Susan Howe – “Animals in the lives of their famous owners.” While in Athens in 1850, Florence Nightingale saw some boys playing with a ball of fluff, which turned out to be a baby owl. She rescued the owlet, named Athena, and hand-reared her, carrying her around in […]

Join us for a fascinating talk: a tour of the Wren Churches in the City given by Lance Whitehouse, Clerk to the Worshipful Company of Bakers. After the Great Fire of London in 1666, Christopher Wren was instructed to design and rebuild 51 churches in the city. He […]

Join us for a TADS talk by Matthew Feldwick Twyford Waterworks is an Edwardian pumping station containing a unique selection of buildings and machinery within a rural downland setting in the heart of Hampshire. The site was given the status of a Scheduled Ancient Monument in 1973 and […]

Over and Under – Railway Bridges and Tunnels on postcards By John Holland (Associate of the Willis Museum)   One of the reasons we reverted to this talk being done on Zoom, was that John was recently home from a hospital operation and grateful to give the talk […]

Join us for a lively and concise history of Royal Mail and the Post Office  from the beginning to the present day given by John Rogers. In 1840 Uniform Penny Post was launched marking a revolution in the way the postal system could be used. Rowland Hill’s postal […]

James Aitken, oft times known as John The Painter: the First Modern Terrorist. By Alan Turton. Hurrah! Our first live talk for many a long month. In the good old days of yesteryear we tend to think of baddies as highwaymen, footpads or pirates. To have our own […]

The History of Houses by Trevor Ottlewski Trevor is Chairman of the Wokingham History Group and has a special interest in the area’s historic buildings. He gave a chronological review of houses from pre-Roman to the present, with very good illustrations from real buildings. His first point was […]

The Pursuit and Sinking of the Bismarck By David Bickerton David related the tale of the sinking of German battleship Bismarck which was a dramatic episode of World War II. His great interest is because his father was serving on one of the Royal Navy ships. The end […]

On Christmas morning 1903 , about five minutes to eleven, just before the divine service, a churchwarden at Silchester Church, found to his cost, that Church bells can pose an unexpected threat to life. The Hants. and Berks. Gazette described the incident as follows; A serious accident occurred […]

A Talk by Mark Bowman Why 1752? Well that was the year that Britain changed its calendar system and famously lost eleven days. The title of the talk is a play on ‘1066 and all that’ the hilarious book from the 1930s by Sellars and Yeatman which treats […]

The Great Sandhurst to Sandhurst Walk, via Sandhurst by Graham Harding (assisted by Helen) Graham and Helen moved to Sandhurst, Berkshire in 2004. Through misdirected post they rapidly found out there are two other Sandhursts in southern England and so was born the project to walk from the […]

Called “An Historical Tour around the University’s London Road Campus”, the link to view the video is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG1dG67960c  During 2019, as part of its outreach programme, ‘The Friends of the University of Reading’ ran guided historical tours of the University’s London Road and Whiteknights campuses. Because of COVID, […]

Tadley has its fair share of local folklore, including the “Tadley Treacle Mine” and the “Tadley God Help Us” episode. The story of the “Tadley Toad” is not primarily about a Toad but a sad tale of a particular person living in “Poor Tadley” in the late 18th […]

Settlements on the Burghclere and Kingsclere downs, beside east-west trade route, the Ridgeway. Local area is the centre of wool industry. Tumuli found at Wootton, and on south side of Wasing Wood.   Bronze and Iron Age Important trade and communications centre at Silchester, with pagan temple and […]

Union Street, also known locally as Smelly Alley, is a pedestrian alley in the centre of the English town of Reading. It is lined with small shops and other retail outlets, and connects Broad Street and Friar Street. The name Smelly Alley came about in the 1940s, as […]