Follow this link for events happening this month
News
- Our first annual Postgraduate Research Conference has been rescheduled for 1 Feb 2025 at Newcastle University. Follow this link for all the details.
- Bookings for this autumn’s Medieval Palaeography course, running in conjunction with Explore Lifelong Learning, are almost full. Details of the course are on Explore’s website, along with the rest of their Season 1 programme.
- A plaque in memory of Professor Dame Rosemary Cramp will be unveiled on 4 Oct at the house in Church Street Durham, where she lived when Professor of Archaeology at Durham University, by the University’s Vice Chancellor Professor Karen O’Brien, alongside Rosemary’s friend and colleague Prof Sarah Semple. It has been funded by the City of Durham Parish Council.
- On 23-30 November, at Newcastle’s Lit and Phil and City Library, the Books on Tyne Festival is taking place. Lots of good speakers, but two of particular interest are our members Ian Jackson and David Breeze, at 2.00 and 6.00 respectively on 25 November.
- Michael Johnson’s Heritage Open Days talk, Civic Treasures: the Town Halls and Civic Centres of the North East, has been recorded and is available on the Northern Architectural History Society’s YouTube channel. It is linked to his recent book, Great Public Buildings of the North East (see below).
Books and Resources
- Great Public Buildings of the North East, Michael Johnson, (Assistant Professor of Design History, Northumbria University), Amberley Publishing, online price £14.39. Michael will be speaking at Newcastle Central Library on 14 Sept at 1.30, as part of Heritage Open Days events.
- https://unforgettableww2blackheroes.co.uk/ is a new website covering the role and activities of Black troops in the North East in World War II, little known about and largely unresearched.
- Roman Imperial Artillery. Outranging the Enemies of the Empire, Alan Wilkins, Archaeopress. £24.99; discounted to members at £19.99. By the world's leading authority on the subject, the book ranges widely over the machines and the weapons used by the Roman army, and includes a section on the earthworks at Burnswark Hill in south-west Scotland which the author argues persuasively is a training ground for the Roman army and not a group of siege works used in anger. (Thanks to David Breeze for this information).
- Think-tank the Resolution Foundation have drawn attention to this intriguing new paper ‘for the Empire enthusiasts among you’. The authors examined economic growth within Roman Britain. Accepted wisdom is that economic growth in the ancient world was basically down to agglomeration - that people and businesses began clustering together, allowing them to function more efficiently.This paper shows however that the economy in Roman Britain at times grew by roughly 0.5% per year from productivity gains alone.
- A new edition of the Bibliography of British and Irish History is now available online, with over 4,000 new entries, beginning the total to nearly 700,000. It’s a subscription service, available via university and research libraries worldwide.
Deaths
- Jenny Vaughan, stalwart of the Northumberland Archaeological Group (NAG) sadly died on 28 March.She was always heavily involved with NAG events and its Committee, and a regular digger on most of its projects. She was also a great advocate for archaeology in general, and latterly was heavily involved with research being undertaken by other local groups in Coquetdale and the Till Valley.
For biographical details of deceased members, going back to the earliest history of the Society, follow this link for the Biographical Directory.