Lecture Programme 2022 - 23
Introducing the Birmingham & Warwickshire Archaeological Society Lecture Programme for 2022 – 2023. Our lectures are open to members and non-members alike.
Our lectures are FREE for members and members of affiliated societies. Members do not need to book tickets.
Non-member tickets are available for £5 (+booking fee). You will find links to book tickets on Eventbrite below.
All lectures commence at 7pm unless otherwise stated.
Attendees under 16 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. Children who are covered by a BWAS Family Membership must be accompanied by an adult from the same membership.
Tuesday 4th October 2022
A view from the planning department; recent work and future challenges for Birmingham’s historic environment
The talk will look at recent archaeological and conservation projects that have taken place in the city whilst looking ahead to future priorities and challenges that face Birmingham’s historic environment in a time of social, climate and economic change.
Speaker: Chris Patrick
Venue: University of Birmingham Guild of Students
This lecture has now taken place.
Tuesday 1st November 2022
Coleshill Hall, Moats and Gardens: wealth, treason, war and pleasure
A talk on Warwickshire’s answer to Hampton Court Palace
Between 2018 and 2022, Wessex Archaeology have carried out extensive excavations within the original grounds of Coleshill Hall, between the M6 in the south and the M42 in the north.
Archaeologists discovered a nationally significant site which contained the best-preserved 15th & 16th century gardens ever found in the UK and remains of the Coleshill Hall, moats, and gatehouse.
Speaker: Stuart Pierson
Venue: University of Birmingham Guild of Students
This lecture has now taken place.
Tuesday 6th December 2022
The 12th-century church and sculpture at Ansley, Warwickshire, and its context
The church of St Laurence at Ansley in north Warwickshire typifies many ordinary rural churches of the twelfth century in its context, plan and form, but in the chancel there survives an unusual and not readily paralleled sculpture. The church has previously been dated to mid-late twelfth century, but it is here proposed that this should be revised to much earlier in the century. The context, patronage, and development of the twelfth century church will be discussed and the iconography and significance of the sculpture considered. It will be suggested that it combined generic and more specific meanings and reflects Saxo-Norman influence.
This lecture will be preceded by the Annual General Meeting.
Speaker: Dr John Hunt
Venue: University of Birmingham Guild of Students
This lecture has now taken place.
Tuesday 10th January 2023 (12pm - 2pm)
Discovering Architecture in Black Country. Writing a Pevsner volume covering the West Midlands conurbation.
This talk by Andy Foster covers the Pevsner architectural guide to Birmingham and the Black Country, including parts of ancient Worcestershire such as Dudley, Stourbridge, Halesowen and some of the Birmingham suburbs. He will talk about writing the book and some of the buildings he discovered.
Speaker: Andy Foster
Venue: Birmingham and Midlands Institute
This lecture has now taken place.
Tuesday 7th February 2023 (12pm - 2pm)
Roman Warwick
We are proposing a presentation centring on Roman Warwick, which, up to this point there has been relatively scant evidence for. Archaeology Warwickshire have excavated two sites within Warwick and a third very close by which all have varying scales of Roman occupation.
Speaker: Matthew Jones
Venue: Warwick Quaker Centre
This lecture has now taken place.
Tuesday 7th March 2023
Re-thinking the bog bodies of later prehistoric Europe: evidence for trauma and physical injury in context
Bog bodies are the preserved remains of humans found in peat bogs. Whilst examples have been found from a broad range of periods, those dating to later prehistory have drawn the most attention. One of the reasons for this is signs of trauma, often interpreted as evidence of human sacrifice. This talk will examine the physical injuries displayed on later prehistoric bog bodies, and will consider the extent to which these support such interpretations. It will also consider the context of the bodies, as ‘scenes of crime’ to understand the final moments of these individuals and to determine whether there are patterns in the macabre behaviours during the period.
Speaker: Professor Henry Chapman
Venue: University of Birmingham Guild of Students
This lecture has now taken place.
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Journey Underground: Festival of Archaeology 2022
Date: 29 July
Times: 11am - 4pm
Location: Weoley Castle
Join Birmingham Museums for their Festival of Archaeology Open Day to discover what lies in the soil beneath your feet!
The ruins of Weoley Castle are over 750 years old, making it one of the oldest buildings still visible in Birmingham.
