All our talks begin promptly at 2.30pm except where shown. After the talk we hold a raffle and we serve tea, coffee and biscuits. We'll usually finish by 4.00pm.

We make a small charge to cover our costs. This is £3.00 for PANT members and £4.00 for others.

There is no need to book for our talks - just turn up (and feel free to bring your friends).

The talks usually take place at one of two venues:

Swanage -We meet in the hall of All Saints Church, Ulwell Road BH19 1LL. There is a lay-by in front of the church and a small car park at the side. There is also usually plenty of space to park on-street nearby. Buses stop outside. Click here for a map.

 

Wareham - We meet in Carey Hall, in Mistover Road, BH20 4BY, where there is ample FREE parking. Nearest bus stop is Wareham Station, about 300 yards away. On foot or by car, leave the station roundabout on Bere Road, turn immediately left onto Carey Road. Mistover Road is first right after 200 yards. The entrance to the Hall is between houses about 70 yards on the right hand side. Click here for a map.

We sometimes leave some past talks on this page to give an idea of the range of topics that we cover.

Details

Thursday 18 September

Wareham 

Painting Desert towns: Shekhawati’s Murals -Ilay Cooper is well-known locally and nationally for his knowledge of Purbeck geology, flora, fauna and birds. He is a mine of information, and a Dorset Treasure! But for our Talk, Ilay will take us further afield to the exotic and extraordinary wall paintings in the desert towns in the Shekhawati region of Rajasthan. Ilay came across these while cycling across north India, researched them and was commissioned to document them for the Indian National Trust. The paintings became the subject of one of his books. You can buy a copy at the talk.

Tuesday 21 October

Swanage

Life in the Dorset Workhouses - Luke Mouland will talk to us about life for the poorest in society nearly 200 years ago. A Dickensian character said of the Workhouse ‘Kill me sooner than take me there’ but was it really somewhere to fear? Or was it a place of safety for those without means? Luke, an expert in his field of research, will tell us why the Workhouses were set up and for whom, and what those needing shelter could expect. There are surprising, sometimes uplifting, histories of the designers, builders and organisers of these establishments - as well as stories of the families, the old, the orphaned, the ‘deserving poor’ and the idle who stepped through the Workhouse doors in a time of need.

Thursday 20 November

Wareham

Peter Sills will tell us about ‘Purbeck’s best kept secret – The Purbeck Mining Museum.’ Railway enthusiast Peter has been involved with the Museum as variously founder, Chair, Trustee and Director since its inception in 2002. His illustrated Talk will touch on key geological, historical and social aspects of this major industry that continues largely unnoticed in the Purbeck landscape. It will also include descriptions of the various ways in which Dorset clay was transported from the mines dotted about the Purbeck landscape to local processing works and then onward by rail and ship around the world. A fascinating underground history revealed!

Thursday 22 January

Wareham

This has been rescheduled and relocated because of a problem with the hall booking

Jonathan Easterbrooke has a passion for making bowls from local clay so he has called his Talk ‘From Beach to Bowl’. While beach-combing at Worbarrow Bay he picked up some red clay, took it home and made a ceramic bowl out of it. He has since used local clay for all his work. He is going to bring his potter’s wheel to illustrate the processes of shaping the clay, and demonstrating the various stages of creating a bowl. A wonderful ‘hands-on’ start to the year!

Thursday 19 February

Wareham

The story of The Portland Spy Ring, brought to us by Brigadier Jeff Little OBE, will be a fascinating glimpse into the world of secrecy and spies that was unfolding in the decades after WWII just along the coast from Purbeck. Dubbed the ‘Portland Spy Ring’ subsequently, they were a group involved in active espionage. They obtained classified documents from AUWE (Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment) and passed them to the Soviet Union. Jeff will trace the actions of the Portland Spies and MI5 who tracked them down. A real-life thriller on our doorstep!

Tuesday 17 March

Swanage

Audrey Pembroke’s Talk How past local events inspire historical novels is about her successful books of the people she grew up among, and the stone, farming and fishing industries. She is very much a Purbeckian, from a large local family and with stone-masons among her ancestors. They, and her Swanage school teachers, sparked her interest and feel for the past. Having begun to write ‘by accident’, she has used her knowledge of the lives of ordinary nineteenth century folk - based on her own family - to create extraordinary stories of life and love in a landscape both beautiful and harsh. An example of how fact becomes fiction.