This spring's Medieval Studies Forum meeting will be themed around Medieval Houses and take place on Saturday 22 March at East Horsley Village Hall.

The programme has not been finalised, but will include the following talks:

'West Horsley Place' by Martin Higgins (Surrey Domestic Buildings Research Group)

'High Bank, West Horsley, dating from 1375' by Brigid Fice (Surrey Domestic Buildings Research Group)

'Buildings researched and documentary records' by Jeremy Clarke

A workshop has been arranged at St Andrew's Church, Cobham to provide practical guidance on spotting and recording graffiti as an initial step in developing a project to record graffiti in Surrey's churches and perhaps other buildings. In addition to the practical sessions there will be a talk and tour of the church by Dr David Taylor.

For details of the day and to register your interest please contact Anne Sassin via outreach@surreyarchaeology.org.uk

The Medieval Studies Forum will be hosting a full study day devoted to pottery studies, looking at its historical, technical, social and economic aspects. The interesting programme covers a wide range of topics and will include a tribute to Steve Nelson, a member of the Society and the Forum who contributed a great deal to the study of Medieval Pottery. 

The programme has been finalised and is attached (as well as copied below). The cost of the day is £12. Payment can be made through PayPal or by cheque, which can be sent to the Society at the address indicated. 

In recent years, the early inscriptions and carved artworks in churches have become the subject of large-scale surveys, not least for the fascinating pictures which are represented - heraldic designs, word puzzles, ships, architectural plans, figural scenes and cartoons, etc - and the insight they shed on the artists themselves. This online study day will look at recent studies of medieval graffiti in both Surrey and Kent, focusing not only on some of the captivating scenes which have been discovered, but the methodologies involved in undertaking such work.

As part of the Sustainable Impact project, the Medieval Studies Forum are organising a study day for Saturday 14 March at Surrey History Centre which will centre around the medieval landscape and some of the less obvious and more specialist forms of research, including the use of primary documentary sources, name studies and non-settlement based landscape archaeology.

The programme for the day will include a number of informative talks:

10:00    Intro

10:10    Dr Mark Forrest, Dorset Record Society 'Using manorial documents for local history research'

The Juniper Hall Field Studies Centre is hosting a land snail identification course. The course is being run by Dr June Chatfield and is open to all ability levels. It is a weekend of searching for land snails on the North Downs and identifying them. This subject is of use to both environmentalists and archaeologists.

Full details are on the attached pdf

Led by Elvin Mullinger (SyAS). The advanced follow-up course will run from 10:00-16:00 and be either Saturday 7 March or Wednesday11 March. The venue is at the Abinger Research Centre (Hackhurst Lane, Abinger Hammer RH5 6SE). 

Led by Carl Raven (Liss Archaeology), this one-day course will take place on Friday 29 March from 10:00-15:00 at the Abinger Research Centre (Hackhurst Lane, Abinger Hammer RH5 6SE). 
This is a detailed overview introductory course on using the free Snuffler geophysics software for processing of both magnetometry and resistivity data, but will also cover theory and methods in undertaking geophysical surveys.

Led by Jane Lewis (Surrey Heritage) and Nowal Shaikhley (SCAU), this one-day course will take place on two separate occasions (Tuesday 5 February and Saturday 16 February) from 10:30-15:30 at the Surrey History Centre (130 Goldsworth Rd, Woking GU21 6ND).  

Led by Jane Lewis (Surrey Heritage) and Nowal Shaikhley (SCAU), this one-day course will take place on two separate occasions (Tuesday 5 February and Saturday 16 February) from 10:30-15:30 at the Surrey History Centre (130 Goldsworth Rd, Woking GU21 6ND).