Arch & Arch Lectures

 
Our lecture programme...

Date	Venue (All lectures are in person at 2.30pm Elvet Riverside (Room ER140) followed by a drink at the County Hotel for those who would like to join us. Please see lectures details below for additional information.
Saturday 15 March 2025	Josh Gaunt and Claire Christie - Headland Archaeology. 'Defining Spaces in Iron Age Northumberland: Excavations at Morley Hill and Lower Callerton' The Iron Age settlements excavated by Headland Archaeology (UK) Ltd at Morley Hill and Lower Callerton lie within the rich later prehistoric landscape of the Northumberland Coastal Plain. At Morley Hill, work revealed two later Iron Age settlements defined by rectilinear enclosures surrounding groups of roundhouses with evidence for earlier phases of activity. The excavations at Lower Callerton revealed evidence of earlier prehistoric activity overlain by a large Iron Age enclosure with over 53 roundhouses and structures, multiple sub-enclosures and boundaries. These two large-scale datasets allow for an increased understanding of Iron Age settlement patterns, architectural forms, and farming practices across the region. Link to accompanying book: Defining Spaces in Iron Age Northumberland Excavations at Morley Hill and Lower Callerton by Josh Gaunt, Claire Christie and Candy Hatherley.
Saturday 12 April 2025	Kylie Buxton, Excavation Project Officer, West Yorks Archaeological Services 'Recent excavations at Burton Lane, Ryhope' (Now in the Chemistry Building Room CG83 (building 16 in this map of Lower Mountjoy)). Excavations at Burdon Lane, Ryhope investigated intense settlement activity previously identified by geophysical survey and evaluated by trial trenching. This comprised Iron Age roundhouses, later formalized and enclosed by boundary ditches and field systems, suggesting occupation continued into the Roman period. Neolithic activity was also represented by a flint assemblage and grooved ware pottery.
Saturday 10 May 2025	Annual General Meeting 10am till 1pm. There will be a guided tour of the Norman Chapel at Durham Castle by Gill Rennie (Curator of Durham Castle and the Collections held within the University’s Colleges) at 10am. This is the oldest standing building in Durham City. It is listed grade I and is part of the World Heritage Site. A programme of restoration work has been taking place for the last two years and the first phase has been completed to remove the cause of damp and to carry out conservation of the stonework including 11th century sculptures on the capitals of the columns. All work has been subject to an archaeological watching brief and the chapel has been recorded in 3D using photogrammetry and a LiDAR scanner. Come and hear about the Norman Chapel Restoration Project. The chapel tour will be followed by the AGM meeting in Prior's Hall, Durham Cathedral, which is only a short walk from the chapel. The business meeting will be concluded as usual by a short talk by our President Richard Annis (title tbc). Tea and coffee will be available to purchase. You MUST book a place. There will be a small charge for the event and refreshments, which will be payable on the day. But in the meantime you can book a place by emailing archandarch.dandn@gmail.com. This event is open only to paid-up members of the Society. CALL FOR NEW COMMITTEE MEMBERS A couple of our committee members are due to stand down at the AGM. We are looking for volunteers to take their place. Please email: archandarch.dandn@gmail.com for more information if you are potentially interested. The committee meets every 3 months online via Microsoft Teams. We cannot run the Society without a fully functioning committee.
Saturday 7 June 2025	Graeme Dodd, RIBA SCA Specialist Conservation Architect at Napper Architects 'Marrying the old and new, looking back to look forwards - recent projects at Newcastle City Pool, Morpeth Railway Station and Low Newton Rocket House' Now in Room ER201 (the building next door!)
Saturday 20 Sept 2025	Dr Adrian Green ‘New insights into Durham Castle and the medieval city’ Past President of AASDN and a specialist in the history and archaeology of the early modern era (circa 1500-1800 A.D.), Adrian is Associate Professor at Durham University. His research focuses on the built evidence for social life, cultural habits, politics, worship and economy in England and English settlement overseas. Building for England: John Cosin's Architecture in Renaissance Durham and Cambridge, was short-listed for the Architectural Historians of Great Britain's Alice Davis Hitchcock Medallion for 2017. Adrian will share new research into the early Norman history of Durham.
Saturday 11 Oct 2025	Dr Amanda Herbert 'Ketchup cruets & sugar casters: material cultures of global foodways, c. 1600-1800' Amanda is Associate Professor of Early Modern Americas in the History Department at Durham University. She earned her Ph.D. in History at Johns Hopkins University and is the author of Female Alliances: Gender, Identity, and Friendship in Early Modern Britain (Yale, 2014) winner of the Best Book Award from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women. She’s an editor for The Recipes Project, an e-journal devoted to the study of historical recipes of all kinds, and from 2017-2021 was co-director for Before ‘Farm to Table’: Early Modern Foodways and Cultures, a Mellon-funded initiative in collaborative research at the Folger Institute of the Folger Shakespeare Library. She writes for all audiences, and has appeared in Time, the TLS, Aeon, and Gastro Obscura, and is a contributor to Milk Street Radio.
Saturday 8 Nov 2025	Sue Shaw 'Discovering Northumberland Archives – collections connected to archaeology and architecture' Sue has chaired Northumberland Archives Charitable Trust since 2020 and has been connected with Northumberland for over 40 years. Born in Solihull, Sue was one of the first cohort of women undergraduates at King’s College, Cambridge, where she studied Economics and Law. Afterwards, she qualified as a solicitor in London and spent most of her legal career working for central government. One of her great grandfathers was a Newcastle man, and her grandmother was born in Westgate, just north of the line of the Roman Wall.
Saturday 11 Dec 2025	Martin Roberts 'Historic Bridges of Durham' Martin is an authority on Durham’s architecture having served as the City’s Conservation Officer before becoming Historic Buildings Inspector for English Heritage in the North East. He established the North East Vernacular Architecture Group in 1991 and is a trustee of the Friends of Old Durham Gardens, a restoration project he initiated and managed. Alongside published research in local and national journals, he has written books on Durham City and Durham University and revised Nikolaus Pevsner’s Buildings of England volume on County Durham. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in London.