Old Farnhamians' Association

The 400 Trust

2001 Lecture - "Farnham Time Team"

28th September, 2001

On a humid evening an audience of over 150 thoroughly enjoyed the 2001 Farnham Lecture entitled 'Farnham - Time Team' and given by well-known local archaeologist, Dr. David Graham.  The lecture was given at Farnham College and the evening began with a welcome to the audience and the speaker from College Principal, Sally Francis.

 

David Graham began his talk on Farnham and the surrounding areas as far back as a half a million years ago when this country was part of Central Europe and was waiting for the Ice Age to arrive.  He showed slides of aerial photography where evidence of the Ice Age could be seen and then began to talk about the area of Farnham during the Stone Age, Iron Age and Bronze Age.  He had pictures of various artefacts that had been found in this area and again aerial evidence of villages and places of worship.  He said that there is still much to be uncovered from these periods and each year there are more and more items being brought to light.  Recent archaeological digs at Frensham, Farnham Park and Alice Holt had resulted in a wealth of items being found and 'barrows' (or burial mounds) had helped authenticate the type of landscape from those days.

 

He moved on to the Roman period and showed some of their road patterns and evidence of houses, bathhouses and religious buildings.  At Wanborough there had been the largest find of Roman coins in Europe and Frensham again had produced more coinage.  Then came the Saxon period, and again much evidence of a local community and the speaker feeling that somewhere there is a burial ground from this period still waiting to be unearthed.   In the 9th century the name of Farnham first appears and he then brought things up to date as the lecture came to a close.  David Graham, Vice- President of the Surrey Archaelogical Society, had covered half a million years in just over an hour and the information from this enthusiastic, and sometimes amusing expert, had kept the audience spellbound.

 

There was little doubt that the 2001 Farnham Lecture presented by the Farnhamian 400 Trust, a part of the Old Farnhamians' Association, had been a great success.  Former Headteacher at Farnham Grammar School, George Baxter, closed the evening by thanking the speaker and saying that David Graham had succeeded in spreading his own enthusiasm for the subject to the audience.

Contributed by Cyril Trust

L to R: Cyril Trust, John McLaughlin, Sally Francis, David Graham, George Baxter, Maurice Sturt, Graham Blunt, Dudley Backhurst

 

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