ASK Heritage Lectures 2017
Our series of FREE lectures cover a variety of topics from the first King of England, who was crowned here in 925, to the medieval church and all the way to WW1.
All lectures start at 19.30 with drinks available from 19.00.
All lectures are free admission and there is no need to pre-book.
Thursday 15th June
David Robinson – ‘All Saints: The Stripping of the Altars’
Five hundred years ago, All Saints was a blaze of colour with paintings and statues, altars with priests singing mass in Latin, screens and organs and dramatic celebration of Easter. A century later, these had vanished. The services were in English and dominated by long sermons. We shall see how these changes came about and how the people of Kingston responded to them.
All Saints: The Stripping of the Altars Lecture Transcript
All Saints: The Stripping of the Altars Video
Thursday 22nd June
Tom Holland – ‘Athelstan and the making of England’
Crowned in Kingston, Athelstan was the king who made England possible. It was an achievement won against the odds: the division of Britain into rival kingdoms, the conquest of much of the island by the Vikings, the need to foster an urban civilisation where there had been only brambles and weeds. Athelstan himself, though, was building on foundations laid by his immediate forebears, and this is their story too: Alfred, the only English king to be called ‘Great’; Edward, the great warrior whose conquests reached as far as the Humber; and Æthelflæd, the ‘Lady of the Mercians’. It is a remarkable story: a reminder that the making of England was never inevitable.
Athelstan and the making of England Video
Thursday 6th July
Nicholas Howgill – ‘Now it’s Serious – the East Surrey Regiment in 1917’
A look at the activities of the East Surrey Regiment in 1917, examining the composition of the battalions especially on the Western Front to see how they changed with the advent of conscription and how they were developing the techniques and organisation required to win the war.
Now It’s Serious – The East Surrey Regiment in 1917 Video
Thursday 13th July
Caroline Godden – ‘Blood, bones and books: getting to know King Æthelstan’
An introduction to the renowned Anglo-Saxon King Æthelstan, the self-styled ‘King of All Britain’, who was crowned here in Kingston in 925AD. He is famed for his momentous victory at the Battle of Brunanburh, for his international political outlook, and for the eventual dominance of his rule in England, Wales and Scotland. But more than this, he was a ruler whose individual touches and personal tastes can be seen across different aspects of his kingship – from changes in his law-codes to his international search for holy relics and religious texts. This talk will explore the reign of Æthelstan and what it was that made him extraordinary.
Blood, Bones and Books: Getting to know King Æthelstan Video