Hampshire Archives: Preserving the History of Today for Tomorrow
You don’t need to look far to see that we’re living in unusual times. However, not even COVID-19 can outlast history. Learn how Zoe Viney is helping to document the lives of everyday people like you for future generations.
How will future generations regard the Covid-19 pandemic and the way it changed our lives? Here in Hampshire, Zoe Viney of Wessex Film & Sound Archive based at Hampshire Record office in Winchester is helping to create a record of local life in lockdown through the project Making History: Making Movies.
In our latest episode she talks to Eleanor Andrews-Steele about her work curating historic film and invites us all to participate in the project by recording our personal experiences of the good, the bad and the boring aspects of life amid a pandemic. Submit your video clips, photographs or diary entries to the Archive and leave your mark for posterity. Find out how to submit here.
Zoe Viney
Zoë works as Curator of Film at Wessex Film & Sound Archive (WFSA), based in Winchester at Hampshire Record Office and is also a Postgraduate Research Student in Film at the University of Southampton.
Making History Making Movies
To find out more information on the Making History Making Movies project or where to submit your footage, click here.
Further Information and Additional Links
Wessex Film and Sound Archives is now run by Hampshire Record Office. They hold over 22,000 cinefilms and video recordings, and over 16,000 sound recordings. The collection includes items from a variety of sources, each offering a unique insight into the region’s past. To find out more about the Wessex Film and Sound Archive, click here
Chalk Talk: Hampshire's Prehistoric Ecosystem
Rivers, streams, and other bodies of water are the lifeblood for Hampshire’s wonderful natural resources. Join us as we discover their history and the challenging work to protect them in the modern age.
Rivers, streams, and other bodies of water are the lifeblood for Hampshire’s natural resources. In this episode Susan Simmonds explores their history and the challenging work to protect them in the modern age.
Why not listen as you take a walk along the banks of the River Itchen, if you do you will enter a magical world where otters play, mayfly dart, brown trout slip through the weeds and water vole peer from burrows. Winchester has its very own Wind in the Willows habitat!
Join us today as Susan Simmonds of the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust talks to Kyle Alexander about her work protecting and celebrating the county’s glorious chalk stream landscapes and where and when to spot the Itchen’s beguiling array of wildlife.
Susan graduated in Environmental Science, has a lifelong passion for wildlife and has worked in the conservation sector for Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust (HIWWT) for over 20 years. Susan is also a sessional lecturer at Sparsholt College on the Wildlife Ecology and Conservation degree and the Land & Wildlife Management Level 3 Diploma.
Susan has a Certificate to teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector (CTLLS) and enjoys passing on her knowledge through running training courses like plant species identification and mammal tracks and signs. This last year has provided an opportunity to explore online learning and Susan has delivered training courses, school, college and university sessions online, alongside making educational videos and running online clubs.
Kyle Alexander is a Creative Producer from London. He has developed multi-media content for BBC Radio, The Sunday Times and Universal Studios, Los Angeles. He maintains a passionate interest in British culture and heritage and has a Masters Degree in History from the University of Manchester. Kyle is currently living in Winchester, writing an issue of a new travel magazine, due to be released later this year.
FURTHER RESOURCES
Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust have been taking part in Winchester Heritage Open Days for a number of years now, and so we are delighted when we heard the news they have been accepted into the national Heritage Open Days project. You can discover more here, and we look forward to welcoming them back again for the 2021 festival.
If you want to learn more about what the Hampshire Wildlife Trust do, then you can follow them on various social media:
Facebook - @HampshireandIsleofWightWildlifeTrust
Instagram - @hantsiwwildlife
Twitter - @HantsIWWildlife or you can follow Susan on Twitter - @susanjsimmonds
Or you can have a look at their website and their YouTube Channel to engage in their wide range of videos.
Re-discovering our ancient and traditional heritage crafts
Dr Alex Langlands, a familiar face from the BBC Victorian Farm series, reveals how material foraged from our local landscape can be turned into practical and beautiful objects that connect us with the natural world.
Join us for a very special episode as we connect with nature and re-discover our incredible heritage and endangered skills in our hedgerows and beyond.
Archaeologist Dr Alex Langlands, presenter of the BBC’s Victorian Farm series, talks to Charlotte Tindle about his book Cræft and how, over centuries, we humans have learnt to use the natural materials around us to practical ends, from whittling wood or spinning wool to smoking fish and meat. Working with nature can help us engage with our local landscape in a more meaningful way, as he reveals in his new YouTube videos on the art of basket-making using wild hedgerow brambles.
Dr Alex Langlands is currently a lecturer in medieval history, archaeology and heritage at Swansea University, and a patron of the Heritage Crafts Association. He presented the BBC programmes Victorian Farm, Edwardian Farm and Wartime Farm and is the author of Craeft: An Enquiry into the Origins of Crafts.
