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Meeting Location

Furzebrook Village Hall, Furzebrook Road, Wareham, BH20 5AR

https://maps.app.goo.gl/uaQgNVm2rLutPRvZ7

2024 – 25 meeting schedule

18 Sept 2024

‘Stonehenge’ – What’s new? A decade of science and speculation’

AGM and talk by Julian Richards

In this talk archaeologist Julian Richards will look back on the last decade of research that has taken place at Stonehenge and its surrounding landscape. Discoveries have come and gone, claims to have ‘re-written the prehistory textbooks’ have proved to be unfounded and there are aspects of Stonehenge that still remain a wonderful mystery.

16 October 2024

The Portable Antiquities Scheme and the Treasure Act 

Ciorstaidh Hayward Trevarthen

An introduction to the Portable Antiquities Scheme with examples and highlights from the finds recorded in Dorset.

20 November 2024

A New Causewayed Enclosure for Dorset

Edrys Lupprain

An excavation in the Tarrant valley revealed that a possible Iron Age feature was, in fact, an Early Neolithic causewayed enclosure. The story of its discovery and the importance of the site is explored in this lecture.

4 December 2024

New Investigations into the Cerne Giant

Nance Grace

You think you know it all? Think again:  Every year new information comes to light.

Our Christmas night. Celebrate Christmas with a mince pie and drink, there will also be a raffle.

15 January 2025

Corfe Castle – ‘Earthing up the Butavant’

Pam White

A phase in the 1282 Liberate Rolls of Edward I sets yet another puzzle in understanding the castle. Excavations have revealed a little, building archaeology some more, but combine with the written word and an intriguing picture begins to emerge of the castle past and present.  

19 February 2025

The Princess and the Slave: A tale of two women in Iron Age Dorset

Dr Martin Smith

This talk focuses on the burials of two individuals; both are women who died at a relatively young age, but who appear to have lived both very different lives and to have been treated very differently after their deaths.   

19 March 2025

Mythmakers of Maiden Castle – Mortimer Wheeler and the end of the Iron Age Dorset

Dr Miles Russell FSA

This talk brings together recent findings on work reassessing Wheeler and his final season of excavations at the hill fort, presenting evidence about to be published next year.   

16 April 2025

The early industries of Purbeck: exploring Iron Age, Romano-British and early medieval industries in the southern Poole Harbour landscape.

Derek Pitman

This talk will present results of a series of excavations and surveys in the area of northern Purbeck, including the work that recently appeared on Time Team. The project identified significant industrial activities and their impacts on the landscape as we know it today.  

21 May 2025

People and Places in Dorset during the English Civil War

Neil McLocklin

The English Civil War was one of most traumatic periods of our history. Neil McLocklin will explain how it impacted people in Dorset including the Bankes Family and their estates in the Purbecks and Kingston Lacy. He will draw on his research in writing  his books A Nation in Ruins and A Nation Beheaded