History group’s season kicks off
THE new season for Hungerford Historical Association (HHA) got off to a flying start recently.
It kicked off with a talk from Sarah Somerville, the visitor services officer for Shaw House, Newbury. Ms Somerville entertained members with tales from
400 years of history at Shaw House, the Elizabethan manor house built in 1581 for wealthy cloth merchant Thomas Dolman, on a site with homes dating back to 1042.
She explained that the ambitious ‘Prodigy House’, built in brick with many large glass windows, usually the reserve of royalty or the aristocracy in the Tudor period, made Shaw an unusual house for a merchant family, who were clearly demonstrating their wealth and aspirations.
The expenditure worked – Queen Elizabeth I, Charles I, Charles II, James I and Queen Anne all visited Shaw, along with large retinues of servants and courtiers.
The house was a Royalist
stronghold during the English Civil War.
The Second Battle of Newbury was fought at Shaw in 1644, which is when Charles I was likely to have stayed there.
In 1998, West Berkshire Council took control of the property, and a restoration programme ensued with backing and funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, Vodafone and English Heritage.
Below is the HHA programme for 2022-2023:
October 26: The Royal
Navy 1790-1815: the battle against Napoleon and the threshold of Empire by Harry Wrightson.
November 23: Resistance, Collaboration and Survival: Paris under German occupation 1940-44 by David Drake.
January 25, 2023: Bramshill, Hampshire: the mystery of its historical gardens and botanical paintings by Dr Ann Benson.
For more information visit the HHA website at www. hungerfordhistorical.org.uk