What’s On.

Testaments in Stone, the Story of Wiltshire’s Non-Conformist Chapels

Wednesday 19 August, 7.30 pm
£10 per screen, booking essential. All proceeds to WVCH

Wiltshire is particularly lucky in the variety and quality of its chapels, which range from tiny country meeting houses of traditional gable-ended design to large town churches with Classical facades and space for a thousand or more worshippers in their galleried interiors. This talk will tell their story, from the early years of persecution in the 17th century through gradual growth and acceptance to their ascendancy in the 19th, all illustrated by some of Wiltshire's finest chapel buildings.

A talk by James Holden.

Please contact Wiltshire Museum to reserve a place.

Valuing Ordinary Women's History

Wednesday 16 September, 7.30 pm
£10 per screen, booking essential. All proceeds to WVCH

Since much of the women's history formally taught centres on suffrage and those who broke the mould, the lives of ordinary women often get dismissed as not interesting enough. Lucy Whitfield - women's historian and professional genealogist - invites you to take a second look and find things to value in both your own background and the world that surrounded your ancestral women. This lively and interactive talk turns the subject on its head, and aims to inspire.

A talk by Lucy Whitfield.

Please contact Wiltshire Museum to reserve a place.

Science, Folklore & the Unexplained: John Aubrey’s Natural History

Wednesday 16 September, 7.30 pm
£10 per screen, booking essentWednesday 21 October, 7.30 pm
£10 per screen, booking essential. All proceeds to WVCH

John Aubrey (1626-1697) is best known as a polymathic antiquarian with a deep interest in the supernatural. Yet Aubrey was a scientist too, and often combined his curiosity for folk wisdom and the unexplained with revolutionary scientific insights. Sadly, his major work on the subject, the Natural History of Wiltshire, was not published in his lifetime, and subsequently only in truncated form. In it, Aubrey vigorously applied scientific method not only to conventional flora and fauna, but also to the phenomena of dragons, ghosts, witches, magic rings, secret tunnels, murderous clouds, and giants – a fervour that led to an African expedition to hunt for a two-legged dragon, the Wyvern. Dr Louise Ryland-Epton invites us to discover more about Aubrey’s extraordinary world in this his 400th anniversary year and in celebration of her publication of his Natural History in full for the first time.

A talk by Louise Ryland-Epton

Please contact Wiltshire Museum to reserve a place

Edward Newall Tuck – son of Bath and Chippenham – educator of Wiltshire

Wednesday 11 November, 8 pm
£10 per screen, booking essential. All proceeds to WVCH

Edward Newall Tuck, was the first Headmaster of Chippenham Secondary School. Mayor twice and a local councillor who played an important part in the development of Chippenham between his arrival here in 1893 until his death in 1949. Chris will look at his family from Bath, their move to Sheffield and Tuck’s life in Chippenham as a teacher, liberal politician, historian and much more!

An online talk by Chris Dallimore.

Please contact Wiltshire Museum to reserve a place.