Calendar

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.

Library open upstairs on the 1st floor.

Speaker: David Mercer

Mrs Armitage (1841-1931) was a pioneer archaeologist and historian in the field of castle studies. Her book The Early Norman Castles of the British Isles (1912) is credited with establishing the principle that the motte-and-bailey castle was an early Norman innovation; rejecting the idea that mottes were of Anglo-Saxon date. With over a century of research into castles following this seminal thesis it is time to reassess Armitage’s legacy and provide context for the earliest castles in England.

David Mercer read archaeology at St John’s College, Cambridge. His doctoral thesis looked at the historical development of ideas in castle studies. Since then, he has been an active member of the Castle Studies Group.