Southwell: the hidden archaeology

View Calendar
14/02/2025 19:30 - 21:00
St. Mary's Church Hall
Address: Darley Lane, Derby, DE1 3AX

Speaker: Stephen Rodgers

The historic town of Southwell in Nottinghamshire is home to what some archaeologists believe to be the largest Romano-British ‘villa’ site in the East Midlands.  The development of an Anglo-Saxon church and then the Norman Minster may be linked to the religious significance of this site.  Southwell Community Archaeology Group (SCAG) have been active in trying to trace the history of Southwell and especially in uncovering the Medieval development of the town.  King Charles I spent his last night of freedom in what is now known as The Saracen’s Head, a former coaching inn with rooms containing examples of Elizabethan wall paintings. SCAG worked with professional conservators trying to understand more about these paintings.

Dr Stephen Rodgers is secretary of SCAG and this talk will explore some of the archaeology of Southwell, much of which is now hidden.

Organised by the Archaeological Research Group

Related upcoming events

  • 04/04/2025 19:30 - 05/04/2025 21:00

    Speaker: Tony Brooks (speaker on Zoom)

    In late 2023, Digventures advertised an online project using their training and admin system asking for volunteers to help by looking at one of three different National Trust landscapes using LIDAR and Google Earth to map any visible archaeology in each area in a systematic area in addition to the already recorded Historic Environment Record, the Derbyshire record system. One of the areas investigated was Kinder, looking for evidence of peat extraction. In total just over a thousand people volunteered of which 750 completed the training. Volunteers from 31 countries were supported and trained by a team of 45. The project was split into three stages: Recruitment, Training and investigation.

    DAS member Tony Brooks was one of the volunteers and he will describe the project and his experiences of participating.

  • 11/04/2025 19:30 - 11/04/2025 21:00

    Speaker: Amy Bracey

    In February 2024 an extensive archive came up for auction. Within its pages the daily workings and the lives of the workers are documented. Drawings, photographs and letters bring to life the people who worked for Holmes of Derby - a company who expanded to other towns and to the great coach making city of London. Spanning 150 years of a 500 year coach making history, the archive is of international importance. The talk will give an insight to the company history and explore the items within the archive. Amy Bracey has a degree in Art History and Heritage Management and has worked with museum collections relating to canals, archaeology and decorative arts, but her love of carriages became a career when working for the National Trust, cataloguing their carriage collection. She now works as Project Curator for The Carriage Foundation, an educational charity, and advises museums and individuals across the globe on the care, conservation, history and research of horse-drawn carriages.

  • 29/11/2025 11:00 - 29/11/2025 12:30

    Speaker: David Mercer