The 13th April talk will be from David Greenfield a civil engineer from Taunton on the life and works of  I K Brunel.  The 11th May talk will be a talk from Phil Andrews of Wessex Archaeology on recent finds in Devon

On the 9^th of February HH&A heard a talk from Andrew Watson, PhD Candidate at the University of Glasgow, on phenomenology and its application in archaeology.

Andrew began by focusing on the history of phenomenology, which is a branch of Western philosophy that is concerned with how people perceive a phenomenon, and looked at the works of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.  Andrew summarised the approaches that archaeologists had undertaken to date and discussed three key studies incorporating landscape studies, a study of sound and the transferring of hand signals in a Neolithic ditched enclosure in Italy and closer to home, some archaeoacustic studies looking at the effect of sound in Neolithic long barrows.   Finally Andrew outlined his Doctoral studies and his approach to phenomenology. Using four Neolithic long barrows as case studies Andrew hopes to better understand people’s bodily and sensorial engagements with Neolithic long barrows in the modern day.

The March talk was given by Brian Carpenter from the Devon Heritage Centre on the documents and information on the Hemyock area stored at the centre.   Brian brought to the meeting a list of the registers showing the documents stored in safe custody   related to various properties in the Hemyock area plus documents related to the Culmstock Rural District Council which included the parishes of Clayhidon, Hemyock and Culmstock.  Brian also listed the various books displayed on the public shelves listing the historical information stored within the centre, including the Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths with:

Christenings   from 1635-1959

Marriages       from 1635-2007

Burials            from 1635-1923

His talk was a very good way of understanding how to trace documents and other material stored within the centre and how various research projects can progress efficiently by visiting the centre and accessing the material that is available.  Brian also left with us the route in words of the Bounds of the Parish of Hemyock from 1754.  An interesting project would be to reintroduce the practice of Walking the Parish Bounds on Rogation Sunday.   We are hoping to form a team interested in progressing a number of research projects.

The next meeting on Feb 9th will be a talk from Andrew Watson who is completing a Phd in Archaeology on Phenomonology.  All welcome to an interesting talk.

The meeting in December was a talk from Philippe Planel, an archaeologist with East Devon AONB on the excavations at a cottage close to Honiton.  Searching through the tithe maps of Devon that are now available in digital format one finds that most buildings listed have been developed.  However one, Lees Cottage, was in exactly the same condition as it was left during the farming recession at the middle of the 19th century. Now surrounded by woodland the plot was cleared by local archaeologists to show the remains of the walls and the floor of the kitchen which was found still to be as hard as concrete and was analysed to show that it had been made of ash and lime.  Research showed that the owner also worked as a tailor and various brass buttons plus other household items were found on the site. Philippe gave a fascinating talk on the world of archaeology in the area and the types of projects that would warrant further investigation.  Members were asked to suggest sites that might justify applying for finance to fund excavation.

The January talk was by Brian Lane-Smith and Robin Gilbert of the SW Airfield Heritage Trust and was very well received by our group due to the detailed information they presented and knowledge evident from their answers to the many questions.  Brian covered the activities at Dunkeswell where US Navy Liberators were used to patrol the Atlantic for U boats and Robin described the preparation, planning and executing of the aircraft at Upottery and Merryfield used for the D Day Invasion.

The airfields were built in the early years of the war by the construction companies working for the Ministry such as Geo Wimpey, Laings and Mowlem under Royal Engineers control.  The local Hemyock company Redwoods Coaches started their business transporting personnel to and from  the airfields during the construction and operation starting in February 1942.  The runways at Dunkeswell were operational by September 1942 and the Nissan Huts assembled to provide accommodation and operational control by early 1943.

The US Navy set up complete facilities including machine shops, engine sheds, airframe,  propeller and spark plug manufacturing plus tailors and cobblers to serve the personnel.    The size and scope of the American planning towards D Day were a scale above anything seen before or since.