History

Additional Bromsgrove Society online talk added to conclude the season

The Bromsgrove Society moved their season of talks online to continue to hold them through the past year, and the move has turned out to be a huge success.

Audience numbers have reached, and exceeded, 120 viewers for the Tuesday night talks which focus on aspects of local history. The varied talks have covered topics such as Milestones and Waymarkers, the history of the Bromsgrove Court Leet, the Bromsgrove Guild, Big Bertha, the development of the Charford housing estate and most recently the Lives and Legacy of Freddy and Mary Charles. Most of the talks are available to view on the Bromsgrove Society’s YouTube channel – so don’t worry if you’ve missed them.

To conclude the successful season local historian and Bromsgrove Society member Julian Hunt has agreed to give a talk about L T C Rolt, the railway and canal preservation pioneer. Julian has recently undertaken a research project into the author of the famous book Narrow Boat, published in 1944. Rolt penned the book whilst moored at Tardebigge, the flight of locks we covered in the history section of last month’s Completely Bromsgrove.

Although an engineer by trade, Lionel Thomas Caswell Rolt was a prolific author, with biographies of major civil engineering figures Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Thomas Telford in his portfolio of publications. He was also a co-founder of the Vintage Sports Car Club and the Inland Waterways Association and the driving force behind the preservation of the Talyllyn Railway.

You can join the free talk to discover more about this fascinating character who cared about the preservation of heritage in many different areas. The talk will take place at 7.30pm on Tuesday 18 May online, via the Zoom platform. For details on how to register for a place to watch the talk visit www.bsoc.co.uk

LTC Rolt

by Jo Slade