Strutts Centre

Library open upstairs on the 1st floor.

Speaker: Jennifer Browning

A new Roman villa was discovered during lockdown in Rutland in 2020, prompting a series of archaeological investigations, carried out primarily by the University of Leicester and Historic England. This extraordinary site is famous for the widely publicised figured mosaic, which depicts scenes from the mythical Trojan War. Having completed fieldwork in September 2022, work on the finds from the site is now underway. This talk will place the mosaic in its context within the villa estate, based on the evidence to date. It will also discuss the artwork of the mosaic and its significance.  Jennifer is a Project Officer with the University of Leicester Archaeological Services. She directed the University of Leicester excavations at the Rutland villa site and also co-directed the Historic England excavations.

Library open upstairs on the 1st floor.

Speaker: James Clark

Professor Clark has been working with the National Trust and their team at Hardwick Hall, on the ex-monastic, mediaeval vestments (more than 100 pieces) collected by Bess of Hardwick, some of which almost certainly originated at religious houses in the county which attracted the patronage of the Talbots. Some of what has been found in this work will feature in the talk together with other aspects of Derbyshire’s dissolution story.

Professor Clark is the Director of the Societies and Cultures Institute at the University of Exeter and his historical interests are focused on the period between the Black Death and the Break with Rome, exploring religion, learning and book culture in England. He is a regular contributor to TV, Radio, News Media and online coverage of medieval, Reformation and early Renaissance themes. He has been an historical consultant for TV documentaries such as Tudor Monastery Farm for BBC TV, for film dramas and has contributed to a two-part documentary on Thomas Cromwell and the Henrician Reformation presented by Tracy Borman for Channel 5.

His book The Dissolution of the Monasteries – a New History was published in 2022 and his publisher Yale University Press will offer paperback copies at a 20% discount at the time of the lecture.

Speaker: John Arguile

Derby was never a major force in brewing, its claim to fame was rather as a centre of malting and latterly the last stronghold of publican brewers in the UK. The book on which the talk is based grew out of a study of the Big Six brewers that once dominated UK brewing, currently being serialised by the Brewery History Society.  The talk will deal with the rise and decline of the first common (wholesale) brewers namely Alton & Co; Stretton Brothers and Offiler’s Ltd; the smaller brewers they absorbed; the many publican (home brew pubs) brewers and lastly with their modern counterparts, spawned largely by Gordon Brown’s progressive beer tax regime. John Arguile was a founder member of what became the National Brewery Heritage Trust and has been a contributor to the Brewery History Society since 1986.

Organised by the Industrial Archaeology Section

Speaker: David Mercer