From September to April each year the Society arranges a series of talks held in Fowey, Bodinnick and Polruan. These are open to all and Members have free entry, (£10 for non members).
There will usually be one talk by Zoom.
To join, or to renew your Membership for 2024/25, please contact Kath Pearce on 07977 572268 or email FHHSociety@gmail.com
The programme of talks for 2024/25 is as follows;
All on Saturdays at 2pm.
14 Sept. From Travellers to Tourists, the Story of Pre-1914 Visitors to Cornwall. Louis Turner. Fowey Town Hall.
12 Oct. The Battle of Lostwithiel -1644, Parliament's Greatest Defeat. Tony Smith. Fowey Town Hall.
9 Nov. The Cornwall Memory Game. Merryn Threadgould. Fowey Town Hall.
There will be no talk in December
11 January. Daphne du Maurier's Cornwall. Lynn Goold Polruan Village Hall.
8 Feb. Tammy Blee's Cabalistic Agency - Cornish Witchcraft and Folklore. Jason Semmens. Fowey Town Hall.
8 March. Some Stories about Cornish Church Building with Special Reference to the Fowey Area. Joanna Mattingly. Fowey Town Hall.
12 April. Crossing the River - The History of the Fowey Ferries. Chris Bradish. Whitecross Village Hall
From Travellers to Tourists, the Story of Pre-1914 Visitors to Cornwall.
Date/Time: 14 September 2024 at 2pm
Venue: Fowey Town Hall
Cost: Free for members. Non members will be charged £10.
Contact: All enquiries to Hon. Sec, Kath Pearce, on 07977 572268 or via Ticket Tailor https://buytickets.at/foweyharbourheritagesociety/1369862
Louis Turner is writing a history of the Cornish tourist industry. In this talk he will tell the story of the early travellers who passed through us. These include an intrepid lady adventurer in the 1690s, Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens and Queen Victoria. With the coming of the railway, we started to see the arrival of families like Virginia Woolf's, coming for long summer holidays. Travellers had turned into tourists.
In this talk, Louis will discuss the places they visited, how they traveled, where they stayed, what they saw and what they thought of the Cornish. The picture is of travellers who marveled at Cornwall's rugged beauty, but were also aware of our mining prowess (trips down mines were part of an adventurous traveller's itinerary). Fishing villages were seen more as commercial sites than as today's picturesque destinations.
Louis lives in Falmouth, where he is a trustee of the Poly (Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society). Back in the 1970s, he wrote a book on the international tourist industry (Golden Hordes). After retiring back here (his wife is Cornish born) he discovered there is no proper history of this Cornish industry which is so important, technically successful, yet controversial. He has other lectures which cover the more recent story. He is happy to debate those who see the industry as a force which has destroyed Cornish culture.
The Battle of Lostwithiel 1644 - Parliament's Greatest Defeat
Date/Time: 12 October, 2pm
Venue: Fowey Town Hall
Cost: Free for members. Non members will be charged £10.
Contact: All enquiries to Hon. Sec, Kath Pearce, on 07977 572268 or via Ticket Tailor https://buytickets.at/foweyharbourheritagesociety/1369877
The Battle of Lostwithiel 1644 - Parliament's Greatest Defeat
In August 1644 Lostwithiel found itself at the centre of a bitter siege. Within six weeks this small town would be reduced almost to rubble, with buildings in flames and its population starving and disease ridden. In the streets and surrounding countryside hundreds lay dead and dying and thousands more were to die before a defeated Parliamentarian army reached relative safety. In this talk Tony Smith will describe the Battle of Lostwithiel, one of those much overlooked British battlefields and how it became King Charles I’s last major victory in the First English Civil War and Parliament’s greatest defeat.
Tony Smith has been a battlefield guide for some 15 years, regularly taking school tours to the battlefields of France and Belgium as well as family pilgrimages showing people the places where their ancestors fought and sometimes died. He is also a volunteer for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and regularly gives public talks about the Commission as well as leading tours around the cemeteries where war dead are buried.
The Cornwall Memory Game
Date/Time: 9 November 2pm
Venue: Fowey Town Hall
Cost: Free for FHHS members, £10 for non members.
Contact: All enquiries to Hon. Sec, Kath Pearce, on 07977 572268 or via Ticket Tailor https://buytickets.at/foweyharbourheritagesociety/1369879
The Cornwall Memory Game Talk: game creator and writer Merryn Threadgould selects a handful of Cornish stories to tell from the collection that appear in her memory game. From the internationally important Polperro fingerprint experiment to a marathon walking fishwife from Madron this jaunt through Cornwall's social history never fails to entertain.
Daphne du Maurier's Cornwall with Lynn Goold
Date/Time: 11 January, 2pm
Venue: Polruan Village Hall
Cost: Free for FHHS members, £10 for non members.
