Talk

For about 2000 years there has been a bridge at the site of the present London Bridge and during that time London has grown from a small Roman bridge head and camp to be a world megalopolis. Until 1750 it was the only bridge in London and the next bridge over the Thames  was  upstream at Kingston. In fact , there have been a number of different structures on the site, each called London Bridge, and the talk will outline their story over two millannia.  The talk will be given by Doug Irvine, CivilEngineer.

The illustrated talk covers the history of the railways coming to Guildford in 1845 and its impact on the town to the various forms  of traction from steam to diesels and electrics of present day. A tremendous selection of unseen photographs will be included. The talk will be given jointly by David Rose, Local historian & writer and Geoff Burch, ex-railwayman and author.

In a change to the orginal programme Colin van Geffen, aviation artist & enthusiast, will give a talk about BEACHCOMBER, one of 760 Sunderland long-range patrol flying boats of which fewer than 10 survive world -wide. BEACHCOMBER's amazing story of survival against the odds holds many surprises.

Emma Corke, director of excavations at Cocks Farm Abinger, will update us on progress made during the 2022 summer excavation in the field adjacent to the villa. Whilst the villa was first identified in 1877 and further excavations by SyAS took place 1995-7 the most recent series of excavation commenced in 2009. Use of magnetometry has enabled the targeting of features which reflect the agricultural land usage relating to both the villa and earlier settlement.

Our final speaker for the 2022-23 winter series is David Rudling who will be talking about Roman coins and their use in Britain. David is Academic Director of the Sussex School of Archaeology and former Director of the University College London Field Unit. He specialises in Roman archaeology and is particularly known for his excavations of several major Roman villa sites in the South-East of England.

A site at Lightwater was dug by Geoff Cole for Surrey Heath Archaeology and Heritage Trust back in the 1980s. It was found to be an IA/RB site with good evidence for ironworking, still regarded as of more of local importance.

The Carausian revolt of AD 286–296 was a fascinating period in Roman history  during which Britain and northern Gaul were ruled by Carausius, a Roman naval commander, who declared himself emperor.

We are pleased to welcome Paul Booth who will talk about the Roman settlement at Dorchester on Thames. Although officially retired from Oxford Archaeology Paul is leading the post-excavation programme for the publication of the joint Oxford University Institute of Archaeology/Oxford Archaeology training excavation undertaken at Dorchester on Thames from 2008-2018. RSG visited the excavations in progress in July 2009.

This year the Roman Studies Group celebrates its 20th anniversary and we are pleased to celebrate this event with a talk by Joanna Bird on the Colchester Vase. This will take place prior to a short AGM. 

Cotswold Archaeology carried out excavations on the north side of Grange Road, Tongham between September and November 2020. This revealed a settlement enclosure and possible buildings dating to the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age transition, associated with an extensive series of rectilinear field boundaries.