From September to April each year the Society arranges a series of talks held in Fowey, Bodinnick and Polruan. These are open to all and Members have free entry, (£10 for non members).
There will usually be one talk by Zoom.
To join, or to renew your Membership for 2024/25, please contact Kath Pearce on 07977 572268 or email FHHSociety@gmail.com
The programme of talks for 2024/25 is as follows;
All on Saturdays at 2pm.
14 Sept. From Travellers to Tourists, the Story of Pre-1914 Visitors to Cornwall. Louis Turner. Fowey Town Hall.
12 Oct. The Battle of Lostwithiel -1644, Parliament's Greatest Defeat. Tony Smith. Fowey Town Hall.
9 Nov. The Cornwall Memory Game. Merryn Threadgould. Fowey Town Hall.
14 December and 11 January talks to be confirmed.
8 Feb. Tammy Blee's Cabalistic Agency - Cornish Witchcraft and Folklore. Jason Semmens. Fowey Town Hall.
8 March. Some Stories about Cornish Church Building with Special Reference to the Fowey Area. Joanna Mattingly. Fowey Town Hall.
12 April. Crossing the River - The History of the Fowey Ferries. Chris Bradish. Whitecross Village Hall
From Beauty to Bounty; the Past, Present and Future of Mount Edgcumbe Country Park.
Date/Time: 9 September, 2023. 2pm
Venue: Polruan Village Hall
Cost: £5 for FHHS members, £8 for non members.
Contact: Andrew Gardner 07769 977116 or andrew@gardner.be Or via Ticket Taylor https://buytickets.at/foweyharbourheritagesociety
Synopsis
This illustrated talk will focus on the history of Mount Edgcumbe Country Park with particular reference to the creation of the designed parkland in the 18th and early 19th centuries. It will conclude with a brief overview of what has happened since the park was sold to Plymouth City Council and Cornwall Council in 1971.
Dr Malcolm Cross is a retired professor of economic and social history, now living in Kingsand, overlooking Mount Edgcumbe Country Park. During his career he has held teaching posts in Holland, Italy and the United States as well as the UK. Since retiring he has concentrated on local history. His last book was A House by the River: West Indian Wealth in West Devon (2022). He is currently working on a history of the Edgcumbe family and estate.
The Passmore Edwards Legacy
Date/Time: 14 October at 2pm
Venue: Fowey Town Hall
Cost: £5 for FHHS members, £8 for non members.
Contact: Andrew Gardner 07769 977116 or andrew@gardner.be Or via Ticket Tailor https://buytickets.at/foweyharbourheritagesociety
Dean Evans has been studying the life and work of the Cornish Philanthropist, John Passmore Edwards, for more than 15 years. In 2011 his biography of Edwards, "Funding the Ladder, The Passmore Edwards Legacy" was published and was awarded a Holyer an Gof Prize in 2012. The year 2011 was also the centenary of the death of Edwards aand Dean organised or coordinated more than 80 events to mark the occasion.
Passmore Edwards was born in 1823 so this year is the bicentenary of his birth and Dean has once again been busy coordinating events to celebrate the life of this extraordinary Cornishman, in all of the communities that benefitted from his bequests, in Cornwall and across the south of the country.
Robert Lenkiewicz - His Work and Teaching. Talk by Louise Courtnell
Date/Time: 11 November 2023 at 2pm
Venue: Whitecross Village Hall, Bodinnick. PL23 1NF
Cost: £5 for FHHS members, £8 for non members.
Contact: Andrew Gardner 07769 977116 or andrew@gardner.be Or via Ticket Taylor https://buytickets.at/foweyharbourheritagesociety
Robert Lenkiewicz - His Work and Teaching by Louise Courtnell.
Robert Lenkiewicz (1941–2002) worked within ‘Projects’: large-scale exhibitions of paintings and research notes related to sociological issues. His themes – vagrancy, mental handicap, old age, suicide, death – sought to illuminate the lives of those he called “the invisible people’. He moved from London to Plymouth and painted in Fowey.
The artist Louise Courtnell met Robert Lenkiewicz in 1987. He became her mentor and teacher and there followed an intensive two year ‘apprenticeship’ in painting, which concentrated on the understanding of tone.
Louise’ work includes landscape and still-life, however she has always had a passion for portraiture. She has been a regular exhibitor at the National Portrait Gallery, (BP Portrait Award) from 1991 to 2001 and was commended for two self portraits. Commissions have included Dr. Rowan Williams, (2002) and Robert, Earl of Edgcumbe, (2008).
