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 June meeting is something quite different. Clyde Hoare will create a piece of willow weaving, a skill thousands of years old. Clyde works and exhibits at the Wobage Makers Gallery near Linton. Willow is the ultimate “green” material with an inexhaustible supply. Our grandmothers would all have had a wicker shopping basket, every office had a wicker wastepaper basket, but it was also used for other agricultural and domestic purposes. This promises to be a fascinating evening.
Programme 2026
| 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 May meeting
Mike Burstow of the Malvern Radar and Technology History Society ironically had to face technical hitches before he could begin his talk. Once these were overcome, a near capacity audience with several visitors joining members were treated to the story of “how World War 2 was won on the playing fields of Malvern”.
At the outset of the war, Britain was already in possession of a rudimentary radar system, largely thanks to the foresight of scientists and military leaders in setting up the Chain Home detection system. This gave warning of enemy aircraft taking off, so that our very scarce fighter plane resources (not for nothing celebrated as “The Few”) could be best deployed.
In 1942, the Malvern Radar research establishment was set up, and became home to 2,000 scientists at first; by the end of the war, 3,000 were working there. Under the inspired leadership of A.P. Rowe, whose collaborative style was exemplified by his idea of “Sunday Soviets”, meetings where anyone could volunteer ideas unhampered by militaristic ideas of rank and hierarchy, new developments included the development of HS2, ground scan radar which led to a great improvement in accuracy of bombing.
With the development of longer range aircraft, microwave radar could also be used at sea for the detection and destruction of U-boats. The Battle of the Atlantic was completely turned by this from the low point of 1942 when well over 1,000 ships were lost. By 1944, as many U-boats as ships were being sunk.
Joan Strothers’ work on strips of metal-coated paper was to prove critical to the deception practised on D Day. She worked out that if these strips were dropped at precise intervals, German radar would “see” them as approaching targets. 617 Squadron was tasked with dropping bundles of this material, known as “window”, in a carefully-designed pattern to mimic shipping approaching the French coast but well away from the real invasion sites.
It was not until VJ Day that the secret of radar was revealed to the British public, and praised as one of the deciding factors in Allied victory.
The Society’s museum in Malvern can be found at Station Approach WR14 3AU, with details on Facebook “The Technology Station”. Open every Wednesday afternoon and Saturday morning April – October.
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