Regionally important archaeological finds have been discovered in the grounds making it the perfect site to explore this fascinating subject.
Drop-in to various activities throughout the day:
- Join walking talks around the site with Mike Hodder, former Birmingham City Archaeologist at 11.30am and 2pm. Space on the walks is limited and will be offered on a first come first served basis.
- Take part in a play dig giving children a chance to excavate hidden remains!
- Get hands on with replicas of Medieval objects and learn how the occupants of Weoley lived.
- People have journeyed from all over the world to settle in Birmingham, find out where the owners of the Ruins came from.
- Meet local archaeologists to learn more about their work.
- See archaeological finds from the site back on display at the Ruins for the first time in over 15 years!
Pre-booking is required, book tickets here
Access to the event is 11am - 4pm and you can stay as long as you like within this period.
Suitable for adults and families.
This event takes place outdoors and on uneven ground, suitable footwear and clothing is advised. Please note there are toilets facilities on site but no café.
This event is presented as part of the CBA Festival of Archaeology.
HS2 & LM: Coleshill Park Archaeology Open Day
Dates: 2nd & 3rd July 2022
Times: Multiple time slots available
Location: B46 1DP
We are excited to offer you the opportunity to visit a live archaeology site and speak to archaeologists who have been working on the site for years! You will be guided around the remains of a Medieval gatehouse while hearing the latest instalment of the Coleshill Park archaeology story. The tours also offer the chance to see what a live archaeological site looks like – maybe a future career in archaeology awaits you!
The excavations started in 2018 when Wessex Archaeology began investigating the fields around Coleshill Hall in preparation for the route of HS2. By 2021 archaeologists had uncovered Bronze Age burnt mounds, Iron Age and Romano-British settlements, medieval moats, a manor house and even the remains of a formal garden from the Elizabethan period. Wessex Archaeology has returned to the site this year to investigate the remains of a medieval gatehouse next to Coleshill Hall.
Archaeologists will be on hand to showcase their latest findings and chat through their work.
Find out more and book tickets
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Summer Picnic 2022
Date: 13 August
Time: 11am - 3pm
Location: Weoley Castle
We look forward to welcoming you to Weoley Castle for the Birmingham & Warwickshire Archaeological Society's Summer Picnic!
Please arrive from 11am if you would like to join the tour of Weoley Castle Ruins. This will take place at 11:30am. We will then have exclusive use of this stunning heritage site until 3pm.
Please bring your own picnic (there is no cafe on site) and picnic blanket. As ever, please also prepare for the weather on the day!
We hope that this will be a great opportunity for you to meet some of the trustees and get to know other members. We would love you to bring a long a friend or two who might be interested in joining the Society too.
This event is completely free.
Shop And Give For Free!
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2022 Summer Excursion
Introducing the Birmingham & Warwickshire Archaeological Society Summer Excursion for 2022.
Our trips are open to members and non-members alike.
We start in Radway, under the Edgehill escarpment, a settlement perhaps best known for its connection to the adjacent Civil War battlefield. We will be guided round the village. Medieval in origin, the settlement shifted away from the medieval church, which was demolished and relocated in the 19th century. A Civil War Exhibition has been established in this small church, which also houses the Kingsmill monument, commemorating a casualty of the conflict.
It is a short walk to the site of the Old Church and churchyard, which has been the focus of recent research, and contains several listed headstones, as well as the Miller family vault. From there it is a short walk to King John’s Lane, an historic territorial boundary, and then the excursion will ramble through the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust wild flower meadows to Westcote DMV, sited on the spring line under the escarpment. Lamented by Rous in the 15th century, it has well-preserved earthworks. And refreshments, courtesy of Westcote Manor Farm.
A walk along the ridge, much quarried, takes one back to overlook the historic designed landscape of Radway Grange, created in the mid 18th century by Sanderson Miller, a precursor of “Capability” Brown. The Castle Inn at this famous viewpoint was a Miller “folly”, but has been an inn for many years. The pub, the woods and the collection of Edgehill tea rooms were the focus for Sunday outings from the late19th century to the mid-20th. The visit ends with a trip down the escarpment, back to Radway village.
The second part of the visit will be through farmland with some steep slopes.
Member Tickets: £10 + booking fee
Please be sure to wear sturdy shoes and please dress for the weather on the day.
