The summer tour is an excursion by coach from Derby for members to visit a range of sites too far away from Derbyshire for a day trip, with accommodation for 4-5 nights arranged in a suitable hotel or college premises.

2025 SUMMER TOUR TO KENT

The 2025 summer trip will be based in Folkestone. As usual it will be four nights half board, and will include coach transport from Derby. The hotel is the Grand Burstin Hotel, situated on Folkestone harbour. We hope to hold the cost close to last year’s level, i.e. £430 per head in a twin or double room with a £60 single supplement. The dates are June 23rd to 26th, 2025. The itinerary is not finalised, but we expect to include Dover, Sandwich, Canterbury, Rye, a Martello tower, Richborough, Eltham Palace and Knole. There will be the usual scattering of churches to satisfy David Carder, who will once again be our guide.

To reserve a place, send a £50 deposit to Mrs. Jane Heginbotham, 59 Hickton Road, Swanwick, Alfreton, Derbyshire DE55 1AG; e-mail jane.heginbotham@btinternet.com. Pay by cheque or bank transfer to Derbyshire Archaeological Society, CAF Bank Ltd., sort code 40-52-40, account number 00032054 by February 15th 2025. Please indicate if a receipt is required.

PREVIOUS TOURS

In July 2003, in celebration of the 125th anniversary of the Derbyshire Archaeological Society, 36 members visited Hadrian’s Wall, staying for four nights at Ridley Hall, a boarding school in Northumbria. Under the guidance of Dr Ffiona Eaves, the party spent three days visiting sites along the Wall, starting with Newcastle Museum and followed by Arbeia, Housesteads in the early morning mist, Birdoswald, Corbridge, Chesters and finally Vindolanda. A small booklet was published and an article written for the newsletter to record the event.

This was the beginning of the Learning Journeys that are still a major annual Society event. The small committee which organised the Hadrian’s Wall visit decided to repeat the idea with a stay at Bishop Otter College in Chichester in 2004, where the highlight was a visit to the Mary Rose. Since then visits have been organised annually to centres of historic interest across the length and breadth of England and Wales: Colchester (2005), Durham (2006), Worcester, a week between two floods in July 2007, and Canterbury (2008) where David Carder was adopted as our new leader. Swansea followed (2009) and then Wiltshire (2010) where Dr Julian Richards of Meet the Ancestors fame, guided us round Stonehenge on a wet but memorably atmospheric evening. Visits to Exeter (2011), North Wales (2012) and East Anglia (2013) followed and then Carlisle (2014) with a foray into Scotland to visit sites in Dumfries.

Since 2015, when the Royal Agricultural University in Cirencester proved to be an excellent centre for exploration of the Cotswolds, accommodation has been found in a conference centre or hotel, rather than a university. While exploring Hertfordshire and Essex (2016) our base was High Legh Conference Centre at Hoddesdon and in 2017 Cober Hill Hotel at Cloughton, near Scarborough, from where we visited East Yorkshire and took a ride on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway from Pickering to Whitby. Herefordshire followed (2018), the high light being the Chained Library and Mappa Mundi at Hereford Cathedral and in 2019 we explored Devon from a hotel in Torquay. After a two year gap due to Covid, the 2022 tour was based at Kings Lynn visiting many sites in East Anglia. The 2023 tour was based in Eastbourne with visits to Hastings, Battle, Bodiam and Brighton. The 2024 tour was based in Blackpool, visiting sites in North-West England.

All these adventures can be found in members’ reports in the Society’s Winter Newsletter .