March 29, 2024
10:30 AM - 11:00 AM
The Clocktower, Market Place, St Albans
His Worship the Mayor, Mr Anthony Rowlands, will declare the re-opening of the Clock Tower for the season at a ceremony at 10:30am on Friday 29 March 2024. The purpose of the building, which was erected in about 1405, was to sound the beginning and end of the curfew every day, and to raise the alarm i the case of emergencies. For more about the long and varied history of the Clock Tower, visit the SAHAAS website.
April 9, 2024
7:45 PM - 9:00 PM
Marlborough Road Methodist Church and on Zoom
Gertrude Bell, described by one Arab tribesman as ‘Mashallah Bint ‘Arab’ (What a Wonder of God, a Daughter of the Arabs), travelled extensively in the Middle East and elsewhere. Dawn Chatty, Emeritus Professor in Anthropology and Forced Migration, will focus on Gertrude's experiences in Arabia during the Edwardian period (1901-1910), the Great War and its aftermath.
April 10, 2024
8:30 AM - 5:30 PM
Bury St Edmunds
Do join us on a Society outing to Bury St Edmunds where we'll be exploring the cathedral and remains of the large abbey.
April 16, 2024
7:45 PM - 9:00 PM
Marlborough Road Methodist Church and on Zoom
Prof. David Purdie, Fellow of Edinburgh University’s Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, traces the history of the Jacobite movement. It also tracks the 1745 campaign from its Highland origin to its military and indeed political demise at Culloden.
April 23, 2024
7:45 PM - 9:00 PM
Marlborough Road Methodist Church
Drawing on fresh research, Frank Iddiols and Jon Mein return to the topic of the canal to St Albans that was never built, and consider why this was so, who was for and who was against the expensive proposals, and the planned route of both the canal and the replacement railway service.
May 7, 2024
7:45 PM - 9:00 PM
Marlborough Road Methodist Church and on Zoom
Martin Holmes, a leading Oxford University academic, re-examines the reputation of Harold Macmillan, who despite the image he projected of a kindly image, was a strategic innovator, overseeing a stunning electoral victory in 1959, accelerating the process of decolonisation in Africa, and applying for UK membership of the EEC in 1961.
May 14, 2024
7:45 PM - 9:00 PM
St Saviour's Church, Sandpit Lane, St Albans
Professor Geraint John will discuss the arts and crafts movement of the latter part of the nineteenth century, which advocated a return to a simpler, more fulfilling society. This involved architecture, the decorative arts and the importance of beauty and craftsmanship, instead of mass production. The talk will take place in St Saviour's Church only,
May 21, 2024
7:45 PM - 9:00 PM
Marlborough Road Methodist Church and on Zoom
It is now generally accepted that the Bayeux Tapestry was produced in England, probably on Canterbury, and dates from the first decades after 1066. John Morewood, President of the St Albans & Hertfordshire Architectural & Archaeological Society, looks at some other fascinating aspects. How was it manufactured? Where are the embroidery errors? What restorations were made and how have these distorted our understanding of the story it portrays?