Romsley & Hunnington History Society -

Programme 2019-20

Our meeting season for 2019-2020:

Autumn 2019

• 11 September - Bromsgrove Town Walk - Visit Report
  
  
• 24 September - Edmund Lay - Wartime Memories  Speaker: Family Of Edmund Lay Meeting Report
  
  
• 22 October - The Longbow and the Men That Used It  Speaker: Alan Harvey Meeting Report
  
  
• 26 November - An Amble Around Gloucestershire  Speaker: John Billingham  Meeting Report
  
  

Spring/Summer 2020

• 25 February - Tyntesfield Speaker: Derek Clarke  Meeting Report
  
  
• 24 March - The English Civil Wars In The Areas Around Dudley/Halesowen Speaker: Margaret Bradley
  
  
• 28 April - King John: The Worst Or Most Useful King? Speaker: Max Keen
  
  
• 26 May - The Blue Bird Toffee Factory Speaker: Julian Hunt, plus AGM
  
  
• 23 June - The Mayflower Speaker: Paul Harding & Helen Lee
  
  
• 28 July - Beer, Bets & Bull-Baiting Speaker: Mary Bodfish

Meetings start at 7.30pm at Romsley Church Hall. For more details please contact Paul Share (Chairman) on 01562 710197. See also additional events below.

Click the links to read reports from the 2018 AGM and other meetings during the 2018-19 season.

For other local history events see What's on in Worcestershire, compiled by the Worcestershire Local History Forum.

Annual General Meeting 2015

On Tuesday, 26th May 2015, the Romsley and Hunnington History Society held its 49th Annual General Meeting in the Church Hall. Paul Share, the Chairman, reported that the Society now had 51 members and continued to flourish. There have been various meetings and activities throughout the year and our President, Julian Hunt, has worked tirelessly in his quest to research the history of the area. The Wills and Court Rolls projects have progressed well and Julian has also made a valuable financial contribution to the Society from the many lectures he has given.

Paul thanked June Humphreys for all her hard work as Secretary to the group over the past 22 years. June is retiring but will continue as Website Co-ordinator. The Society owes both June and her late husband, Eric, a debt of gratitude for all their help. Koviljka Riley will now take on the role of Secretary and Robert Andrews will now be responsible for booking speakers. There is a very interesting programme of talks for the next season.

Our Treasurer, Ruth Harper, reported that the finances of the Society were healthy and there was no need to increase the subscriptions. Jean Cockin is continuing her work interviewing local residengts and recording their memories. The Society has had a very successful year and is looking forward to the 2015-2016 season when it will celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the first meeting in 1966.

After the formal part of the proceedings David Eades gave a talk on "The Photographs and Postcards of Brian Green 1942-2003". Brian, with his camera, recorded the buildings, roads and canals of the area around Halesowen as they were in his lifetime. Do you realise that Halesowen once had three cinemas, two hospitals, and several chapels, all housed in beautiful buiildings and now sadly demolished? If there was any demolition or renovation Brian recorded the changes for prosperity. His photographs gave a very interesting view of Halesowen in the not too distant past.

We look forward to the presentation by Ruth Harper "Soggy Cabbage and Ink Stained Fingers" on Tuesday, 23rd June, in the school, which will be open at about 6.45 p.m., to allow people to look around. This is to celebrate the centenary of Romsley School. There will be an outing to the Carpet Museum, Kidderminster on Thursday, 2nd July and the Annual Dinner will be on Friday, 10th July, at Blakedown Golf Club. The first talk of the new season will be on Tuesday, 22nd September 2015. It will be a return visit by Paul Harding and Helen Lee, who will be giving a talk on "The Battle of Evesham". Everyone is welcome.

Pat Evans

Meeting Report - Kidderminster Carpet Museum

This year our Annual Outing took place on Thursday 2nd July. We visited the 'Museum of Carpet' in Kidderminster. We were greeted by Roger Mathews who used to work in the carpet industry. He began by asking us if we knew the connection between Romsley and Kidderminster and the answer was the River Stour, which flows through both places. The river played a vital role in the dyeing process of the wool used in the carpets. He then read a poem which he had written entitled "The Stour".

Carpet manufacturing began on a small scale with the weavers working on small hand looms, on the top floor of their cottages, where the light was good. As carpets became popular huge factories were built and at one time Kidderminster became the largest carpet town in the world.

We had demonstrations of weaving on a hand loom, a Wilton Loom, which could only use five colours and the breathtakingly complicated Axminster Loom which used many colours. This loom was like a huge monster, threaded up from spools of yard with all the colours of an artist's palette. With a flick of a lever the loom leapt into life with a rhythmic roar and amazingly all that energy produced an exquisite piece of carpet, patterned with roses on a black background.

The carpet workers and engineers had such wonderful skills and endured terrible noisy and dusty conditions in the factories, to produce carpets which were exported all over the world. Sadly, in recent years, the industry in Kidderminster has declined with the fashion for plain, tufted carpets and bare wooden floors! In its hey-day, after the war, there were 35 factories but now there are only 4 or 5 remaining.

The Museum of Carpet was opened about three years ago, run mainly by volunteers, to record the 300 years of carpet heritage in Kidderminster. We all had a thoroughly interesting and enlightening visit and walking on a carpet will never be the same again.

The next meeting will be on Tuesday 22nd September at 7.30 p.m. in the Church Hall, when Paul Harding and Helen Lea will give a talk on "The Battle of Evesham". Everybody is welcome.

Pat Evans