wonderful John Allan will be talking to us about the Exe Bridge, the most substantial survivor of the great bridges built in England in the 12th and early 13th centuries. These were novel and daring feats of engineering built over wide spans of fast-flowing water; nothing like them had been seen in Britain since Roman times, and even then stone bridges were rare.

The bridge originally was about 240m long  with 17 or 18 arches.The surviving monument is about 80m and consists of nine arches.  The portion which extended over the floodplain of the Exe was replaced in 1776–8 and in 1905, and then by concrete bridges in 1969 and 1972.

It had, uniquely, three medieval chapels (St Edmund’s, St Thomas’ and St Mary’s) and also three almshouses and a ‘Pixy House’ (public lavatory) on the bridge.  By the late 13th century several houses stood on the bridge and by the 17th and 18th centuries there were more than 30 – one of the most picturesque sights of Georgian Exeter, captured by artists including Turner.

The costs of maintaining the bridge were paid from the rents of more than 70 properties:  Cricklepit Mill, houses on and around Exe Bridge and properties within Exeter’s walls and in the suburbs.

King George III, An Underrated King.

Talk by Professor Jeremy Black on

Thursday, 12 August 2021

Professor Jeremy Black says of George III (who visited Exeter in 1789)  “Madness is hilarious when it occurs two centuries ago. The character of King George III — bewigged and bonkers — provides comic relief for many.”  Poor George has not figured highly in British minds. His reign from 1760 to 1820 was marred by that American debacle, trouble in Ireland, war with France, the Gordon Riots, discord in parliament and an embarrassing descent into lunacy.

Professor Black has been teaching a wide range of courses at Exeter University since 1996. He has been the key lecturer for the First Year World History courses, World History-1750, and World History from 1750. He claims to have been adroit at subverting the nonsense topics of political correctness! He also did a Second-Third year course on Newspaper History, and the War MA and dissertations.  Although he found global history a tonic, he missed the national perspective.  This drove him to try to cover that in print.  He has written over ninety books all of which are available from most booksellers (Waterstones, Amazon etc).

Jeremy says he greatly enjoyed the teaching and developed a lecturing style of speaking without notes offering contrasting interpretations which he sought to drum home in lectures, seminars and tutorials. Extensive past debating experience at school and university, always extempore, helped greatly.  The event is free to members and the booking link is: 

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/king-george-iii-an-underrated-king-tickets-159808979961

There is a small charge for non-members (£3) and the booking link is:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/king-george-iii-an-underrated-king-tickets-159953811155

Charles Dickens’ devon Christmas present :

Originally scheduled forThursday, 15 October 2020 but postponed, due to Covid, until Thursday, 9 September 2021.

John Fisher, writer, author, script and sketch-writer, cartoonist, public speaker. National Trust Volunteer and would-be ukelele virtuoso, now re-visits Christmas hereabouts in Exeter and in particular Charles Dickens’s immortal “A Christmas Carol”.

Winter or summer, at home or abroad, Dickens always wore a button-hole of holly when he gave a public reading of A Christmas Carol.  He first picked his holly sprig during an after supper stroll through Rougemont Gardens on a warm August evening in Exeter in 1858.

It is essential to book for this popular event as places are limited.  It is, of course, free to members and we hope to have a confirmed date for this event shortly when booking will be possible through this page.

HISTORY EVENTS FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE YEAR - AND NEXT!

Tuesday, 21 September 2021

Boat trip there and back to the Double Locks for lunch and display of pictures giving the history of the pub

Thursday, 14 OCtober 2021

Walk around St Pancras Parish with John Allan who will describe who lived where in the Middle Ages and what they did for a living - and other things they did!

Originally scheduled forThursday, 10 December 2020 but postponed, due to Covid, until 2021.

Talk at Jurys Inn Exeter by Richard Holladay, on Elands Books.   (NOTE: To avoid Late Night Christmas shopping crowds, the day/date might be changed)