Branch contact All enquiries to Mr Simon Kinder (Secretary) via email: norwichha@gmail.com

Venues: This varies. Our main venue is currently The Forum, Millennium Plain, Norwich, Norfolk, NR2 1TF. We are also exploring links with the UEA. In both cases, car parks are close to the venue.   

Associate membership £20 per year. Talks free to national HA members, associate members and students, visitors £10.

 

Norfolk & Norwich Programme 2026 - 27

 

 

Saturday 11^th July Guided Walk around Norwich’s Medieval Churches

Meet at 2.15 pm at the entrance to St Peter Mancroft Church in Norwich opposite the forum.

We will be treated to a guided walk of some of Norwich’s medieval churches led by two of the co-authors of Clare Haynes and Sandy Heslop, authors of ‘The Parish Churches of Medieval Norwich’.

 

Monday 21^st September The Tudors and the Wider World

Venue: The UEA. Talk begins 7 pm.

Join the UEA's Professor Jessica Sharkey for an exploration of the relationship between the Tudors and the wider world.

 

Saturday 10^th October The Wars of the Roses and their Norfolk connections

Venue: The View, The Forum, Norwich. Talk begins 2.30 pm.

Join Andy Johnson as he explores the latest thinking on the Wars of the Roses, including the Norfolk connections of the conflict.

Andy Johnson published his first book on the Wars of the Roses in 2025. He will enlighten us on some of the latest thinking on the conflict and explore Norfolk's connections to the Wars of the Roses.

 

Saturday 28^th November – The Norfolk connections D’Oyly Carte family of Gilbert and Sullivan fame

Venue: The View, The Forum, Norwich. Talk begins 2.30 pm.

Jim Stebbings will explore the fascinating story of the famous D’Oyly Carte family of Gilbert and Sullivan fame (and much more) to Norfolk; more specifically the fact that Richard D’Oyly Carte’s eldest son died in Kelling Sanatorium near Holt, which he himself had helped to establish. Previously he had been at Mundesley Sanatorium.

 

Saturday 23^rd January 2027 – Norwich's Victorian Commercial School(s)

Venue: The View, The Forum, Norwich. Talk begins 2.30 pm.

This talk by Dr Alan Metters considers the various alternatives to the traditional ‘grammar school’ and its predominantly ‘classical’ curriculum that the city of Norwich tried to develop during the Victorian period. It covers the so-called ‘Middle School’ that was set up alongside the King Edward VI Grammar School, together with further developments such as the Higher Grade School and its successors and then the Norwich Technical School, which was eventually housed in the magnificent new Technical Institute building (now part of the Norwich University of the Arts), with a plethora of other private initiatives. The crucial underlying question remains - what was, and is, the true purpose of (secondary) education and how should it be provided? It is a question that has still not been properly answered for England as a whole.

 

Sunday 28^th February 2027 – A Tale of Two House – Blickling and Oxnead

Venue: The View, The Forum, Norwich. Talk begins at 2.30 pm.

Dr Victor Morgan will discuss the history of two of north Norfolk's most interesting country houses at Blickling and Oxnead.

 

Tuesday 9^th March 2027 - Curtain Raisers? East Anglian Motorcycle Sport Adventures in Cold War Eastern Europe

Venue: The UEA. Talk begins at 6.30 pm.

Twentieth century East Anglia was a vibrant hub for international motorcycle racing. Such sports as speedway, motocross, and motoball brought world champion riders and mysterious teams to the eastern counties. In the process, they embedded the region in a diverse network of provincial heartlands, from outback Australia and rural Scandinavia to Soviet Siberia. UEA’s ‘Racing in the East’ project explored East Anglia as host for such encounters, but racing also offered rare opportunities for East Anglian-based riders to travel through the Iron Curtain at the height of the Cold War. What did the pioneering Norwich Stars team make of 1950s’ communist Poland? Which challenges did the region’s riders face when venturing to the outer reaches of the USSR to partake in ice racing? How did a group of motorcycle enthusiasts from Harwich end up in 1980s’ Soviet Ukraine? And why were the Ipswich Witches among the first to witness the seismic impact of communism’s collapse across the former Eastern Bloc? Through archival research, fieldwork, press accounts, and testimony, this lecture by Dr Richard Mills sheds light on a two-wheeled Cold War phenomenon.

 

Thursday 27^th May 2027 - Language and Society in Norwich (1500-1750)

Venue: The UEA. Talk starts at 6.30 pm.

In early modern Norwich, four languages, English, Dutch, French, and Latin were used in various social domains. In this talk, Professor Christopher Joby examines how we can study society in Tudor, Stuart and early Georgian Norwich through the lens of practices associated with varieties of these languages.

 

Saturday 12^th June 2027 - Earlham Hall: A New Landscape History

Venue: The UEA. Talk begins at 2 pm with an optional walk to follow at 3 pm.

Earlham Hall is a well-known landmark on the University campus, and the hall and its landscape have a long history stretching back into the medieval period. Recent research has uncovered important new archival material about the architectural history and landscape of the Hall, as well as its inhabitants. This talk by Dr Sarah Spooner (starting at 2 pm) will cover these new findings, as well as the wider context of country houses in Norfolk. It will be followed by an optional walk (starting at 3 pm) around the designed landscape, using historic maps and archaeology to uncover the history of the landscape.

 

Wednesday 14^th July 2027 – Historical tour of King's Lynn

Venue: Meet at 10.30 am at the Tourist Information Centre, Town Hall, Saturday Market Place, King's Lynn.

Join Dr Paul Richards for a walk around King's Lynn from Saturday Market Place to Tuesday Market Place exploring some of the historical highlights of one on Norfolk's most interesting towns.