Speaker: Elaine Prichard

Orton & Spooner was a company based in Burton-upon-Trent that made fairground rides and equipment for fairgrounds. The business began in the 1890s and closed in 1977. Elaine tells their story.

Organised by the Local History Section

Library open upstairs on the 1st floor.

Speaker: Mark Dawson

If you buy a Christmas pudding in any UK supermarket there is a very high chance it has been manufactured on an industrial estate in Heanor. Food historian Mark Dawson will relate how the Derbyshire firm of Matthew Walker came to dominate this market and tell us about some less well-known local seasonal traditions.

Organised by the Industrial Archaeology Section

Speaker: Jennifer Alexander

Melbourne’s parish church stands out as a fine Romanesque church, built in the 12th century and covered in sculpture. It was intended to be a royal church and presents a statement of power by a king eager to be regarded as a player on the international stage. Its later history was quieter, and it is one of the few churches of the period that comes down to us largely unaltered, and so we can see, by close study of the building, how King Henry I’s master mason demonstrated the king’s power in his design of the building.

Jennifer Alexander FSA is Professor of Art History at the University of Warwick

Speakers: Dr William Aslet and Dr Richard Clark
in person only at St Peter’s Centre, St Peter’s Street, Derby DE1 1SN.

Advance booking required via Eventbrite

Dr William Aslet, Scott Opler Junior Research Fellow at Worcester College, Oxford is an architectural historian who specialises in the early 18th century in Britain and Europe and his PhD was on the architecture of James Gibbs. His current research focuses on Gibbs’ time in Rome and his training there under the leading architect, Carlo Fontana.

Dr Richard Clark is deputy chair of the DAS, a member of the Derbyshire Miscellany Editorial Team and Chair of the Derbyshire Record Society. Richard will be speaking on: ‘The Indefatigable Labourer’ … ‘a complete master of the art of begging’: Dr Michael Hutchinson in early Georgian Derby.