Lanhydrock and the Robartes Family by Paul Holden, FSA
Date/Time: 9 December 2pm
Venue: Squires Field Community Centre (Please note change of venue from Town Hall)
Cost: £5 for FHHS members, £8 for non members.
Contact: Andrew Gardner 07769 977116 or andrew@gardner.be Or via Ticket Tailor https://buytickets.at/foweyharbourheritagesociety
Lanhydrock and the Robartes Family by Paul Holden.
Acquired in 1620 by the up-and-coming Robartes family, Lanhydrock was hardly occupied until the early 19th century when Anna Maria Agar (nee Hunt) inherited the house and the failing estate. She turned its fortunes around to hand over to her son Thomas James Agar-Robartes in 1829. A fire in 1881 forced the family to rebuild and extend the house into the grandest and most technologically advanced house in Cornwall. This talk will follow the fortunes of Lanhydrock and its resident family between the 1620s and 1970s. It will also consider the transfer of the house and grounds to the National Trust in 1953.
Paul Holden, FSA, is an architectural and cultural historian. He was House and Collections Manager at Lanhydrock for 20 years. Paul has lectured in America, the Czech Republic, Ireland and throughout the United Kingdom and has published widely, his most recent books are Cornish Distinctiveness (Shaun Tyas, 2023) and 50 years of the Cornish Buildings Group (CBG, 2023).
The Heyday of Hayle: Harvey's forgotten shipyard. Talk by Daisy Culmer.
Date/Time: 13 January 2024 2pm
Venue: Fowey Town Hall
Cost: £5 for FHHS members, £8 for non members.
Contact: Andrew Gardner 07769 977116 or andrew@gardner.be Or via Ticket Tailor https://buytickets.at/foweyharbourheritagesociety
The heyday of Hayle: Harvey’s forgotten shipyard.
By Daisy Culmer.
Hayle - a 19th Century industrial powerhouse, home to the Cornish Beam Engine, once the world's most important mining port and a forerunner in the global engineering market. This talk explores the lesser-known shipping history of the town - now part of the Cornish Mining World Heritage site - and the shipbuilding accomplishments of its world-famous foundry Harvey & Co.
Daisy has worked as the Museum Curator for Harvey's Foundry Trust at Hayle Heritage Centre in West Cornwall for more than seven years. There, Daisy is responsible for managing a diverse social and industrial history collection of around 8,000 objects and archival items relating to Hayle and the surrounding area.
The Rashleigh family, Charles and the creation of Charles' Town. Talk by Andy Trudgian.
Date/Time: 10 February 2024. 2pm
Venue: Fowey Town Hall
Cost: £5 for FHHS members, £8 for non members.
Contact: Andrew Gardner 07769 977116 or andrew@gardner.be Or via Ticket Tailor https://buytickets.at/foweyharbourheritagesociety
The Rashleigh family, Charles and the creation of Charles' Town. Talk by Andy Trudgian.
2023 marks 200 years since Charles Rashleigh’s death. To celebrate the bicentennial and to honour Charlestown’s founder, a series of presentations aims to shed new light on his life and endeavours. In this talk, the heritage of the Rashleigh Family in Cornwall is explored along with the ups and downs of Charles Rashleigh’s life. It ends by discussing the history and legacy of his greatest achievement, the port that drove the industrialisation of mid Cornwall.
Andy Trudgian is the chairman of the Charlestown History Group
The RNLI: 200 years of Saving Lives at Sea.
Date/Time: 9 March 2024 2pm. Delivered by Zoom
Venue: A Zoom talk by Helen Doe
Cost: £3 per screen for FHHS members, £6 for non members.
Contact: via Ticket Tailor https://buytickets.at/foweyharbourheritagesociety
The RNLI: 200 Years of Saving Lives at Sea
This charity began with a meeting in a London Tavern in March 1824. Since then its volunteer crews have saved countless lives around the coasts of Britain and Ireland and it is part of the fabric of every coastal community. Helen will give an insight into some of the incidents and the challenges faced by this vital service.
Helen is a well known maritime historian with a large number of publications to her name. She has been commissioned by the RNLI to write its bi centennial history, due for publication in March 2024.
Captain Lars Berg and The Marthe Andrea; the 19th century Norwegian timber trade with Cornwall
Date/Time: 13 April 2024. 2pm
Venue: Fowey Town Hall
Cost: £5 for FHHS members, £8 for non members.
Contact: via Ticket Tailor https://buytickets.at/foweyharbourheritagesociety or pay at door.
