The Society is open to all and offers lectures on topics relating, as far as possible, to the county of Cambridgeshire. We meet in the Methodist Church schoolroom, Town Green Road, Orwell, at 8.00pm on the last Tuesday evening of the month from January to May and from September to November. In June and July we visit places of historical interest within easy reach of Orwell, usually on the last Tuesday of each month.
The Society has been researching the early history of Orwell over the past four years by digging archaeological test pits at various sites around the village. In March 2018 we staged an exhibition of the results so far, including the discovery of a Roman villa or farmstead, and we continued digging during 2019. For details contact our secretary.
Our original website, Orwell Past & Present, set up in 2012 with the aid of a Heritage Lottery Fund grant, contained hundreds of documents and photos giving an ongoing record of life in our village over the past 2000 years. This information has now been transferred to the village website at orwellparishcouncil.co. An 80 page book containing a selection of photos, with notes on Orwell history, is available price £5, from the secretary at the above address.
Membership: £10 per annum, payable at the October meeting. Non-members are welcome at £3 per meeting.
Committee Contacts:
- Barry Sharman
- Ian Carruthers (Treasurer)
- Nicky Walters
- Steven Thain
Programme 2025
Our next meeting takes place on Tuesday 28th January at 7.30pm for 8.00pm in the Methodist Church Schoolroom, Town Green Road, Orwell. Our speaker will be Bill Franklin.Since retiring from a career in the NHS Bill Franklin has devoted much of his time to researching the local landscape and agricultural history of Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire and Northamptonshire, and has written numerous books and papers on these topics.
Bill is a member of the Council of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, the Cambridgeshire Record Society and secretary for the Cambridgeshire Association for Local History.
He is also a member of Staploe Archaeology Group which concentrates its efforts on working with local history societies in exploring the history of their area through documentary evidence and archaeology. He and his group have been helpful to our Society both in joining in with our excavations and in bringing along his geophysical survey gear when we were digging test pits around Orwell to trace the development of the village.
Tonight he will tell us how the process of Enclosure changed the landscape and agriculture of England and Orwell in particular.
For further details contact Barry Sharman on 01223 207202
