Suffolk Historic Buildings Group

The Building Stones of Suffolk by Tony Redman
2025-10-20 19:00 - 20:30 (Europe/London) | Online
Tony Redman has spent five years surveying every stone-built building in Suffolk, and this talk will be based on his new book “The Buildings Stones of Suffolk, and the people who worked them”, recently published by the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History. Tony has identified 50 types of stone which are present in 700 or so buildings, of which just over 500 are church buildings. He has also produced an alphabetical list of stonemasons living and working in Suffolk to 1999. The book can be purchased here: The Building Stones of Suffolk

Housing The Poor c.1670-1870 by Dr Joseph Harley
2025-11-17 19:00 - 20:00 | Online
Dr Joseph Harley is a Senior Lecturer in History at Anglia Ruskin University and an expert in the history of poverty, welfare, material culture and domestic life. His most recent publications include Objects of Poverty: Material Culture in Britain from 1700 (2025) and At Home with the Poor: Consumer Behaviour and Material Culture in England, c. 1650-1850
It has almost universally been argued that the homes of the poor prior to the twentieth century were of the lowest quality, being overcrowded, unsanitary, comfortless, vulnerable to the elements and insecure. Joseph will test these ideas through the use of pauper inventories, and the remarkable archive of pastor Richard Cobbold, who painted and described the homes of the poor in his village of Wortham, Suffolk. Space was at a premium and so people would use the same rooms for a range of purposes such as sleep, work and cooking. Nonetheless, it is clear that the poor took pride in their homes and worked hard to keep them as well turned-out as they could be, despite being impoverished.

Late medieval shops and workshops by Leigh Alston
2025-12-05 08:00 - 17:00 | Lavenham Village Hall
Christmas Meeting at Lavenham Village Hall
Late medieval shops and workshops in East Anglia – Leigh Alston
The market towns and villages of Suffolk and Essex are rich in well preserved medieval and Tudor shops due to the region’s economic success in the 15th and early-16th centuries, followed by relative poverty after the collapse of the woollen cloth industry.
Leigh Alston is well-known to anyone who has been a member of SHBG for a few years – he was Chairman for 11 years. He is an architectural historian and building archaeologist of over thirty years standing, specialising in the timber framed structures of Eastern England.
Time to be confirmed
Booking details will be sent by email nearer the time. A buffet supper and seasonal drinks will be included in the price.
