Speaker series features Norman Cross and The Great Fen Project
Peterborough Civic Society’s Speaker Season gets under way on Monday when Nigel Lowey, a noted speaker on history, architecture and design, gives a talk on Sir George Gilbert Scott, the country’s most prolific Victorian architect.
The talk will take place at St Marks Church Hall, Lincoln Road, and celebrate Scott’s work, which in Peterborough includes Peterscourt in Midgate, and his role as Cathedral architect.
On February 9, at the same venue, Paul Chamberlain will talk about Norman Cross and the Arts and Crafts of Prisoners of War.
A leading historian of the Napoleonic era, specialising in prisoners of war from 1793–1815, Paul’s book, The Napoleonic Prison of Norman Cross: The Lost Town of Huntingdonshire, details the world’s first purpose-built prisoner-of-war camp, opened in 1797.
Housing up to 7,000 French and other inmates. Norman Cross functioned as a self-contained town with barracks, a hospital, and a market.
Triumph and Disaster: archaeological insights into life in the medieval countryside is the subject for Dr Carenza Lewis, archaeologist and TV presenter, on March 9.
This is the society’s keynote lecture and will be held at ARU Peterborough at 2.30pm.
Dr Carenza Lewis is renowned for her work in medieval rural settlement and public archaeology. Her innovative community archaeology, including Dig School (2020), earned her the 2023 British Academy Medal for Landscape Archaeology, recognizing her transformative contributions.
April 13, the society returns to St Mark’s Church hall to welcome Matt Jackson, Conservation Director, Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Northamptonshire for The Great Fen Project: an update.
Matt plays a pivotal role in the Great Fen project, a 50–100-year initiative to restore 3,700 hectares of fenland between Peterborough and Huntingdon.
And on May 11, hear Kill or Cure? Dr T J Walker, Victorian Surgeon with Liz Davies.
Well-known local historian and museum curator, Liz Davies will deliver a talk on Dr.Thomas James Walker (1835–1916), a Peterborough surgeon. Walker was a pioneer of laryngoscopy and antiseptic surgery at Peterborough Infirmary when it occupied the current Museum building in Priestgate.
Full details at www.peterboroughcivicsociety.org.uk