Jun 01
Meet there at 7 p.m. On entering the village from Newmarket/Kentford direction, look for pond on left, the lane there takes you straight to the church. Hopefully, some space can be found at the farm, but please, wherever you park, bear in mind access for the residents.
May 02
17th May 2022 – Visit to Mildenhall Museum…. 7pm. Members free. Others £3 entrance fee on night.
Apr 03
19th April 2022 – Tony Pringle: “Time Gentlemen Please” : The pubs of Newmarket over the ages.
Tony Pringle, assisted by Peter Norman, gave a presentation about the pubs, clubs and hotels of Newmarket over the ages. Intended to be live online from the Society website, the wi-fi was too slow, so the files were accessed from a memory stick.
A brief history of pubs in general followed by a look at many of the pubs the audience may have used, or certainly knew of, and several that no-one had any idea had existed (unfortunately neither do photographs exist of most of the latter. Tony pointed out that his Newmarketpubs.co.uk website no longer existed, it was now incorporated into this, the Society’s own website.
Mar 31
29th and 30th March 2022 – The Jockey Club laid on a presentation at the Memorial Hall to explain their ideas for improving the training grounds, and at the same time providing more facilities for the townspeople. An all-weather racetrack with the dual purpose of training, some small starter stable yards, these at the back of the Flat.
For the uninitiated, that is the area between the Rowley Mile racecourse and the A14. Part of that, the Seven Springs area, to be a park for use by the townspeople. At the Exning Road end of Hamilton Road, part of Hamilton Stud would become a housing development.
Another facility to benefit the non-racing folk is the offer of housing a cinema in the old Subscription Rooms, the site until recently of the National Horse Racing Museum. It seems to be a long overdue attempt for Racing to act in partnership with the non-racing fraternity, for which it should be praised.
Mar 16
The monthly talk was a joint venture by Joanne Garner, Louise Mangles and Tony Pringle (assisted on the projector by Steve Garner). This was due to the project undertaken to transcribe all the writings on the headstones in Newmarket Cemetery. Still needing the completion of a searchable spreadsheet, this project has at least preserved some records, just as well as since the project actually at the cemetery was finished and COVID stopped some work, already some of the inscriptions have become unreadable. In addition, Tony had transcribed all 14,000 entries in the burial register (1853 to 2017).
Tony started by explaining why the term Up Camps’ was used…due to the Camps family being custodians and living at a cottage just inside the gates. Joanne then related the story of the 2 pairs of sisters who drowned, the Palethorpes and Flatmans, the two jockeys, Tom French, who basically taught Fred Archer and then the naughty vicar at the Workhouse who seemingly inappropriately acquired considerable funds. Louise then spoke of the various occupations carried on in the late 1800s which gave a better idea of life in those days. Tony then gave the background to some “residents” of the cemetery, Pte Arthur Norman, Steward Ponny Morris, Pte Tom Morris and Rachel Parsons.
He ended with imploring members to take steps to record today’s Newmarket lest there be no records for researchers to seek for after another 100 years.
Nov 18
(from Joanne Garner) There was a good attendance for the local history lecture with a difference, that being it was another county’s local history. Mathew Morris, Project Officer at the University of Leicester Archaeological Services gave a detailed talk about his personal and first-hand experience of the discovery and identification of King Richard III, discovered buried under a Leicester car park. After setting the historical scene (the King’s body having been laid to rest by monks in Grey Friars church, after his death in battle on the fields of Bosworth).
Mathew illustrated, by the use of overlaid maps, just how fortunate the team had been in positioning their two initial excavation trenches. Once human remains had been unearthed, Mathew explained how meticulous and lengthy work, involving osteological examination, battle wound and weapon comparisons, mitochondrial DNA sequencing, diet analysis, and radiocarbon dating, had been carried out to determine that the remains were that of the King, now reburied in Leicester cathedral.
Oct 20
Almost like old times, a talk at the The Stable. Needs more attendees though to really get back to normal.
We were treated to a very interesting talk about Anglesey Abbey, mainly since the ownership of Lord Fairhaven’s family. The talk was given and illustrated in a very professional way by Helen Ackroyd from the National Trust. With speakers of her quality, the Society cannot go wrong.
