Hagley Historical and Field Society

The speaker for our November meeting was Keith Cattell, making a welcome return to talk on ‘Our Victorian Architectural Heritage’.  Using a varied and fascinating series of slides, Keith led us on a journey through Victoria’s reign, taking in a plethora of designs.  He reckoned to have covered more than twelve distinct styles from Egyptian, through Classical, Norman, Jacobean and Italianate to High Victorian Gothic: all manner of styles were borrowed by the Victorians to great effect.  Punctuating the grand buildings, Keith included some of the engineering masterpieces of the age in the form of famous bridges, like the Forth, Saltash, Menai and Clifton.  Members greatly enjoyed his presentation and look forward to a return visit in the future.

Later in the month a group of members visited Bantock House in Wolverhampton, where, after an introduction to the house’s history we toured the building and enjoyed its fascinating contents.  After lunch our coach dropped part of the group at Banks’s 1875 Park Brewery, whilst the remainder went on to the Molineux Hotel.  Both groups had most informative tours: the first covered the historic buildings and the brewing process while the second again looked at the building but also had a glimpse of the archives now stored there.