First of all, Happy New Year to readers of the CKHH blog and we hope you continue to enjoy following our activities during the coming year.

Currently, I can only give you a flavour of what is in store for 2025 because most events are in the planning stage, and even more will materialise over the next few months. Nevertheless, our flagship event, the Tudors and Stuarts 2025 History Weekend on Friday 25 April to Sunday 27 April is very much up and running and for those interested in ‘Royalty and Nobility’ there is a feast of talks over the 3 days from Dr Alison Weir speaking on Mary Tudor on the Friday evening, Professors Steven Gunn on Henry VII’s court and Anthony Musson on Henry VIII’s progresses on the Saturday to Professor Kenneth Fincham’s talk on Charles II on the Sunday.

While for those interested in drama, art and literature, there will be speakers such as Drs Astrid Stilma, Rory Loughnane and Christina Faraday on Saturday, with Dr David Hitchcock and Charlotte Cornell on Sunday. As you know socially and culturally these were turbulent times, which will be reflected in the talks to be given by Dr Rebecca Warren and Professor Clare Jackson on Saturday, and Dr Chloe Ireton on Sunday, who will investigate topics from witches to slavery. ‘Warfare and Politics’ is another strand, which means we will benefit from talks by Dr Joanne Paul and Professor Glenn Richardson on Saturday, and Professor Jackie Eales’ keynote lecture on Sunday as the Weekend’s final event. For full details please see: https://ckhh.org.uk/tudors-stuarts and, as always, the CKHH Bookshop will have a bookstall throughout the Weekend.

Plans are afoot regarding our 2 named lectures and Professor Rachel Koopmans, who will be back shortly from North America, is going to give the Becket Lecture of 2025, probably in May, and we’ll finalise the date on her return to Canterbury. As many of you will know, she is working with Leonie Seliger, who heads Canterbury Cathedral’s Glass Studio team, on their third Becket Miracle Window, and this will be the subject of her lecture. The CKHH has a special interest in this window, commonly called the ‘Kent Window’ because of our involvement from the start of this project. Moreover, the early 13^th-century glass is exquisite, not least the background blue pieces with their delicate spirals and scroll pattern.

Indeed, the Dean & Chapter is keen to give people a chance to learn more about this window and the research that is taking place. Consequently, there will be a one-day workshop on the window on Monday 31 March and, as Cressida Williams of the Cathedral Archives writes, “This study day takes advantage of the removal of one of those windows, with talks by leading experts, the unique opportunity for participants to see panels from the window up close, a display from the historic collections in the Cathedral Archives, and guided tours of the Trinity Chapel. Tickets: General admission – £60; bursaries available for students/unwaged. Spaces are limited. For further information and the full programme, see 31March25 Miracles in Glass: The Study and Conservation of Canterbury’s Stained Glass Heritage | Canterbury Cathedral and please email archives@canterbury-cathedral.org to book, or to enquire about a bursary.”

For the joint Brook Rural Museum and CKHH Annual Michael Nightingale Memorial Lecture, which in 2025 will take place on Tuesday 23rd September, it is brilliant to be able to announce that it will be given by Victoria Stevens, an alumna of Canterbury Christ Church, a recipient of a grant from the Ian Coulson Memorial Postgraduate Award and a member of the Kent History Postgraduates. Victoria is head of conservation at West Dean College near Chichester, as well as having worked in heritage, including for a rural museum. In her lecture she will give us insights into this expanding field involving conservation where material culture and usage come together in practical terms, as well as thinking theoretically for both practitioners and audiences. I appreciate that this seems a long way off, but please do save the date and we shall look forward to welcoming you to CCCU.

While we are on the subject of lectures, I thought I would just mention that I’ll be giving the Canterbury branch of the Historical Association’s Annual Lyle Lecture on Thursday 6 February in the Clagett Auditorium of Canterbury Cathedral. Bearing in mind Lawrence Lyle worked on and was a great advocate of Canterbury’s and the wider county’s history, as well as the topical interest in migration, I shall be speaking on Canterbury and Kent as a gateway city and county in the 15^th century when it was economic and social rather than religious issues that brought people from the continental mainland. If this sounds interesting, it will be great to see you there.