FURTHER RESOURCES AND A CALL TO ACTION!
For more information on Dr Langlands work visit www.alexlanglands.wordpress.com or follow him on Twitter.
To learn more about endangered heritage crafts, and the work that is happening to safeguard craft skills and knowledge for the future visit the Heritage Craft Association. Throughout Covid-19 lockdown they have been hosting some great online events for FREE.
Thank you
The original recording of this podcast was produced for the 2020 Winchester Heritage Open Days by a small team of students at the University of Winchester. We would like to thank again Charlotte Tindle, who led the student team and of course also Dr Alex Langlands for helping create this wonderful episode.
It's time for Season Three!
Join Hampshire Histbites’ very own Nicky Gottlieb and Becky Brown as they talk about their incredible team who make HistBites possible, future podcasts and the 2021 Heritage Open Days festival.
Reflecting on the HistBites journey, and our edible plans for 2021
HistBites is the brainchild of Nicky Gottlieb and Becky Brown, the festival directors of Winchester Heritage Open Days.
In this specially commissioned episode to introduce Season Three they talk to Emma Cornell Stoffer about their favourite podcasts so far, ranging from the colourful history of vintage King Alfred buses to the sometimes gory stories behind our popular sea shanties.
More exciting podcasts are planned. Look out, they say, for episodes covering Hampshire chalk streams, Florence Nightingale and the Chesil Railway-not to mention a mouthwatering schedule of events for Winchester’s 2021 Heritage Open Days celebrating Edible England.
Nicky Gottlieb and Becky Brown first met in the late autumn of 2017, following the inaugural Winchester Heritage Open Days festival. Since then they have become great friends as they have worked in partnership organising and promoting Heritage Open Days events in and around Winchester, as well as setting up Hampshire HistBites in 2020.
They have also founded a brand new charitable Trust - Hampshire History Trust - to oversee their work, and to develop new community projects across Hampshire.
They could not have done any of this though without the support and assistance of their amazing team of volunteers including the fabulous Emma Cornell-Stoffer who interviews them in this episode. They are also immensely grateful to sponsors Winchester College and Winchester BID.
Further Information And Additional Links:
If you enjoyed this podcast, why not listen to some of our earlier episodes, they can all be found here.
If you would like to find out more about the new charitable Trust - Hampshire History Trust - visit the new website.
And if you want to get involved with the festival and/or podcast channel why not get in contact with us.
In Plain Sight: The Treasures all Around Us!
Guest hosts, Catherine and Madelaine, discuss those heritage treasures that are apart of our everyday life but hidden in plain sight!
Join us for our final podcast of Season Two, a delightful conversation about the Twitter postbox challenge with this week’s guest hosts, Madelaine and Catherine.
During previous and current lockdowns they have been able to get out and walk in their respective neighbourhoods, and on those walks have noticed everyday objects and details that might normally be missed. For example, Catherine spotted various door knockers and Madelaine started photographing boot scrapers outside front doors. By photographing these items, not only did it add interest to their daily walks but they were able to spot differences and fashions. A tweet by Winchester Heritage Open Days about the only Edward VIII postbox in Winchester set them off photographing post-boxes and posting them on Twitter with the hashtag #PostboxChallenge
In this lovely podcast they share some stories from their walks and the challenge.
Further Information and Additional Links:
If you enjoyed this podcast, give this episode on the Handwritten Letters Appreciation Society a listen from Season 1!
You can find Madelaine and Catherine on Twitter.
The Postal Museum has more information if you want to learn more about the various letter boxes or how to spot a royal cypher.
And if you want to go exploring and join us on our #PostboxSaturday journey, you can enter your postcode into this interactive map to discover the postboxes in your area and go looking. Have fun (and stay safe)!
This is our final podcast of Season Two - we are now going to take a short break to prepare Season Three. We will be back on 3rd March, but until then you can listen again (and again) to all our podcasts from Season One and Two, as well as enjoy our films and recorded talks from last year’s Heritage Open Days festival. Find out more here.
Creating stories and treading the boards with 2TimeTheatre
Join Cecily and Rachel as they share their passion for dramatising the stories of Hampshire's ‘unheard, unsung and unvisited’
William Shakespeare, Jane Austen and Sir Walter Raleigh are among the host of characters with local connections whose Hampshire lives and adventures have been brought to life by Rachel and Cecily O’Neill. Here they discuss the joys and challenges of using words and music to stage the stories of these and a host of other fascinating characters in churches, halls and other venues around Winchester and Southampton.
2TimeTheatre is a young and innovative Hampshire theatre company that works with local talent and tiny budgets to revitalise the work of long dead writers as well as producing brilliant original work telling the hidden stories of women. The photographs below are from their 2018 performance of the world premiere of ‘Sir Walter’s Women’
Cecily O’Neill
Cecily is the founder and director of 2TimeTheatre.