Captain Lars Berg and The Marthe Andrea; A case history about the 19th century Norwegian timber trade with Cornwall. A talk by Dr. Julie Pinkney.
The chance finding of an 1859 newspaper report of the inquest into the suicide of a Norwegian ships captain, Lars Berg, at Restronguet near Mylor, sparked the interest of the speaker. Keen to understand the events that had led to this suicide, she contacted the National Maritime Museum in Oslo to find out more about his brig, the Marthe Andrea. This led to a collaboration with a Norwegian Emeritus Professor of History, who became equally eager to research both the man and his ship. A fascinating maritime tale unfolded that demonstrated the significance of the Norwegian timber and ice trades with Britain during the 19th century. Their research traced the history of the Marthe Andrea, including where she was built, her previous owners and captains, her routes and cargoes, until her final voyage. They discovered the life story of her final Captain, Lars Berg, where he lived, how he became a co-owner of the brig, why he took his own life, and what became of his family afterwards. This talk describes the vital maritime links that Cornwall had with Norway during the height of the shipping industry.
Dr. Julie Tomlinson lives in Cornwall where she works as an NHS Consultant Nurse and an independent historical researcher. She is particularly interested in the history and archaeology of the Viking Age and in Cornish maritime history. Julie has held substantive and honorary academic positions and has published widely. She is currently an Associate Researcher with the Institute of Cornish Studies, University of Exeter, and is an Honorary University Fellow with Plymouth University.
Illustration courtesy the Haugar art museum in Tønsberg, Norway
From Travellers to Tourists, the Story of Pre-1914 Visitors to Cornwall.
Date/Time: 14 September 2024 at 2pm
Venue: Fowey Town Hall
Cost: Free for members. Non members will be charged £10.
Contact: All enquiries to Hon. Sec, Kath Pearce, on 07977 572268 or via Ticket Tailor https://buytickets.at/foweyharbourheritagesociety/545821
Louis Turner is writing a history of the Cornish tourist industry. In this talk he will tell the story of the early travelers who passed through us. These include an intrepid lady adventurer in the 1690s, Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens and Queen Victoria. With the coming of the railway, we started to see the arrival of families like Virginia Woolf's, coming for long summer holidays. Travelers had turned into tourists.
In this talk, Louis will discuss the places they visited, how they traveled, where they stayed, what they saw and what they thought of the Cornish. The picture is of travelers who marveled at Cornwall's rugged beauty, but were also aware of our mining prowess (trips down mines were part of an adventurous traveler's itinerary). Fishing villages were seen more as commercial sites than as today's picturesque destinations.
Louis lives in Falmouth, where he is a trustee of the Poly (Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society). Back in the 1970s, he wrote a book on the international tourist industry (Golden Hordes). After retiring back here (his wife is Cornish born) he discovered there is no proper history of this Cornish industry which is so important, technically successful, yet controversial. He has other lectures which cover the more recent story. He is happy to debate those who see the industry as a force which has destroyed Cornish culture.
The Battle of Lostwithiel 1644 - Parliament's Greatest Defeat
Date/Time: 12 October, 2pm
Venue: Fowey Town Hall
Cost: Free for members. Non members will be charged £10.
Contact: All enquiries to Hon. Sec, Kath Pearce, on 07977 572268 or via Ticket Tailor https://buytickets.at/foweyharbourheritagesociety/545821
The Battle of Lostwithiel 1644 - Parliament's Greatest Defeat
In August 1644 Lostwithiel found itself at the centre of a bitter siege. Within six weeks this small town would be reduced almost to rubble, with buildings in flames and its population starving and disease ridden. In the streets and surrounding countryside hundreds lay dead and dying and thousands more were to die before a defeated Parliamentarian army reached relative safety. In this talk Tony Smith will describe the Battle of Lostwithiel, one of those much overlooked British battlefields and how it became King Charles I’s last major victory in the First English Civil War and Parliament’s greatest defeat.
Tony Smith has been a battlefield guide for some 15 years, regularly taking school tours to the battlefields of France and Belgium as well as family pilgrimages showing people the places where their ancestors fought and sometimes died. He is also a volunteer for the Commonwealth War Graves Commision and regularly gives public talks about the Commission as well as leading tours around the cemeteries where war dead are buried.
The Cornwall Memory Game
Date/Time: 9 November 2pm
Venue: Fowey Town Hall
Cost: Free for FHHS members, £10 for non members.
