Category: One Off

  • A Roman Villa in Fane Road Peterborough – HIAG talk

    At 7.30 pm Monday 25th January HIAG present an online talk on “A Roman Villa in Fane Road Peterborough – a community archaeology excavation”, with David Crawford-White, archaeologist.

    To join the talk please email hisimp.archaeology.group@gmail.com who will send you a link 2 days in advance. There is no charge for this event.

    David Crawford-White is a HIAG committee member. He was previously the Outreach and Learning Officer for Oxford Archaeology East, based at Bar Hill, a registered charity with a heritage and education focus that is mainly involved in pre-development excavations.

    Advert

    Part of David’s work was to support local communities and schools in learning more about their heritage and was involved in a range of Lottery supported projects based at Linton Village College, Abbey College, Ramsey and Wisbech. He also wrote part of the very successful Jigsaw Community project which was a five-year Heritage Lottery Funded project (2011-2016) by Oxford Archaeology East and Cambridgeshire County Council to assist local history and archaeological societies in historical research, excavation, artefact identification, recording, and much more. 

    As part of his work, David wrote and managed a successful £88k Heritage Lottery bid that included a community excavation of part of a Roman Villa in Peterborough. The Romans established the fortified town of Durobrivae in the first century AD, situated on Ermine Street, and produced a type of pottery known as Nene Valley colour-coated ware which has been found as far north as Hadrian’s Wall as well as in Histon and Impington!

    David will take us on a community archaeological journey from an idea to the realisation of a successful excavation that involved 129 local volunteers over a 20-day period. Perhaps a template for something similar in Histon & Impington in more normal times?!

  • The Life and Works of William Morris

    On Thursday 21st January 2021 at 7.30pm Fiona Rose will talk on The Life and Works of William Morris at the zoom meeting of the Histon and Impington Women’s Institute

    If you would like to attend this meeting please email sophie.howson@googlemail.com for the joining details. New members and visitors are welcome .

  • Virtual Winter Quiz

    7.30pm on Friday 29th January HI Friends are holding a virtual quiz on zoom.

    To enter a team of up to 6 please contact Neil on 01223 232514 info@hifriends.co.uk who will send you all the details.

  • Choir 2000 on The Green

    Choir 2000 will be spreading some Christmas cheer Saturday 19th December on The Village Green. The open-air performance will start from 12.30pm for a 45 minute session

  • The Big Bike Revival

    There is to be a FREE Dr Bike Repair Session on the village green on Friday 15th January 2021.

    Get your bike up and running again! Book a 30 minute slot then bring your bike along and their friendly mechanic will carry out an inspection, make necessary repairs and fit any minor necessary parts such as cables or innertubes. The mechanic will provide a report on your bike with recommendations for any further work required.

    Due to the current national restrictions the session will be strictly appointment only, there will be no bookings on the day. Please do not come to the session unless you have an appointment; this is to avoid potential mixing of households.

    Slots are available from 9 a.m. until 3.30 p.m. at the Village Green.

  • Make your own Christingle

    This year, there will be a combined service released to YouTube from 3pm on Christmas Eve.

    The Advent trail leads directly into the Christingle; on Dec 23rd the final Advent window will be the east window of St Andrew’s Church, Histon and between 4-7pm you will be able to collect a Christingle Pack complete with some gifts whether you have completed the Advent Window trail or not. The pathway will be lit with candles to guide you. 

    On Christmas Eve, The Christingle service will have many familiar elements to it and you will be able to take part fully at home, making your Christingle as you watch the service. There will be familiar faces, songs, carols, lighting of candles and as always, a story from Tim!

    Alongside the Advent windows, helping us walk towards Christmas are our Meet the Nativity films. Find those on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8gObe_QZlg0JiF-0bmiHlwEYYmlRs_Av or via the church website or fb page.

  • WI December 2020 meeting

    The Christmas meeting, including carols and readings will be held via ‘Zoom’ on 17 December 2020.

    Join the WI to make new friends and learn new things.

    email sophie.howson@googlemail.com for details of how to join.

  • Doorstep Carols

    Since Carols on the Green will not be happening this year, the Histon and Impington core team and street co-ordinators are inviting us to join with BBC Radio Cambridgeshire singing carols together on our doorsteps at 6pm on Wednesday 16th December.

    You can download the words of the carols and listen to them being broadcast on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire on 96.0FM and then join with the rest of the village in singing them on your doorstep.

  • Carols on the Doorstep

    The Histon and Impington core team and street co-ordinators are also inviting us to join a national carol sing with Premier Christian Radio on our doorsteps at 5.30pm on Sunday 20th December for about 15 minutes

    You can download the words of the carols and listen to them being broadcast on Premier Christian Radio (available online/app and on Freeview TV channel 725) and then join with the rest of the village in singing them on your doorstep.

  • The Black Death and later outbreaks of the plague in Cambridgeshire

    The speaker for the online meeting at 7.30 pm on Monday 11th January 2021 is Craig Cessford, Senior Project Officer, Cambridge Archaeological Unit.

    To join the talk please email us at hisimp.archaeology.group@gmail.com. We will send you a link 3 days in advance.There is no charge for this event

    Context: This talk was originally planned in the middle of 2019 as part of the HIAG series of ten talks for 2021 and was due to take place at Histon Baptist Church in March 2020. It had to be cancelled as part of the response to the pandemic. Little did most of us realise then how severe a pandemic in the 21st century could be for the country and the world. Clearly the subject of this talk maybe sensitive for many people but we hope the information and dialogue will be both interesting, helpful, and constructive.

    Biography: Craig Cessford has worked as a professional archaeologist for nearly thirty years, the last twenty of them in Cambridgeshire. He is currently a Senior Project Officer with the Cambridge Archaeological Unit and a co-investigator on the ‘After the Plague’ research project at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Craig has a particular interest in Medieval and later urban archaeology and has directed and published numerous local excavations, including the Grand Arcade, Old Divinity School and New Museums sites in Cambridge.

    Talk synopsis: The Black Death devastated Europe in the mid-14th century, killing 40-60% of the population. This included the town of Cambridge, and plague outbreaks continued to regularly strike the town until 1665/66. Historians have long used textual evidence to consider the impact of the Black Death and later plague outbreaks and archaeologists have also used a range of evidence. More recently the ability to detect and identify the ancient DNA of Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague, has revolutionised our understanding of this disease. Recent work by the After the Plague project has more than doubled the number of sites from the British Isles where Yersinia pestis has been identified. This work also represents the first time that Yersinia pestis linked to outbreaks of 1348/49-1665/66 has been identified from individual rather than mass burials. The talk will provide an overview of older work on the Plague in Cambridgeshire and current ancient DNA analysis.

    The Local Context: There was a population crash in Histon & Impington in the late medieval period (14th and 15th centuries.) A majority of the 75 test pits dug in Village gardens over the last 4 years show evidence of high medieval occupation (11th -13th centuries) but only half of these showed late medieval pottery sherds. This evidence fits with archival records from the period.  This must have been a time of shock and great social change.

    The poster: shows at the top a picture of a funeral of plague victims painted  in 14th century Tournai by Pierart dou Tielt; a photograph of the cemetery of the Hospital of St. John the Evangelist Cambridge during excavation in 2010; a small map of the spread of the plague; and a plague doctor in preventative costume – with the long beak for herbs etc to counter the smell of the plague – it was thought that the smell was the way the disease spread.