Please contact us if you have any dietary requirements; tea/coffee/soft drinks and biscuits/cakes are provided as part of this excursion. Email: admin@bwas-online.co.uk
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News: Launch of New Books on the Soho Manufactory Sites and James Watt
Launch of New Books on the Soho Manufactory Sites and James Watt Main Lecture Theatre
Floor 1, Arts Building, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston B15 2TT
Saturday 9 April 2022 from 1.30pm
Find out more here: Soho and Watt Book Launch programme
Book now: Tickets
Lecture Speaker: Felix Schmid
Felix Schmid, PhD, CEng, FIMechE, FIRSE, FPWI
Felix Schmid graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich, Switzerland, with a master’s degree in electrical and electronic engineering. He worked for two years as a software analyst in Zürich and Solothurn, in the days of microcomputers with 32kb of RAM and 32kb of EPROM space. He then moved to GEC Traction (later to form part of Alstom) in Manchester, England, where he spent four years designing control systems for electric locomotives, at a time when sep-ex choppers were at the forefront of technology. Subsequently, he completed a one-year spell at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), studying the non-galvanic measurement of electrical power. From UMIST he moved to the University of Salford to work as a mechanical design engineer on a knowledge transfer project with a machine tool manufacturer, where he later took a part-time role as the control systems designer.
From Salford, Felix transferred to Brunel University in West London to teach Computer Integrated Manufacturing, a new subject at the time. He developed a new approach to engineering education that resulted in him being awarded a doctorate in engineering. After a year in Switzerland as a railway inspector, where he looked after ‘private’ railways in the francophone part of the country, he returned to Britain, intending to resume his post at Brunel. Serendipity intervened and brought him to the University of Sheffield where he was tasked with developing the MSc programme in Railway Systems Engineering. He also conducted research into railway control systems and created railway short courses for London Underground, Britain’s Railway Inspectorate and Bechtel.
Felix was appointed to a professorship at the University of Birmingham in 2005, with the remit to move the railway MSc programme to a new home. The programme, now with the addition ‘and Integration’ grew rapidly in its new home and gained a worldwide reputation. This spawned the development of a Master of Research programme and of a new MSc in Railway Safety and Control Systems, in collaboration with the University of York and funded by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation. At the University of Birmingham, Felix was based in the Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education (BCRRE), the largest railway focused research centre in the western world, where he was heavily involved in research into railway capacity and systems engineering.
Felix later led the postgraduate programme in Urban Railway Engineering for the Singapore Mass Rapid Transit Institute (SMRTi), from autumn 2016 to his retirement in June 2020. This programme had some 250 students in Singapore and Felix took a team of 15 academic staff from Birmingham to Singapore twice a year.
In February 2018, The University of Birmingham received a Queens Award for Higher and Further Education, an achievement of which Felix is very proud. In 2020-2021, Felix was the chair of the Railway Division of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Felix is still teaching at the University of Birmingham interested in railway technology and its history.
Lecture Speaker: Professor Henry Chapman
Professor Henry Chapman
Henry started his career with the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME) as a Landscape Investigator in the south-west, before taking up a post at the University of Hull as a researcher focusing on wetland archaeology. He completed a PhD whilst working at Hull, and developed a range of archaeological research projects, whilst also working commercially and for Channel 4’s Time Team. He subsequently moved to the University of Birmingham, initially within the Birmingham Archaeology field unit, leading the Visual and Spatial Technology Centre, before becoming an academic. He is currently researching the landscape archaeology of European bog bodies (LAEBB), Wildscapes (focusing on the landscape evolution of the Humberhead Levels), the re-interpretation of later prehistoric marsh-forts, and two projects in the Stonehenge landscape. He has published eight books and ninety research papers.
Lecture Speaker: Dr Tom Booth
Dr Tom Booth
Dr Tom Booth is a Senior Research Scientist in the Ancient Genomics Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute. He has a PhD in Archaeology and has spent the last 7 years working on various projects investigating the genetics of people who inhabited Britain over the last 10,000 years, exploring human evolution, migration, ancestry change and genetic relationships in the funerary record. He is currently working on a project at the Crick looking to create an ancient UK Biobank of whole genome data from at least 1000 individuals from Britain to continue to investigate genetic variation in the past, but also understand trajectories of medically-relevant genetic variants through time.