Contact: All enquiries to Hon. Sec, Kath Pearce, on 07977 572268 or via Ticket Tailor https://buytickets.at/foweyharbourheritagesociety/1369882
An illustrated talk about the author Daphne du Maurier, who wrote many novels and stories, set in Cornwall. The talk will look at her early life and some of the events and places that gave inspiration for her Cornish novels. Discover more about Cornwall and the countryside that Daphne loved so much and became a part of her life and was intrinsically woven into her work.
Lynn Goold was bought up in Par and Fowey, and qualified as a Blue Badge Tourist Guide. Lynn worked for 30 years in the Tourist Information Centre in Fowey. The countryside that Daphne wrote about has featured strongly in Lynn’s life and for many years she has led guided walks and given talks exploring Cornwall through Daphne’s novels.
Tammy Blee's Cabalistic Agency - Cornish Witchcraft and Folklore
Date/Time: 8 February 2025. 2pm
Venue: Fowey Town Hall
Cost: Free for members. Non members will be charged £10.
Contact: All enquiries to Hon. Sec, Kath Pearce, on 07977 572268 or via Ticket Tailor https://buytickets.at/foweyharbourheritagesociety/1369884
TAMMY BLEE’S CABALISTIC AGENCY
Belief in witchcraft has varied between places and times. In Cornwall, a body of evidence indicates that witches were viewed as a 'fifth column' in society who could 'ill wish' or curse, to the detriment of human and animal. Accusations of witchcraft usually followed a long period of misfortune or ill health. People would take their suspicions to their local Justice of the Peace, and if sufficient evidence was uncovered, the suspected witch would be committed to trial at the next Assizes.
This talk explores the historical reality of witch beliefs and folk magic in Cornwall, and along the way discusses some of the individuals caught up in such ideas: from malefactors to ‘white witches,' and folklorists and historians.
Originally from West Cornwall, Jason Semmens is the Director of the Museum of Military Medicine. He has a Master's degree in 'The History and Literature of Witchcraft' from the University of Exeter and has published widely on the subject.
Some Stories About Cornish Church Building With Special Reference to the Fowey Area
Date/Time: 8 March 2025 at 2pm
Venue: Fowey Town Hall
Cost: Free for FHHS members, £10 for non members.
Contact: All enquiries to Hon. Sec, Kath Pearce, on 07977 572268 or via Ticket Tailor https://buytickets.at/foweyharbourheritagesociety/1369888
More Fifty Shades than Pevsner, this talk will focus on some Cornish churches with interesting construction stories. Dendrochronology, or tree-ring dating, of church roofs at Fowey, Lansallos, and St Veep, amongst other places, has confirmed that Cornish churchyards were still building sites at the Reformation, as was known from documentary sources. It may also explain St Veep's enthusiastic participation in the 1549 rebellion.
Vicar Bennett and his former enemies, the Wynslades, were defending what was yet to be built. Motivation to add ever wider chapels and aisles included the need to accommodate catholic processions alongside pews, additional altars and ever-more priests, a desire to be remembered and reduce time in purgatory, inter-parish rivalry, and even atonement for murder. The lateness of all this Cornish catch-up means that very few medieval chancel arches survive and the typical Cornish church is an unfinished one.
Joanna Mattingly is a retired former extra-mural lecturer and museum curator. She specialises in Medieval Cornish Church History and
She is the author of Churches of Cornwall (Amberley Publishing, Stroud, 2023).
Crossing the River - The History of the Fowey Ferries
Date/Time: 12 April 2025 2pm
Venue: Whitecross Village Hall, Bodinnick.
Cost: Free for FHHS members, £10 for non members.
Contact: All enquiries to Hon. Sec, Kath Pearce, on 07977 572268 or via Ticket Tailor https://buytickets.at/foweyharbourheritagesociety/1369893
Passage across the River Fowey has always been essential. In this talk the history of the Bodinnick and Polruan ferries will be explored, a tale of changing ownership, duels, diamonds and bankruptcies. Some notable incidents will be described.
The earliest mention of the Bodinnick ferry is 1344. In 1478 custody of the ferry was granted to John Davey, “Yeoman of the King’s Chambers and valet to the King’s crown”. Ownership subsequently passed to Lord Mohun of Bodinnick (through whose grounds the famous Hall Walk passes). It was used to transport Royalist troops during the Civil War, 1642-1651. Mohun’s fortunes declined and the ferry rights were purchased by Governor Pitt of Boconnoc (Diamond Pitt) in the 1720’s. The ferry rights were then assigned to the Passage House Inn in Bodinnick, now called the Old Ferry Inn. Successive landlords hired local boatmen to run the ferries, In 1963 the ferry rights were purchased by Toms and Sons of Polruan, who continue to run the ferry.
The first mention of the Polruan ferry is in 1534 by John Leland who crossed from Fowey by “the trajectus”, the origin of the ferry is undoubtedly much older. The original ferry was a rowing boat, a motorboat was introduced in 1912. In 1993 the ferry rights were purchased by Toms and Son.
Chris Bradish is a Fowey resident, a retired surgeon and a keen local historian.
