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 |