Wednesday 5th July. In the 1600s Wigan was only second to London for its Pewter industry and supplied much of the North as well as trading abroad through Liverpool. Caroline Heaven has been studying the subject over the last year or so and will be presenting her findings (and some examples). We’ll also be reporting on our excavations at Toddington Lane (more details here).

Wednesday 7th June.  This month we have Karl Taylor from Oxford Archaeology North. Karl is their Geophysics expert and in his talk he will be demonstrating projects where geophysics has been used by the unit to detect the archaeology.  As you may have seen over the last few years, geophysics has proved a very useful tool for our Society, so it will be interesting to see how this essential tool is used by the professionals.

Wednesday 3rd May. Mark Fletcher from Matrix Archaeology will be giving our Society a talk about Manchester’s ‘Mythical’ Castle. It was first mentioned in the late 12^th and early 13^th centuries but nobody knows exactly where it was or whether it really existed – could it have been just a ring-work around a Saxon burgh. Mark has been carrying out extensive excavations around the Cathedral area where it is was supposed to have been, so hopefully he will be able to cast more light on the mystery.

Wednesday 5th April. This month we have invited Steve Baldwin to speak about his Kingmaker 1485 Project project. Steve has recently got permission to carry out extensive excavations on the site of the famous Medieval Lathom Hall. To fund the work, he is setting up a series of field-schools and inviting interested parties to come and help him dig there. The first of these schools is to be held over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend, i.e. Saturday 15^th April to Sunday 17^th April. Visit the website – http://www.kingmaker1485.org.uk/ to book a place. At our meeting Steve will be explaining the project in more detail and also answer any questions you have regarding the dig.

Wednesday 5th October. The Medieval Graffiti Survey project was first established in Norfolk in 2010 and was the large-scale survey of early graffiti inscriptions in the UK. Entirely volunteer led, the project changed the way we look at our medieval church heritage. Here in the northwest, the number of medieval churches is limited. Therefore the project has evolved and been developed into the NW Historic Graffiti Project. This will look at any building of interest up to and including the 17^th century.  The project is being run by Carolanne King from the CBA NW and at our next meeting, she has agreed to come along and  explaining how local groups can get involved. Project will include workshops and training session and already a number of groups in the northwest have had sessions and have carried out surveys. These include Middleton Arch Soc and the South Manchester Arch Research Team.  It will be interesting to hear whether there could be an opportunity for our Society to get involved in this very interesting project.

Wednesday 7th September. The speaker this month is Steve King whose talk is entitled ‘Historic Sites of Western Turkey’. Steve is a member of the Lytham U3A and once worked as an EFL teacher in Ankara and elsewhere. This enabled him to travel extensively, gaining many interesting experiences. Turkey certainly left its mark and Steve is keen to share his experiences and knowledge of this fascinating country.