Adaptations for 2TimeTheatre include Meeting Miss Austen, Winchester Festeival 2017, and Venus and Adonis, Winchester Festival 2016. She had Jane Austen and The Waterman, co-written with Philip Glassborow, performed October 2017.
Cecily works extensively in theatre and is the author of a number of influential books on drama education, including Drama Words (1995). Children’s fiction includes Miss Macdonald had a Zoo (1991) and Tim and the Wolf (1986), both published and broadcast by the BBC. Her recent production, A Fruitful Season: Keats in Winchester, was staged in July 2019.
Rachel O’Neill
Rachel O'Neill is managing director of 2TimeTheatre. Since graduating in Drama, she has had an extensive career in marketing and communications across a range of industries from dance label Gee Street Records to online giant AOL.
Rachel has attended several play-writing courses including those run by Angie Street, Amy Rosenthal and Shaun McCarthy. Her work includes Playing with Clouds, co-written with Sian Radinger, and Sir Walter's Women, directed by Alice Kornitzer, which received its premiere at The Great Hall in Winchester, 14 & 15 September 2018. Her most recent play, Tilly and the Spitfires, was performed at the NST City Space as part of the Make It SO Season, 2019.
Want to discover more?
Watch 2TimeTheatre in production today by visiting their video gallery, they are also on twitter @2timetheatre
Continuing our quest to discover Mary I's connections to Winchester and beyond
Mary I made history when she became Queen of England, yet little of her life has been interpreted at Wolvesey Castle and Hampton Court Palace, where some of her life changing moments occurred.
Welcome to part two of Johanna Strong’s episodes exploring Mary I’s life. In this one we discover Mary I’s connections to two English landmarks - Wolvesey Castle in Winchester, and Hampton Court Palace in Surrey. Both sites observed major moments in her life, namely marriage and expected childbirth.
Content Warning - This episode contains a sensitive topic that some people may find uncomfortable. It concerns phantom pregnancies. If you wish to avoid this section, skip between 11:15 and 15:18.
In 1553, Mary I succeeded Edward VI to the throne and in doing so made English history by being the first crowned queen regnant of England – that is, she was queen in her own right. As a result, many important events in her life as queen were historical firsts for England. Never before had a queen regnant in England been married during her reign and never before had an English queen regnant taken to her chambers to give birth. Yet little of her life has been interpreted at either of the sites which saw some of these historical firsts.
In this episode Johanna digs a little deeper into why Mary isn’t included in the larger narrative of;
Wolvesey Castle - photograph taken by and copyright to Johanna Strong.
Wolvesey Castle, once one of the greatest medieval buildings in England and Winchester’s second castle. It is where Mary stayed before her wedding to Philip II of Spain and also where their wedding banquet was held. The ruins are now owned by English Heritage, and you can visit throughout the year. Find out more here.
Hampton Court Place, the home of Mary’s father Henry VIII. It is where Mary had her ‘lying-in’ in 1555. The place is now run by Historic Royal Palaces, find out more here.
Further information: To hear more about Johanna’s research, follow her Instagram @_johanna.strong_, her Twitter @jo_strong_, or email her where she’d be happy to answer any and all questions about her research!
For more on Mary and Philip’s wedding and marriage, look out for Johanna’s chapter “Happily Ever After?: Elizabethan Representations of Mary I and Philip II’s Marriage” in Valerie Schutte and Jessica S. Hower’s edited collection ‘Writing Mary I: History, Historiography, and Fiction’, due to be published in late 2021
Primary Sources for Podcast [please contact us for details of secondary sources]
Holinshed, Raphael et al. The Firste [Laste] Volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande Conteyning the Description and Chronicles of England, from the First Inhabiting Unto the Conquest : The Description and Chronicles of Scotland, from the First Original of the Scottes Nation Till the Yeare of our Lorde 1571 : The Description and Chronicles of Yrelande, Likewise from the First Originall of that Nation Untill the Yeare 1571 / Faithfully Gathered and Set Forth by Raphaell Holinshed. London: 1577.
http://english.nsms.ox.ac.uk/holinshed/texts.php?text1=1577_5331
Mary I in 1544, nine years before she took the throne. Painting downloaded from WikiMedia Commons, first painted by Master John
The chronicle of Queen Jane, and of two years of Queen Mary. Edited by J. G. Nichols. London, 1850.
Wolvesey Castle (Old Bishop’s Palace). English Heritage. https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/wolvesey-castle-old-bishops-palace/
History of Wolvesey Castle (Old Bishop’s Palace). English Heritage. https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/wolvesey-castle-old-bishops-palace/history/