Gloucestershire Local History Association

Gloucestershire Local History Association (GLHA) is a voluntary organisation of around 50 local history groups across Gloucestershire. We aim to promote local history throughout the County and to encourage as many people as possible to become involved with the history of where they live. You can discover more about us at gloshistory.org.uk

One of our activities is an annual Local History Day, the most recent of which was held at Churchdown Community Centre on 18 March 2017, with the theme of ‘Gardens for Food, Fun and Flowers’.  Around 150 people attended during the day to view displays on the chosen theme, prepared by 12 of the County’s local history groups, and to hear our three speakers. These were Dr Jan Broadway, who spoke on the history of the County’s gardening societies, Dr Jeremy Burchardt (University of Reading), who explained Gloucestershire’s place in the early allotment movement and Michael Brown (aka ‘The Historic Gardener’) who talked on ‘Ghastly Gardening: Horticulture’s Horrible History’.

Each year, three judges decide on the ‘best display’, which was won this year by the Forest of Dean Local History Society.  Their display contrasted the development of the pleasure gardens at Lydney Park with the use of gardens for food – and later also for flowers – by the average Forester.  It also covered the Bream Garden Show, which has been running for 150 years and still gets strong support.

The Local History Day is also when the annual Bryan Jerrard Award is presented. The award is given for what its judges believe is the best journal article on an aspect of Gloucestershire’s history written in the preceding year.

This year’s winner was Dr Nicholas Herbert for an article on the squatter settlement at Woolridge Common, Hartpury. Runner-up awards were given to Sally Self for an article on Cheltenham malt houses and to Keith Walker for an article on roads in the Forest of Dean.  All three received book tokens, kindly provided by the History Press.

This year’s Local History Day was generously sponsored by the Mid-counties Co-operative Community Fund, through the Gloucestershire Community Foundation, to which we are most grateful. The sponsorship enabled us to make the Day a free event.

Our next Local History Day will also be held at Churchdown Community Centre, on Saturday 28th April 2018, and will take as its theme aspects of life in Gloucestershire between 1918 and 1939. Further details will be available on the GLHA website, gloshistory.org.uk in due course.