Edith Festival 2024

Welcome to the Edith Festival 2024!

Following the success of last year’s festival and the growing understanding of the importance of Edith Swan-Neck, the Friends of Edith have arranged an ambitious programme for this year’s event. Come join us at The White Rock Hotel for the following presentations:

Order/Sequence/Timings

12.00 Doors Open

12.30 Mayoral Opening

12.45 Introduction: Edith in Context: Ian Jarman

13.00 Lordship and Landscape in East Anglia – 400-800 CE (Uncovering Rendlesham): Professor Chris Scull

(14.00 Q&A)

(14.30 Spillover/monograph signing/comfort break)

15.00 The History of Old Winchelsea: David E P Dennis

(16.00 Q&A)

(16.30 Spillover/book signing/comfort break)

17.00 Historic Buildings Mythbusting: Dr James Wright

(18.00 Q&A)

(18.30 Close with Spillover/browsing of merchandise/book signing)

We can't wait to see you there!

Speaker notes:

Professor Christopher Scull FSA

(Honorary Visiting Professor at University College London and Cardiff University)

Rendlesham and the East Anglian Kingdom

Since 2017 an expert team has been working to analyse the site and its finds and publish the results, funded by the Leverhulme Trust and led by Professor Christopher Scull. Professor Scull will introduce the archaeology of Rendlesham and explore what the site, which is the largest and materially the richest settlement of its time known in England, can tell us about the rulers and the kingdom of the East Angles.

David Dennis FRHS

(Local Historian)

The History of Old Winchelsea

David brings us closer to home with a talk based on his recent book The History of Old Winchelsea. David is the Journal Editor for the Hastings & East Sussex Natural History Society and an Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. The medieval town of Old Winchelsea was destroyed by a great storm in 1287. Remarkably, it lasted for several hundred years on a shingle bank in the middle of Rye Bay. This book describes the formation of the town, its history of seaborne heroism, privateering and piracy, and its final destruction along with Dunwich in Suffolk, Old Romney, and Broomhill in a hurricane-like tide of massive proportions. The book is the result of the author's two years of research into the causes of the town's demise. He questions our readiness to cope with deadly storm surges and sea level rises. The loss of this bustling town with its seven hundred homes, fifty inns, prisons, churches, salt pans, tide mills, royal apartments, and shipyards, is a salutary lesson for us today.

Dr James Wright FSA

(Triskele Heritage)

Historic Buildings Mythbusting

James is an award-winning buildings archaeologist. He has two decades of professional experience of ferreting around in people’s cellars, hunting through their attics and digging up their gardens. He searches for meaningful truths about how ordinary and extraordinary folk lived their lives in the mediaeval period. His book Historic Building Mythbusting was published in June 2024. Triskele Heritage is an archaeological consultancy founded by James Wright, who works alongside associates to provide high quality fieldwork, research, reporting and dissemination.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

The White Rock Hotel, 1-10 White Rock, Hastings, United Kingdom