Having been away working for much of the week, I missed the Faculty’s Research Day on Wednesday and Dr Heidi Stoner’s presentation on Thursday about her new joint project with Dr Rob Gallagher (University of Kent) on ‘Finding Vikings’ which she did as part of the Festival of Archaeology at Canterbury Cathedral. Heidi said she might write a short report for the blog, so I’ll add that in when it arrives, and Peter Joyce has kindly provided a summary of his and Dr Claire Bartram’s presentations on Wednesday.

On Wednesday 24^th of July Dr Claire Bartram co-director of the Centre and Pete Joyce PhD candidate both gave papers at the FAHE Research Day. Pete’s paper was an extension of his work on the quarter sessions accounts from Kent. By using these accounts Pete has built a data base of ‘bastardy cases’ in Kent between 1600-1700. The paper then explored the ways that the data set allows interrogation of other areas of Kentish history including hiring fairs, poor provision and servitude. By using his data set Peter argued the importance of the quarter sessions as a source for the Kentish historian and the lively conversation with colleagues that followed will defiantly be helpful to him as his work with the quarter sessions progresses. 

Claire’s paper was on ‘Performing consensus: Marginalising privileged voices in late Tudor Dover‘. In this paper Claire explored the voices and conversations around the battle to keep Dover as a usable port in the late Tudor period. Her paper concentrated especially on the wrings of John Tooke and his very interesting use of dialogue in defence of the works being carried out. Claire drew attention to Tooke’s use of written dialogue between himself and Lieutenant of Dover Castle in which Tooke develops a reasoned argument in which he answers in the first person the questions that he imagines the Lord Lieutenant would have posed about the important development of Dover. Again, the paper was followed by a lively conversation with many points raised.

It was an interesting morning, offering a wide mix of papers reflecting the vast range of work that people across FAHE are undertaking. If was followed by a prize giving and luncheon which again proved to be a buzz with further conversation and questions reflecting the interest and engagement with the morning’s papers.

The CKHH blog will now be taking a short break, consequently I thought it would be helpful to note forthcoming events involving people from the Centre. Firstly, Dr John Bulaitis will be giving a live Zoom lecture on Tuesday 6 August at 10am (recording available at 8pm) on ‘Resistance and Revolt in Kent: Kentish Tithe Wars, 1880s to 1930s’. This lecture to a global audience for the Kent Family History Society, marks the publication of his new book with Boydell entitled The Tithe War in England and Wales, 1881–1936. For detail of the zoom talk, see: https://www.kfhs.org.uk/event-society-virtual-resistance-and-revolt-in-kent-2024-08-06

Furthermore, John has just told me that he has been interviewed on BBC Radio Cornwall about his new book. Please listen here: Radio Cornwall – Listen Live – BBC Sounds and a blog has been published about the book: The Battle of the Ducks and the Tithe War of the 1930s (boydellandbrewer.com)

Next, if there is anyone from Deal or nearby who would be interested to hear about the medieval fishing communities on east Kent, in particular, I’m speaking at the Deal & District branch meeting of the Kent Family History Society on Tuesday 13 August at 7.30pm at The Landmark Centre, High Street in Deal on ‘Strategies of inheritance among fishing communities in later medieval Kent’. For details, see: https://www.kfhs.org.uk/event-deal-strategies-of-inheritance-among-fishing-communities-in-later-medieval-kent-2024-08-13-b

Then the CKHH is off to ‘Open Faversham’, which some readers may remember Jason Mazzocchi and I took part in last year with Professor Catherine Richardson and Dr Rory Loughnane. This year we have expanded the Centre’s involvement which means on Saturday 17 August I’ll be at St Mary of Charity parish church as part of the team giving short talks during the day on different aspects of the church, and I’ll be focusing on the fabulous ‘painted pillar’: https://openfaversham.info/events/?event=760

For those who would like some more on medieval Faversham and its townspeople, I’m giving a talk the same day at 5.30pm in the Guildhall exploring different aspects of life for those who lived in the town during the 15^th and early 16^th centuries. If of interest, please see: https://openfaversham.info/events/?event=1018 And finally on Monday 19 August I’ll be amongst those highlighting the richness and diversity of Faversham records and archive at 7.30pm in the Guildhall: https://openfaversham.info/events/?event=1021

September will be busy too but more on that when there’ll be a short mid-August CKHH blog, please watch out for that. So finally for those interested, my address at the Thomas More Commemoration Service is now up on the St Dunstan’s church website at: https://www.dunstanmildredpeter.org.uk/stthomasmore.htm which just leaves me to say, I hope all the CKHH blog readers have an enjoyable summer.