Whether your interest in history is personal, academic, or just a more general desire to find out how our forebears 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 May meeting is going to give us insight into a technical subject which was one of the “secret weapons” of the Second World War, but now has civilian uses ranging from aviation to speed enforcement on our roads. Radar was first developed by Scottish scientist Robert Watson-Watt, and early work took place at Orford Ness, the site which was one of the places discussed in our April talk (see below).
Programme 2026
| 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 April meeting
Our Secretary Teresa Squires, gave us a fascinating insight into the work of the National Trust. She was General Manager of a wide variety of properties in the East of England region.
These varied from the late medieval Oxborough Hall, a moated manor house complete with priest hole, through to the eerie Cold War structures on Orford Ness. There were also sites of special scientific interest such as Dunwich Heath, a medieval Guildhall where Shakespeare almost certainly “trod the boards”, and the fascinating house in Wisbech which was the home of a Quaker merchant and banker.In more recent times, the National Trust has become ensnared in controversy, but there can be no doubt that millions of people every year are able to experience history as it was lived by both “ordinary” people living quiet and hidden lives, and the great and good of our land. Many of her listeners will have been quite envious of the fact that Teresa and Paul were actually able to live in two of the properties that she managed!
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)
Pamela Bruce