The Cathedral Quarter High Street Heritage Action Zone
Working with local people and partners, the Cathedral Quarter project will help to breathe new life into Westgate Street which is rich in heritage and full of potential, making it more attractive to residents, businesses, tourists and investors.
For more information and how to get involved visit https://www.cathedralquartergloucester.uk/
Punchline-Gloucester
The Victoria County History
Sadly we begin this update by recording the death of former County Editor, John Jurica, on 24 December 2020, from covid-19. John worked on Victoria County History research and was based at Gloucestershire Archives between 1973 and 2010.
VCH colleague Simon Draper pays tribute in the latest VCH newsletter (January 2021).
Red Book news
Eleven Red Book volumes have been published. Three volumes are currently in preparation.
- Gloucestershire vol. XIV - Yate and District
- Gloucestershire vol. XV - Cheltenham and District
- Gloucestershire vol. XVI - Cirencester and District
Work towards one of these volumes, XV (Cheltenham and District) has produced a VCH Short, Cheltenham before the Spa (2018).
Ten volumes are available free, open-access on British History Online For full access to all volumes, check your local library catalogue or your local archive.
The latest Newsletter (14, January 2021) contains information including an update from Volume 14 showing West Littleton’s Nottinghamshire connection.
Read the full issue here
Gloucestershire Local History Association
Dates for your Diary update March 2021
Forum Meetings for 2021
We plan to continue our usual pattern of quarterly Forum meetings during 2021, either by Zoom or – when circumstances permit – by ‘in the room’ meetings (venue to be confirmed). The dates of our future 2021 Forums are:
Thursday, 17th June 7pm: – AGM, followed by a talk by Dr Andy Moir (Gloucestershire Building Recording Group) about the NLHF-funded Gloucestershire Dendrochronology Project to tree-ring date historic buildings in Gloucester, Newent and Tewkesbury.
Thursday, 2nd September 7pm: Den Bannister (Slimbridge Local History Society), ‘Slimbridge Remembers and the story of the wire soldiers’ (talk postponed from June 2020).
Monday, 6th December 2pm: Jonathan Holt, ‘The Place of Architectural Follies and Garden Buildings in the History of Gloucestershire’, followed (we hope!) by seasonal refreshments.
We would welcome suggestions for speakers and topics for discussion at future Forums.
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Monday April 19th at 7.30 pm via Zoom Ray Wilson will talk about Sharpness Docks.
Visit the GSIA website for the registration link
Local History Day (the History of Education in Gloucestershire)
To be rearranged provisionally Spring 2022
Summer Afternoon Meetings
Sunday 27th June 2021 - Nailsworth. Details and a booking form will be sent in due course.
Saturday 25th June 2022 - Cheltenham
2023 - Blockley
Summer walk 2021
Monday 24th May at 6.30 pm. Tewkesbury Railway Walk with John Dixon.
Booking details will be sent in April.
Website
Local SocietiesTalks List and Visits and Tours List.
On hold until things get back to normal.
For more information visit www.gsia.org.uk/
A new book about Gloucestershire
Three hundred years ago, in 1721, the 'Dutch engraver' Johannes Kip (or John Kip, his anglicised name) dropped down dead in St John’s Street, Westminster, bringing to a sudden end his career in England of more than thirty years as a renowned printmaker.
Gloucestershire owes him a special commemoration in 2021 as the draughtsman and also engraver of sixty-four prints commissioned in the early eighteenth century by Sir Robert Atkyns for The Ancient and Present State of Glostershire.
This book contains high-quality reproductions of all the engravings with a short commentary on each, and has pointers to the details and to the history of the house and the family, including many colour and black and white illustrations.
It offers a remarkable contribution to the history of the county, to knowledge of the gardens, which in many cases still reflect Kip’s engravings, to the unique history of many of the houses which survive three hundred years later, and to the riches of the Gloucestershire countryside.
Johannes Kip: The Gloucestershire Engravings, edited by Dr Anthea Jones, is published in March 2021 with a foreword by Dr Nicholas Kingsley.
It is published by Hobnob Press www.hobnobpress.co.uk in association with Gloucestershire Gardens and Landscape Trust www.gglt.org.
Editors' note: A copy of this book is also available for consultation at Gloucestershire Archives. Congratulations to Dr Anthea Jones on this latest edition which builds on the significant contribution she has already made to research in Gloucestershire through her work on the Lloyd George Land Survey, Gloucestershire Gardens and Landscape Trust documentary research, Victoria County History, Gloucestershire Archives and many more organisations too. We are also pleased to feature it here as it demonstrates a good collaboration with Victoria County History staff and volunteers, and current and former Gloucestershire Archives staff and researchers, and we are always keen to further encourage the 'hubness of the Hub'!
Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society
The founders of BGAS back in 1876 wanted to create a learned society where interested individuals from any walk of life could share knowledge and discoveries about all aspects of the past, in Bristol and Gloucestershire.
Today, while we tend to divide ‘the past’ into either history or archaeology, the two disciplines have always overlapped and we still aim to welcome anyone with a deep interest in either field.
Times change, and BGAS is changing too. The redesigned website, launched in 2021, is our latest step along the path. We anticipate continued development over the coming months, as further information resources and facilities are added.
For more information visit www.bgas.org.uk/
To read the latest BGAS newsletter click here
