Coming Shortly
Tuesday, September 15 – 7.00 for 7.30pm
September’s short talks will touch on searching ancient records on our website, the secrets revealed by historic maps, your opportunity to research the history of local properties, a new book on The West Hill Story, the centenary of the wealthy and cultured bishop who designed and built our parish church – and the future vision for our society.
Not just an AGM – members invite others to share their interests
This September we’re excited to be trying something new for our monthly speaker meeting.
Instead of an invited outside speaker, we are giving the mic to half a dozen of our most interesting members to talk about their particular area of Ottery Heritage interest.
So we will hear from a couple of authors, a taster from the upcoming film about Samuel Taylor Coleridge, how Ottery land and property was recorded back in the day, researching properties with a history, and a bit about the society's vision going forward.
This follows the necessary formalities of the society’s Annual Meeting which are kept as brief as possible. Then we will move into the short presentations which include the following:
- John Hall, author of Murky Waters, will give us an insight into his continuing research into Ottery St Mary’s history and especially the church with the Bishop Grandisson anniversary coming up next year.
- Seasoned local historian Chris Wakefield loves studying historic maps and this has led to his understanding of the Ottery Tithe Map which is now searchable on our website.
- Colin Piper has spoken and written about the more notable properties of West Hill and the village’s connection to Ottery.
- Suzanne Whalley plans to show short promotional film of the upcoming TV series about Samuel Taylor Coleridge and what happens when television production camps out in our town.
- Denise Melhuish is an enthusiast for researching and documenting the history of houses in Ottery and wants to enlist your help – which could be your own small project.
- And society chairman Peter Shrubsall will give us a round-up of our current project and give us a steer on how we can search the new website databases which list birth, death and marriages from 1600 to the Victorian era.
Come at 7pm for refreshments and chat, then we will be called to order (members especially) for the formal bit of the meeting, followed by the talks. As always, not-yet members are especially welcome and we ask for a £3 contribution which is refundable against the subscription we hope you will sign up for! The Institute is Ottery’s public hall in Yonder Street and there is car parking in the Brook Street car park linked by a footpath behind.