Whether your interest in history is personal, academic, or just a more general desire to find out how our forefathers lived, the Linton and District History Society offers a friendly welcome and helpful advice.
We meet on the first Wednesday of every month except January, 7 for 7:30 p.m., in Linton Village Hall. Tea and coffee are available at the start of the meeting. Annual membership is £20, and speaker meetings are free to members. Visitors are always welcome, and pay £5 per meeting.
Our programmes aim to cover local, national and international history – there is something for all interests, and we welcome suggestions for topics.
For all enquiries, contact the Society’s Secretary, Mrs Teresa Squires at sec.lintonhistsoc@gmail.com
Our April meeting is our AGM, for which papers will be sent to members in good time. We have an excellent tradition of making our AGMs extremely short and as painless as possible! The plan is to have the AGM at 7:15 p.m., so that the talk, given by our Secretary Teresa Squires can start at 7:30 as usual. Teresa says :
The National Trust was founded in 1895 in order to preserve for the nation places of historic interest or natural beauty, enshrined in the National Trust Act of 1907. Since then, the Trust has become the largest conservation charity in Europe over 5.38 million members, 9,500 staff and thousands of volunteers caring for more than 250,000 hectares of farmland, 890 miles of coastline and 500 historic properties, gardens and nature reserves. In this talk, Teresa Squires will give an overview of just a sample of these properties, exploring the often extraordinary history of lesser-known places and people and their relevance to our local and national history.
Teresa worked for the National Trust for 16 years in the East of England region, as General Manager of all the properties she will be talking about. She has a BA in Archaeology and Ancient History and MA in Museum Studies. She retired to Herefordshire in 2022 and is now a tour guide at Hellens Manor, a member of the Ross-on-Wye Church Recording Group and Secretary of the Linton & District History Society.
Programme 2026
| 1st April | AGM | Teresa Squires : A National Trust Pot-Pourri |
| 6th May | Mike Burstow | History of Radar |
| 3rd June | Clyde Hoare | Living History: a willow-weaving demonstration |
| 1st July | Heather Hurley | Railways of Herefordshire |
| 5th August | Chris Barnett | William Cobbett’s Rural Rides and his road to reform |
| 2nd September | Bill Laws | Apples, Pears and the Herefordshire Pomona |
| 7th October | Professor Ron Hutton | FOUNDERS’ LECTURE: Oliver Cromwell |
| 4th November | Michael Fass | Wellington’s Warehouse: The great military depot at Weedon Bec |
| 2nd December | Fiona Morison | A summer in colonial Simla |
Programme 2027
| January 2027 | NO LECTURE | |
| 3rd February | Neil Thornton | Henry Hook VC: A Rorke’s Drift Hero |
| 3rd March | Roger Davies | CHAIRMAN’S LECTURE: Defending Herefordshire in WW2 |
| 7th April | tbc | AGM and speaker |
Review of our March meeting
Roger’s Chairman’s Lecture took place just as a reckless US President had started a war with the potential to spread across the Middle East and even to drag in NATO members. It was certainly timely to be considering the “forgotten war” in Korea, a war which only reached an armistice, and in which we are technically still engaged. Roger gave chapter and verse for the origin and progress of the war, from the original incursion by North Korea, through bloody fighting and ultimately to stalemate.
Inevitably it was civilians who suffered the most, with the inhabitants of Seoul reduced to a fraction of the pre-war population as it changed hands four times across the course of the conflict. But the military casualties were also shockingly high.
Quite properly, Roger focussed on the role of the Gloucester Regiment, whose heroic defence during the Battle of Imjim River will surely be commemorated in April when it will be the 75th anniversary. Most Gloucester residents will be familiar with the stone cross carved by the Gloucesters’ commanding officer Col. Carne in captivity. It has an honoured place in Gloucester Cathedral. On his release Col. Carne was awarded the V.C. for his outstanding courage in leading his men in the hopeless situation they found themselves in.
That local awareness has been little replicated in Britain as a whole, however. Though the site of the Gloucesters’ defence is carefully maintained by Koreans, it took until the 1980s for a memorial in St. Paul’s, since joined by a public memorial outside the Ministry of Defence, with a further memorial in the National Memorial Arboretum.
A member of the audience suggested that Roger’s talk might fruitfully be sent to the present President of the United States. Sadly, we all know what happens when the warnings from history are ignored.
Family history
We have transferred the main part of our Archive to the Herefordshire Archive and Record Centre, which is also the main port of call for those researching family history. Some of our parish records can be accessed via this link
Committee members :
Roger Davies (Chairman)
Teresa Squires (Secretary)
Nic Walker (Treasurer)
Valerie Boxley (Outings Secretary)
Pamela Bruce