Latest News

Advance news of Records of Bucks 2012
3 February 2012

The 2012 volume of Records of Buckinghamshire is now well on its way towards publication. This will be Volume 52 in the series and, running to just over 300 pages, will be published in May this year.

Here are some its highlight articles:
• For palaeontologists, a report on discoveries of ice-age mammals in central and north Buckinghamshire.
• For those who prefer their archaeology a little younger, an excavation of a medieval settlement associated with Chicheley Hall.
• For local historians, articles on the Black Death in Chesham and the county’s 12th-century Barons.
• If you’re into family history, an account by Alan Dell of the Goodalls of Dinton and Eton.
• Or transport history? There’s an article on bridges along the Wendover-to-Buckingham turnpike.
In short, there’s something for everyone.

Members receive their copy of Records free each year, and we print extra copies for sale. In the meantime if you haven't yet read the 2011 volume there are still copies available.

Old Handwriting Workshops NOW FULL
9 January 2012

The Society's series of 'Handwriting Workshops' for those tackling 16th and 17th-century 'secretary hand' have attracted a lot of interest. With 21 participants already signed up, and seven more expected to join, the series of four workshops is now full.

In fact the meeting place for the workshops has had to be changed: the workshops will now be held in the Learning Zone at the County Museum in Church Street, Aylesbury. The original room at the Centre for Bucks Studies is, sadly, not big enough.

The workshops offer help with deciphering those old documents, wills and parish records. The series will run on one morning a month for four Saturdays between January and April. Full details are at Old Handwriting Workshop 2012.

• If you are interested but have missed this opportunity, please let us know. If there is sufficient interest a second series may be run later in the year.

Hedgerley Village Survey – now writing up
9 December 2011

Five listed buildings in Hedgerley have now been fully surveyed by members of the BAS Historic Buildings Group – and tree-ring dating techniques have shown that one was built during the two years following 1485. That's the year when Richard III was defeated at the Battle of Bosworth Field.

The project has now reached the writing-up stage. The first report, on Shell House, has been submitted for possible publication in Records of Buckinghamshire. Summaries of the survey findings for each of the five buildings are now on this website.

Follow this link for details of theHedgerley Village Survey project and to read these summaries.

Winter 2012 events include Stowe New Inn tour
9 December 2011

The highlight of the BAS Historic Buildings Group's new events programme for Winter 2012 will be a guided tour of the National Trust's newly restored New Inn, on the edge of Stowe landscape gardens, led by NT archaeologist Gary Marshall.

The programme also includes a pre-Xmas social and plans to follow up October’s village survey in Great Horwood with a one-day survey of one of the village's 17th-century buildings.

Follow this link for full details of the Historic Buildings Group's Winter 2012 events programme.

Weston Turville pubs survey now completed
7 October 2011

The second report in the Buckinghamshire Historic Pubs Survey project is now completed and available on-line. This records eleven pubs in Weston Turville, of which only two are still serving today.

To see the report, see how the pubs survey project works, and check on its progress, click on the links below:

• Weston Turville’s Historic Pubs.
• Recording Buckinghamshire’s historic public houses.
• Surveys in progress and completed reports.

HS2 high-speed rail Historic Impact Assessment – first reports now on-line
11 July 2011

The first survey reports of the society’s HS2 HISTORIC IMPACT ASSESSMENT PROJECT are now accessible on-line through this website. Follow this link for The HS2 Project page.

Around 20 members of the society have contributed to the project so far, taking part in:
• A survey day in Twyford in April, covering the church and old cottages along the village streets.
• Surveys in May of Portway Farm, St Mary’s House and nearby earthworks, which are closest to the planned line of HS2 where it passes Twyford.
• An impact assessment at Chetwode in June, which took in four listed houses and three moated sites.
• A visit to Potter Row, near Great Missenden, whose mix of earthworks, medieval farms and more modern architectural houses make it a paradigm for the Chilterns ass a whole.
• A progress meeting in Aylesbury in June which discussed the overall impact of HS2 on the historic landscapes of Buckinghamshire.
Now the first results of this work is being made available on-line, including 8 pages summarising the work done by BAS members and three of the final reports to be submitted to the HS2 Consultation. Other reports will be added as they are completed.
Follow this link for The HS2 Project page.