Then as part of the Magna Carta Anniversary event at Faversham, I’ll be speaking in the town on ‘Medieval Faversham’ on Saturday 14 June at 2pm. This is not the only occasion members of the Centre will be giving public lectures, and I understand Kieron Hoyle will be speaking again at Dover, Furthermore, she and Dr Claire Bartram will be giving papers at the Society of Renaissance Studies conference at the University of Bristol in July. Nor is she the only Kent History Postgraduate who will be giving such a conference presentation in 2025. This is not an exhaustive list but does include Dr Dean Irwin, Lizzie Burton, Jason Mazzocchi and Abi Kingsnorth, and I’m sure the list will lengthen over the year.

Other dates for the diary include the Gender and Medieval Studies conference, which is an itinerant conference, in 2024 at the University of Lincoln, last at CCCU in 2017 with the resulting book two years later. This year in Canterbury it will start on Wednesday 2 July and conclude on Saturday 5 July, the day of the Medieval Pageant, so conference goers may want to stay on to see what has grown into a big medieval parade and associated workshops at many of Canterbury’s historic buildings. Readers of the blog may remember that the CKHH has run family-friendly activities at St Paul’s church in the last few years, while before that we were at the Greyfriars garden and before that the grounds of the castle keep.

Returning to the conference, the theme for Canterbury will be ‘Charity and Care’ and the call for papers has just been launched and a copy of this will be on the CKHH website very shortly. Suffice to say here, as organisers we welcome multidisciplinary proposals from across medieval studies and potential topics range from ‘religious devotion and almsgiving’, ‘gift-giving and donations in texts, documents, material culture, drama and depictions’, ‘charitable locations, whether institutions or care in the community’, ‘charity in urban and rural domestic and other settings’, and ‘charity and care for bodies, feelings and nature’. Having worked in this field for many years, I shall be extremely interested to see the range of proposals for papers that I hope this will generate.

As some of our readers may remember, last year the Kent Maritime Communities project members held a study day in March at the Community Cinema in Dover Museum, involving those from the CKHH at CCCU and our partners, Drs Craig Lambert and Robert Blackmore from the University of Southampton. The project has moved on at pace since then and the manuscript of the book from the project has this week gone off to Boydell. All being well, this will lead to a book launch in Canterbury in the autumn but before that on Saturday 10 May the project’s website will be launched at Dover Museum. This is extremely exciting, so please do save the date too and more details about the event will be available shortly.

Although not as far down the line as the Kent Maritime Communities book, we are heavily involved in 2 other publications which hopefully will be out by the end of the year. These are my contribution to the Gough Map project, which again will be marked by a book launch perhaps in Oxford the home of the Gough Map, and Dr Diane Heath’s Skin and Bone, Wood and Stone edited collection from her ‘Medieval Animals Heritage’ project conference that will include chapters on ‘gigantic black dogs’ and ‘bagpipe-playing pigs’ – what more could anyone ask for!

As over the last few years, the CKHH has been part of the Medway History Showcase, which Peter and Jane Joyce have been heavily involved in organising, and it is the intention in 2025 to revitalise the companion event in east Kent, probably at Dover. This is only one of a number of knowledge exchange initiatives involving the Centre and among the organisations we are working with in Canterbury are St Thomas’/Eastbridge Hospital, St Dunstan’s church, Canterbury Cathedral, and the Heritage lead on the City Council, as well as others in Maidstone, Dover, Sandwich, Tenterden and Rochester.

Consequently, I hope that you can see we are continuing to keep up the momentum in terms of exploring the county’s history and bringing these results to as wide an audience as we can. Furthermore, such activities provide opportunities for students, from 1^st year undergraduate to doctoral level to take part, meet experts, gain experience and enhance their skills in history and heritage within a friendly and supportive environment.