Two walks around Hodgemoor Woods
Led by Nigel and Janet Rothwell
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‘My daring pen, will bolder sallies make, and like my self, an uncheck’d freedom take.’
The writer of those words did her best to live up to them. She published a long feminist poem at the age of seventeen in defiance of her father ‒ who then exiled her from her London home. Her life story reveals a woman struggling against the constraints imposed by family, gender and economic position, making bold stabs at independence and forced to settle for ultimately unsatisfactory compromises.
Sarah lived most of her life in Buckinghamshire at Shenley, Adstock and finally Winslow. Her poetry, rediscoved in the 1970s, brings together her personal experience with rallying cries to women. In this book David Noy combines the autobiographical nature of Sarah’s poetry with historical research to tell her life story.
Your can purchase a copy Here
Saturday May 9th BAS AGM
(after the AGM): Publication of the BAS Deeds Catalogue
Speaker: Chris Low
The BAS AGM will start at 14:00 with the Lecture to follow at circa 14:35. The AGM and Lecture will be one Zoom session. The head count for the AGM will be taken at 14:00.
Please come to the Discover Bucks Museum or Register now for the online lecture Here (We will email the Zoom meeting invitation to you).
Thursday 14th May (on Zoom) 19:15 for 19:30
The role of the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS)
Speaker: Arwen Wood (PAS officer for Bucks)
A review of the role of PAS, its regional operation, links with the British Museum and articles presented from Buckinghamshire during the recent past.
Register for this Zoom meeting Here .
The societies latest newsletter is available online
(and can be downloaded) Here
Saturday April 11th, 14:00: From Lands to Laundry: Women in the life of Notley Abbey
Speaker: Will Strange (Author of the 2024 BAS publication on Notley Abbey)
‘Allow no woman to enter the monastery’: Bishop John Longland to Abbot Richard Ridge of Notley, 1530.
But women did enter the abbey, and supported it in a wide range of capacities: as donors, worshippers, visitors and servants. And sometimes entered the canons’ lives in less legitimate roles. This talk aims to uncover something of the contribution which women made to the life and work of Notley’s all-male community from its founding in 1162 to its dissolution in 1538.
Please come to the Discover Bucks Museum or Register now for the online lecture Here (We will email the Zoom meeting invitation to you).
Nominations for the BAS biannual Prize are now invited.
A commemorative prize for individuals or organisations, awarded for the best contribution to the County’s Archaeology or Heritage during the past two years.
The new County Council have launched the long awaited update to the online Heritage Portal for Buckinghamshire. The new online service has a current search engine and is linked directly to the HER database – so new entries are available via the portal immediately.
Access the new portal Here
The earliest books were written by impressing signs on flat squares of soft clay that were then baked hard under the sun.
You can find the full BAS Lecture programme Here
Our lectures are free and (normally) located in the County Museum, Church Street, Aylesbury HP20 2QP starting at 2.30pm. Lasting about one hour plus time for discussion. Refreshments are available after the event.
Two hundred people signed into the society’s first Conference-on-the-Web on Saturday 4 April. They heard and watched new archaeological discoveries across Buckinghamshire ahead of the construction of the HS2 high-speed rail line. They were all sitting safely in their own homes.
The speakers told of a Saxon longhouse excavated at Great Missenden, what appears to be a ceremonial circle on the route through the Chiltern escarpment at Wendover, Roman farm buildings in the Colne Valley, and a Saxon ‘sunken-floor’ building at Chetwode.
The on-line conference was a joint effort between the Bucks Archaeological Society and Fusion, who are the main archaeological contractors for HS2. Fusion provided the speakers and organised the ‘webinar’ technology which delivered the four-hour conference into people’s homes. Applause is difficult to project on-line, but a stream of email messages followed the end of the conference complimenting the speakers and the organisers.
The society’s members led the way by assessing the impact of HS2 on the county’s archaeology as soon as the HS2 project was announced in 2010.
The online conference was recorded. We will try and bring you a link to it as soon as we can.