HIAS Past Meetings, 2013

Below are brief summaries of previous HIAS meetings from January 2013.

January 7^th, The Wirksworth Branch - the history of a Derbyshire branch Line - Howard Sprenger

We began the New Year with a talk from one of our members on "Industrial Archaeology in Sweden". Pam Moore started her talk by saying how much she enjoyed visiting Sweden especially the island of Gotland, which is a large island on the Baltic. Its main industries today are fishing, cement making and tourism, but it has a rich industrial past that Pam illustrated through her many and varied slides. Beginning with numerous slides of mills in all different shapes and sizes, but mainly built of wood, we went onto look at ironworks, milestones and headstones made of ornate ironwork, railway stations, canals, a glass making factory, a stone museum and a distillery. Most of the I.A sites are cared for by the local community and all looked very well tended and accessible.

February 4^th , The Forest of Dean - Nigel Smith

Our speaker for February's meeting was a long standing member of HIAS, Nigel Smith. Nigel's subject was "The Industrial Forest" and the forest in question was the Forest of Dean. Nigel begun by saying that he has been fascinated by the Forest of Dean since he was a teenager. Nigel's illustrated talk was mainly to demonstrate how the landscape looked in its heyday with its railways, ironworks, stoneworks etc., to how it looks today where unless you looked really hard, or knew what you are looking for, most visitors would be completely oblivious of the Forest's rich industrial past.

March 4^th , Liverpool Crown Street to Liège Guillemins - how did we get there? - Bill Fawcett

For March's meeting we were pleased to welcome back Dr Bill Fawcett who has spoken to us on more than one occasion including the last SERIAC Conference hosted by HIAS. The title of Bill's talk was "Liverpool Crown Street to Liege Guillemins" how did we get there? Bill then proceeded to take us on a brisk trip through 180 years contrasting the development of the major railway stations in Britain and Continental Europe. Amongst lots of interesting facts which came out of Bill's presentation, one was that whilst much of early railway technology was exported from Britain, our wrought-iron Euston truss, the main stay of British trainsheds of the 1840s was shunned by many European countries in favour of their own designs, and Bill's excellent slides ably illustrated the differences in designs and technology.

April 8^th, King's Theatre, Southsea

For April's meeting we were pleased to welcome Ron Hasker who came along to talk to us about the restoration of the King's Theatre in Southsea. Showing us pictures of before and after the restoration works, it is quite clear just how much work has been carried out by volunteers of the King's Theatre Trust Limited, a registered charity, which rescued the theatre from demolition in 2000. So far, about 2 million pounds has been spent to restore this very fine Edwardian building, designed by Frank Matcham. It is thanks to the efforts of the volunteers, none of whom had any previous experience of running a theatre, that Southsea now has a very fine and viable theatre for us and future generations to enjoy.

May 13^th, Liverpool Docks

A History of Liverpool Docks was the subject of May's talk and we were pleased to welcome John Murden, who is now curator of Dorchester Museum, but who had previously worked in Liverpool Docks, and has done a lot of work on the history of British Leyland. The first dock, called the Old Dock was built in 1715 and then further docks were added and eventually extending to about 7 ½ miles along the banks of the River Mersey. During its heyday, Liverpool was described as the "Second city of the Empire" as during the 19th Century Liverpool saw huge industrial growth. However, after WW1, it went into decline and during WW2 was heavily bombed.

June 3^rd, Buriton Chalk Pits

June's talk was "Buriton Chalk Pits" and Carolyn Haynes & Doug Jones came along to talk to us about the Chalk Pit Project, and how they managed to get £150,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). They then ran through the history of the chalk pits at Buriton including early owners, transportation and its use during WW2 by the Navy for examining unexploded bombs. It was in 2007 that the Buriton Parish Council decided to bid for an HLF grant to secure the future of the site, and now it has become a place for visitors to enjoy and for the preservation of the flora and fauna which includes a rare moth. Volunteers carry out much of the maintenance on the site and the funding has enabled them to employ a part time ranger from the nearby Queen Elizabeth Country Park. For further information their web site address is www.buriton.info