Contact: All enquiries to Hon. Sec, Kath Pearce, on 07977 572268 or via Ticket Tailor https://buytickets.at/foweyharbourheritagesociety/545821
The Cornwall Memory Game Talk: game creator and writer Merryn Threadgould selects a handful of Cornish stories to tell from the collection that appear in her memory game. From the internationally important Polperro fingerprint experiment to a marathon walking fishwife from Madron this jaunt through Cornwalls social history never fails to entertain.
Tammy Blee's Cabalistic Agency - Cornish Witchcraft and Folklore
Date/Time: 8 February 2025. 2pm
Venue: Fowey Town Hall
Cost: Free for members. Non members will be charged £10.
Contact: All enquiries to Hon. Sec, Kath Pearce, on 07977 572268 or via Ticket Tailor https://buytickets.at/foweyharbourheritagesociety/545821
TAMMY BLEE’S CABALISTIC AGENCY
Belief in witchcraft has varied between places and times. In Cornwall, a body of evidence indicates that witches were viewed as a 'fifth column' in society who could 'ill wish' or curse, to the detriment of human and animal. Accusations of witchcraft usually followed a long period of misfortune or ill health. People would take their suspicions to their local Justice of the Peace, and if sufficient evidence was uncovered, the suspected witch would be committed to trial at the next Assizes.
This talk explores the historical reality of witch beliefs and folk magic in Cornwall, and along the way discusses some of the individuals caught up in such ideas: from malefactors to ‘white witches,' and folklorists and historians.
Originally from West Cornwall, Jason Semmens is the Director of the Museum of Military Medicine. He has a Master's degree in 'The History and Literature of Witchcraft' from the University of Exeter and has published widely on the subject.
Some Stories About Cornish Church Building With Special Reference to the Fowey Area
Date/Time: 8 March 2025 at 2pm
Venue: Fowey Town Hall
Cost: Free for FHHS members, £10 for non members.
Contact: All enquiries to Hon. Sec, Kath Pearce, on 07977 572268 or via Ticket Tailor https://buytickets.at/foweyharbourheritagesociety/545821
More Fifty Shades than Pevsner, this talk will focus on some Cornish churches with interesting construction stories. Dendrochronology, or tree-ring dating, of church roofs at Fowey, Lansallos, and St Veep, amongst other places, has confirmed that Cornish churchyards were still building sites at the Reformation, as was known from documentary sources. It may also explain St Veep's enthusiastic participation in the 1549 rebellion.
Vicar Bennett and his former enemies, the Wynslades, were defending what was yet to be built. Motivation to add ever wider chapels and aisles included the need to accommodate catholic processions alongside pews, additional altars and ever-more priests, a desire to be remembered and reduce time in purgatory, inter-parish rivalry, and even atonement for murder. The lateness of all this Cornish catch-up means that very few medieval chancel arches survive and the typical Cornish church is an unfinished one.
Joanna Mattingly is a retired former extra-mural lecturer and museum curator. She specialises in Medieval Cornish Church History and
She is the author of Churches of Cornwall (Amberley Publishing, Stroud, 2023).
Crossing the River - The History of the Fowey Ferries
Date/Time: 12 April 2025 2pm
Venue: Whitecross Village Hall, Bodinnick.
Cost: Free for FHHS members, £10 for non members.
Contact: All enquiries to Hon. Sec, Kath Pearce, on 07977 572268 or via Ticket Tailor https://buytickets.at/foweyharbourheritagesociety/545821
Passage across the River Fowey has always been essential. In this talk the history of the Bodinnick and Polruan ferries will be explored, a tale of changing ownership, duels, diamonds and bankruptcies.Some notable incidents will be described.
The earliest mention of the Bodinnick ferry is 1344. In 1478 custody of the ferry was granted to John Davey, “Yeoman of the King’s Chambers and valet to the King’s crown”. Ownership subsequently passed to Lord Mohun of Bodinnick (through whose grounds the famous Hall Walk passes). It was used to transport Royalist troops during the Civil War, 1642-1651. Mohun’s fortunes declined and the ferry rights were purchased by Governor Pitt of Boconnoc (Diamond Pitt) in the 1720’s. The ferry rights were then assigned to the Passage House Inn in Bodinnick, now called the Old Ferry Inn. Successive landlords hired local boatmen to run the ferries, In 1963 the ferry rights were purchased by Toms and Sons of Polruan, who continue to run the ferry.
The first mention of the Polruan ferry is in 1534 by John Leland who crossed from Fowey by “the trajectus”, the origin of the ferry is undoubtedly much older. The original ferry was a rowing boat, a motorboat was introduced in 1912. In 1993 the ferry rights were purchased by Toms and Son.
Chris Bradish is a Fowey resident, a retired surgeon and a keen local historian.
