Events
Our programme of public lectures and other events reflects high quality scholarship on regional and local history.
Our lecture programme is currently being held online. Please follow links to pre-book our future talks via Eventbrite. We are also adding recordings of past talks to YouTube – these will be shown here when they are available.
Janet Barrie is the current chair of the Society for One-Place Studies and researches the people and activities associated with the Springhill area of Rossendale, Lancashire. In this talk she will look at the principles of conducting a one-place study by considering the nature of a ‘place’ and of a ’study’.
Past Events
Another chance to catch Dr Mike Nevell's lecture exploring the revised regional research framework for the historic environment of North West England - compiled between 2016 and 2020 - summarising over a decade of archaeological, historic landscape, and historic building research within the region.
Another chance to see Dr Alan Crosby's lecture marking the 175th anniversary of our Society. While across Europe 1848 was the 'Year of Revolutions' there was no popular uprising in Lancashire and Cheshire but a quieter yet even more fundamental revolution in society, economy and landscape was taking place in the two counties. Was the founding of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire in that year perhaps a counter-reaction to this revolution?
Another chance to see our November 2023 Lecture - Professor R.C. Richardson looks at the career of historian Joan Thirsk (1922-2013) who did so much to re-define what the properly contextualised study of English local history could be and could do. Although chiefly a specialist in agrarian history, her interests extended far more broadly and the lecture offers an overall assessment of her landmark status.
Another chance to see our February 2024 Lecture: Northeast Wales and parts of Cheshire are traditionally thought to be areas where relatively little ‘high-status’ rural settlement existed during the Roman period but this view has been challenged by the discovery of a Roman villa near Wrexham in 2021. In this talk Dr Caroline Pudney from the University of Chester reports on the ‘In Search of Roman Rural Settlement’ project.
In his latest publication Dr Salveson explores the cultural heritage and identity of Lancashire, stretching from the Mersey to the Lake District, charting the county’s transformation from a largely agricultural region noted for its religious learning into the Industrial Revolution’s powerhouse, as an emerging self-confident bourgeoisie drove economic growth.
Dr Parkin, University of Chester, will explore the history of surnames, with a particular focus on the relationship between surname variation, surname distribution, and local dialect, using names which are common to Cheshire as examples.