Lectures & Speakers 2026 – 2027
Our lecture season runs from October to April, with lectures being held in the Anna McDowell Garden Room at Gold Hill Museum on the first Tuesday afternoon of each month. The exception is the Teulon Porter Memorial Lecture, which starts the season and is held in the evening at Shaftesbury Town Hall. Noel Teulon Porter was a notable Cambridge archaeologist and instrumental in founding The Shaftesbury & District Historical Society in 1946.
The 2026 Teulon Porter Lecturer will be Dr. Martin Papworth, who will reflect on a distinguished 38-year career as National Trust archaeologist in Wessex, with particular focus on discoveries at Dorset sites such as Kingston Lacy, Corfe Castle, the Dorset hill forts, and Cerne Giant. (Further details at the foot of this page.)
Lectures are free to members, while visitors may pay £5 at the door. (£7 for the Teulon Porter). Seats for non-members at afternoon lectures are normally available from 2.20p.m.
Proposals for lectures to the Society on suitable historical subjects are welcome, and may be made via lectures@goldhillmuseum.org.uk
| Date / Time | Topic | Speaker | More |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thursday, 06 August 2026 – 6.30pm – The Garden Room, Gold Hill Museum * Please note the evening timing | Lesser-Known Victorian & Edwardian Photographers of the Shaftesbury area | Claire Ryley and Ann Symons | S&DHS members Claire and Ann present by popular request a repeat evening showing of their latest investigations into the work of early Shaftesbury photographers. They welcome insights from their appreciative local audiences. |
| Tuesday, 03 November 2026 – 2.30p.m. – The Garden Room, Gold Hill Museum | Walter Bagehot: His Life & Legacy After Two Hundred Years | Janet Seaton and Barry Winetrobe | Langport’s most famous son, Walter Bagehot, was born in February 1826. Janet Seaton & Barry Winetrobe return to update us on fresh material found during their research for a new book on Bagehot |
| Tuesday, 01 December 2026 – 2.30p.m. – The Garden Room, Gold Hill Museum | The High House Press, 1924-36 | Claire Ryley and Ann Symons | Claire & Ann tell the story of Shaftesbury’s artisan publishers, who hand-printed 42 limited editions, now highly sought after, of classical texts, poetry & prose, on handmade paper with woodcut illustrations |
| Tuesday, 05 January 2027 – 2.30p.m. – The Garden Room, Gold Hill Museum | Clergy & Criminal Violence in Later Mediaeval England & Wales | Professor Peter Clarke of the University of Southampton | Mediaevalist Peter Clarke makes a welcome return to the S&DHS to talk (at a third different venue) on the subject of his most recent research and publications |
| Tuesday, 02 February 2027 – 2.30p.m. – The Garden Room, Gold Hill Museum | Jutland 1916: the Mightiest Sea Battle | Dr Rodney Atwood | S&DHS member and published military historian Dr Rodney Atwood turns his expert gaze onto the Royal Navy and a crucial WWI sea battle where his great-uncle served on the destroyer ‘Magic’ |
| Tuesday, 02 March 2027 – 2.30p.m. – The Garden Room, Gold Hill Museum | ‘A Ship, a Gate and A Country Estate.’ | Steve Richardson | Historian and geographer Steve Richardson takes “a wander through some of Dorset’s imperial connections”, including a Bridport-built ship, the Opium Wars, and a set of gates at Dewlish looted from the Summer Palace in Beijing |
| Tuesday, 06 April 2027 – 2.30p.m. – The Garden Room, Gold Hill Museum | Plain Tales from the Records of the East India Company | Hedley Sutton | The East India Company and India Office collection at the British Library forms one of the largest archives in the U.K. Hedley Sutton draws on over 40 years’ BL experience to concentrate on four quirky true stories found within it |
| Talk postponed / New date to be confirmed – 2.30p.m. – The Garden Room, Gold Hill Museum | Between Two Rivers: Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History | Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid, Wolfson College, Oxford Writer and broadcaster | Moudhy is an Assyriologist, specialising in the cuneiform languages of the early civilisations between the Tigris and the Euphrates. Her much-lauded 2025 book (of the same title) takes as its starting point the 1920s discovery at Ur by our first President, Sir Leonard Woolley, of what he believed was an exhibit label from a museum of already ancient objects. |