HS2 WILL AFFECT BUCKINGHAMSHIRE'S HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY FOR YEARS TO COME... DON'T LET IT PASS UNNOTICED

JCT archives catalogue now on-line
13 April 2011

WHEN John Gordon Chenevix Trench died in 2004 he left his research archive as a bequest to the Bucks Archaeological Society – hundreds of working notes spanning several decades of historical research. Now the catalogue for the whole collection can be consulted on-line.

John Chenevix Trench was editor of Records of Buckinghamshire for seventeen years from 1980 to 1997. Between 1974 and 1995 he was also the author of eight major papers published in Records, including a definitive account of the County Museum buildings in Aylesbury.

During his researches, he accumulated notebooks, papers and drawings, transcriptions of medieval documents, family histories and drawings of historic timber-framed buildings. A great deal of his archive is on Coleshill and its historic timber-framed houses.

Now his archive has been catalogued, making it available for research by future historians. To access the catalogue, see the Archives Catalogue page.

Help us survey Buckinghamshire’s historic pubs
11 January 2011

Every day we’re losing our historic pubs: closing down, unable to compete against television and cheap drinks from supermarkets, turning into restaurants, being converted into homes or demolished to make way for housing developments. And many of these are in ancient, historic buildings.
Now the BAS Historic Buildings Group wants to record them before it’s too late. The group has launched a major project to survey the historic pubs of the county – not just the few that are still there, but those that have been closed. Many of their historic buildings are still there, hiding behind names such as ‘The Old Fox’.
Surveys of Winslow and Weston Turville have already been done, and, to get the project rolling, the survey team have now produced a step-by-step ‘How to do it’ Survey Pack. We all know local pubs in historic buildings, and, all too often now, we know of pubs that have vanished.

Come and join the big pubs survey. This is where it starts...

New index for Records of Bucks 1-3 now available
21 October 2010

The first three volumes of the society’s journal, Records of Buckinghamshire, have now been re-indexed, bringing them into line with the indexing format used for later volumes. This is part of a project by Honorary Librarian and Archivist Diana Gulland to re-index the first ten volumes of Records, published between 1854 and 1869.

Copies of the new index are available by post or by eMail. To request a copy, either phone the BAS Library on 01296 331441 on a Wednesday between 10am and 4pm, or email the society.

Special offer on selected back issues of Records of Bucks
20 October 2010

Following the very successful sale of back issues of Records of Buckinghamshire in Autumn 2009, eight more volumes are now on offer at a bargain price of £5 plus £2.50 post and packing for each volume.

The volumes, with just a few of their main articles, are:

• Volume 22 (1980)
including articles on the Winslow Charter of 792, the Domesday manor of Hasley and Middle Saxon occupation at Chicheley.
• Volume 28 (1986)
including Excavations at Bierton and the Wendover election of 1741.
• Volume 30 (1988)
with the coming of railways at Wolverton, excavations at Desborough Castle and Buckinghamshire’s own St Rumbold.
• Volume 32 (1990)
including the first of a two-part article on the Hidation of Buckinghamshire.
• Volume 34 (1992)
with the Romano-British villa at Amersham and partr 2 of the Hidation of Bucks.
• Volume 35 (1993)
including Turnpike Roads and Thimble-making in Marlow.
• Volume 36 (1994)
including articles on Bradwell Abbey and an Anglo-Saxon cemetery at ‘Bottledump Corner’, Tattenhoe.
• Volume 37 (1995)
with Buckingham Slavery in 1086 and Elmodesham House, Amersham.

CLICK HERE FOR A FULL LIST of all the articles in each volume, and details of how to order these back issues at this special price.