Name: Celebrating Strange Sussex: Curious Histories Christmas Special
Start: 2025-12-10T19:00:00+00:00
End: 2025-12-10T21:45:00+00:00
Location: The Poets Ale & Smoke House

Tickets ~ https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/celebrating-strange-sussex-curious-histories-christmas-special-tickets-1849200361059
Curious Histories is delighted to return to Hove's cosy Poets Ale and Smokehouse for its Christmas special. We have three suitably unorthodox talks, and it's all in aid of a fabulous small local charity: Pelican Parcels.
Doors will open at 6.45pm, with first talk beginning around 7.15pm. There will be an interval, and we aim to finish about half-nine. Do come early if you would like to sample the Poets' excellent menu before the show.

Our talks:
A history of sport in Sussex, from the amazing to the bizarre
Mat Homewood returns to Curious Histories to offer a light-hearted look at the history of sporting events in Sussex. Sport has been a key feature of county life through the centuries, with cricket, football and horse racing being commonplace events, as well as the much-loved Sussex game of stoolball. However, local village sports days were also host to many lesser-known sporting activities. These included jingling matches, menagerie races and piano bashing: all of which we will encounter in Mat's talk.
In the hollows 'neath the trees: the strange legacy of a Sussex murderer
In the early eighteenth century, a pedlar named Jacob Harris was found guilty of committing a triple murder near Ditchling Common. His hanged corpse became an unusual site of pilgrimage. Professor Clive Webb's talk discusses the crime and its complicated aftermath - a tale filled with folk song, superstition, ghosts, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and bad dentistry.
Amazon and Bully. Military women in Sussex past
The history of female soldiers is unusually vast. Dr Sara Hiorns returns to Curious Histories to investigate two striking examples of military women whose stories are entwined with the county's history.