On Wednesday the 9th November, we have the next in our regular talk series: Pyronaut and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Pageant. This depiction of the historic boats in Bristol Harbour will be given by Clive Brain of the M Shed, Bristol.
The talk will be in Combe Down Primary School hall as usual, whose entrance is on Summer Lane, BA2 5JX. The talk starts at 7.30pm; doors open at 7pm. CDHS Members £1, Visitors £3. All tickets on the door.
On Saturday 4 June, Firs Field will be transformed for Combe Down’s celebration of Her Majesty’s 70 years on the British throne. Your heritage society will be there too! come rain or shine. Please drop in and visit us under the shelter of the green gazebo (you can’t miss it!).
There will be a fascinating display of photographs from Combe Down’s past, and an opportunity to enter our new Cookery Competition!
All talks are held at the Combe Down Primary School Hall in Summer Lane, BA2 5JX. Events start at 7.30pm. CDHS Members £1, Visitors £3. All tickets on the door.
Month
Date
Speaker
Topic
April
6th
Courtney Fleming (chair)
Panel Discussionto mark World Heritage 50th Anniversary, with Prof Barry Gilbertson, Sarah, Simmonds and Paul Simmons
May
11th
CDHS Annual General Meeting (to immediately precede the talk)
Monday 8 November saw a webinar on local wartime history. This fascinating evening brought two stories of how America’s racial relations and civil rights movement came to the West Country during the Second World War. Although not organised by CDHS, we are sure that these talks will be of interest to our members.
To begin, Professor Mary Louise Roberts from the University of Wisconsin, USA, related the amazing story of Leroy Henry, an African-American soldier who was saved from a hanging after an incident in Combe Down.
This was followed by Kate Werran, who talked about the dramatic ‘wild west’ shoot-out that took place in Launceston, Cornwall between black American GIs and military police.
Thanks to Tanya Parker of the South West TUC, we can now post the recording of these two talks on our website.
More details of the Leroy Henry case can be found on the website of Robert Walsh, a freelance writer based in Cornwall.
On May 6th this year, Dick Irving gave a talk via Zoom to the Chepstow Archaeological Society: “A Brief History of the Stone Mines and Quarries at Combe Down, near Bath”. Thanks to Colin Harris, the Chairman of that society, and to Miranda Litchfield, Chief Executive of our sister organisation the Museum of Bath Stone, we can now make this available here on our own website.
The talk proper begins at 1:50 and lasts until 59:00, after which there are questions.
All talks are held at the Combe Down Primary School Hall in Summer Lane, BA2 5JX. Events start at 7.30pm. CDHS Members £1, Visitors £3. All tickets on the door.
In the hope and expectation that public meetings in some form or other will be possible in the Autumn, four talks have been scheduled as follows.
Month
Date
Speaker
Topic
September
8th
Dr. Richard Irving
History of Combe Down mines
October
13th
Dr. Roger Ransome
Horseshoe bat population of the Combe Down mines
November
10th
Dr. Roger Rolls
History of infectious diseases in Bath
December
8th
Michael Howard-Kyan
Riding Africa
PLEASE WATCH FOR ANY CHANGES DUE TO COVID PANDEMIC
This year’s Annual General Meeting was held successfully online for the first time, using Zoom. It took place at 7.30 p.m. on Friday 16 April.
It was attended by (at least) 23 people, although many kept their video feeds turned off (at our request) so the actual total number of members present may have been larger.
All talks are held at the Combe Down Primary School Hall in Summer Lane, BA2 5JX. Events start at 7.30pm.
CDHS Members £1, Visitors £3. All tickets on the door.
PLEASE WATCH FOR ANY CHANGES DUE TO COVID PANDEMIC
All talks are cancelled until further notice
Annual General Meeting 2020
The rescheduled date for our AGM was to have been 22nd May 2020 but in view of the continuing uncertainty about when public gatherings of any sort will be possible the Committee has taken the decision to postpone until life returns to normal. Obviously we all hope this will be as soon as possible.
We will be contacting our members again shortly with copies of the annual accounts and the Chair’s report for last year so that we can answer any questions you may have before the year under review becomes too distant.
Meanwhile do let me know if you have any thoughts on what we could or should be doing before normal service resumes.
A new book on education in Combe Down by Jill Woodhead has recently been published by the Combe Down Heritage Society. “A Village of Schools” looks at the many schools, and the workhouse, that have come and gone on Combe Down between 1727 and 2000.
Reviewed by local historian Andrew Swift, he praised the work and suggested it would be of immense help to future writers on the history of Combe Down.
Available now from the Museum of Bath Stone, 55 Combe Road, Combe Down; many local bookshops; or online at the CDHS eShop : Price £6