Winter Meetings
WINTER MEETINGS October 2025 –April 2026
All meetings are held on Mondays at the Methodist Church, St Edmunds Church Street, Salisbury SP1 1EF. Doors open at 7.00pm and the meeting starts at 7.30pm. Non-members are welcome to attend. Nearest car park is Salt Lane, free after 6.00pm.
6 October 2025:
Kayt Hawkins: 50 Finds from Childhood - Objects from the Portable Antiquities Scheme. Kayt is a Romano British Ceramics Specialist who has worked in the UK developer-led archaeology sector for over 25 years. She is currently a Senior Archaeologist at Archaeology South East (ASE), Institute of Archaeology, University College, London. In addition to Roman ceramics, Kayt’s research interests include the archaeology of Childhood, and she has recently published “50 finds from Childhood: Objects from the Portable Antiquities Scheme”. Kayt currently combines her role at ASE with studies at University of Leicester where she is enrolled on the PhD by Practice programme.
3 November 2025:
Members' Evening: This is the annual opportunity for you to tell us all about anything you have found in the world of Industrial Archaeology. We will have a PowerPoint projection system available. We can produce a PowerPoint slide show from your pictures or old 35mm slides if you give us sufficient notice. If you have something to say but no pictures suitable for projection, we can pass documents or small objects around the audience. Though not essential, it really would help if you can let the chairman know beforehand that you would like a spot, and do confirm this when you arrive on the evening, thus avoiding any embarrassment.
1 December 2025:
Geoff Lang and Joan Stodie: The Griffins - Victorian Movers and Shakers. Geoff is a local historian with an interest in Salisbury family businesses, particularly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Griffin timber business is a fascinating example of a small successful Salisbury firm, operating at the time of the Industrial Revolution and beyond. Jodie has researched the public and personal life of Frederick Griffin, who ran the family timber business in the late Victorian period. He became fondly known as the “Jubilee Mayor” in 1887 and was a longstanding public benefactor in Salisbury.
5 January 2026:
Members Social Evening: The evening will start with food nibbles and soft drinks. Please bring some items of food, and an Industrial Archaeology story, perhaps supported by small objects, which we can view after the repast and chat. The drink, non-alcoholic, will be provided. Obviously, we do not need as much Industrial Archaeology as in October but please do bring something, perhaps the smaller items you had not thought sufficiently important for the November meeting.
2 February 2026:
William Rouse: History of Printing. William began his interest in letterpress printing at school. The school he was at was unusual in having a print shop as part of the art department in the 1980’s. Surprisingly, it was completely unsupervised and the pupils all learnt printing from their peers. Together with a life long friend at the school who had the same passion he has been collecting letterpress equipment and printing since then. The talk will cover the beginning of printing in Europe, starting with Gutenberg in the 15th Century, how letterpress printing actually works, the equipment necessary, the development of type design and finally a run through of his own equipment in Newton Toney.
2 March 2026:
Tim Cornish: History of Old Sarum Airfield. Tim is a local aviation historian, concentrating primarily on the development of aviation on Salisbury Plain and surrounding aerodromes. He is an active volunteer with the Boscombe Down Aviation Collection since 2013 and Commonwealth War Graves Commission since 2020, alongside a career in commercial aerospace. Tim draws on his extensive network to bring to the fore the rich stories of those who pioneered aviation in the past. Tim will be talking about the rich heritage of RAF Old Sarum, from it's beginnings in 1917 to the modern day as an airfield for parachuting and general aviation. The airfield has played it's part both in war and peacetime with a great amount of heroic, selfless and sad stories to tell, with many of the buildings constructed during that period remaining to this day. The airfield site was designated as a Conservation Area in 2007 and this has helped to preserve it's original WW1 Training Depot Station layout.
13 April 2026:
Annual General Meeting followed by exciting videos and discussions. The AGM is expected to follow the usual format in reporting on the year just finished, showing the state of the Society and then holding elections for the committee. This will be followed by something of interest but quite what has not yet been decided. As soon as it has details will be added here.