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Talks and events
Secret Spies - Free Drop-In Family Activities
Tuesday 8 April to Thursday 10 April and Tuesday 15 April to Thursday 17 April, 9.30am to 5pm at Surrey History Centre, 130 Goldsworth Road, Woking, GU21 6ND
Come and join us at the Surrey History Centre and take part in our free Secret Spies family drop in activities. Activities include; make your own cipher wheel and crack codes like Alan Turing, create your secret spy ID, design a disguise to protect your hidden identity and more! Parents/Guardians are responsible for supervising their children. Ages 6+. Free parking onsite, via Kingsway Road. Buggy friendly and baby change facilities available. Donations welcome.
Arsenic and Old Lace
Wednesday 23 April, 5.30pm to 6.45pm on Zoom
Join our Conservator, Rachel Marsh as she discusses some of the many pigments and inks found within our Archive. This talk will include tales of their history and production, and will also consider some of the challenges faced by Conservators when preserving and carrying out conservation treatments. From arsenic green book cloth to corrosive iron gall inks, this talk will provide an entertaining overview of some of the many colours found on documents held at Surrey History Centre.
The talk will take place on Zoom. Once payment has been received, the Zoom link will be sent shortly (next working day if booked in the evening or weekend). All Zoom talks have subtitles and a recording is sent the following day, for you to download and keep.
- Tickets: £6.
- Please book a place online.
Surrey Photographers
Saturday 26 April, 9.55am to 4.15pm at Surrey History Centre, 130 Goldsworth Road, Woking, GU21 6ND
Surrey Local History Committee invites you to attend this day conference on 'Surrey Photographers'. Programme:
9.30am Registration
9.55am Welcome by Gerry Moss Chairman of Surrey Local History Committee
10.00am Keith Harding, 'Victorian Dorking in photographs by Walter Rose & John Chaplin'
10.40am Coffee or tea
11.10am Nigel Balchin, 'Picture postcards and local history'
11.50am Jane Lewis and Jill Hyams (Surrey History Centre), 'Portrait of a Surrey town between the wars: the photographic archive of Sidney Francis'
12.30pm Lunch (Coffee or tea are included. Please make your own arrangements for lunch)
14.00pm Julian Pooley (Surrey History Centre), 'Patient Portraits from Surrey Hospitals, 1850-1980'
14.40pm Visit to Search Room to see a display of Surrey photographs from the archive
15.20pm Chris Shepheard, 'Farnham's war caught by the camera? Photographs that avoided the censor'
16.00pm Discussion and Closing remarks
16.15pm Close
- Tickets £18 if booked online via the Surrey Archaeological Society website. Tickets on the day will be £20.00 payable in cash only.
Exhibitions and displays
We regularly showcase free exhibitions and displays inspired by our collection in our foyer. We also host external displays by groups and organisations and would welcome any displays with a Surrey history connection. If you would like to exhibit at Surrey History Centre please contact us.
Recorded talks to purchase
If you missed one of our online talks, why not purchase the talk recording to view in your own time?
The talks available are:
- A Burden on the Parish: sources for the history of Poor Relief in Surrey
- A 'Great' amongst Victorian Architects? Royal Holloway's W H Crossland
- A Snark Celebration: celebrating the 150th anniversary of Lewis Carroll's poem 'The Hunting of the Snark'
- Aladdin's Cave: Some Major Family and Estate Archives in Surrey History Centre
- Artists, Antiquaries and Collectors: illustrations of Georgian Surrey collected by Robert Barclay of Bury Hill, Dorking, circa.1800 to 1825
- Bananas: How a Surrey Garden Played a Pivotal Role in the History of the World's Favourite Fruit
- Behind the Scenes in Conservation - repairing posters, maps and plans
- Behind the Scenes in Conservation - Tithe Maps
- Bombs, Aircraft, Doodlebugs and More; They All Fell on Surrey
- Corsets and Cameras
- Fashion and Folly
- From Patient to Professor
- From Punishment to Pride: LGBTQ+ archives at Surrey History Centre
- Gertrude Jekyll, Gardener and Craftswoman
- In the Shadow of the Great War: Surrey 1914 to 1918
- James Henry Pullen (1835 to 1916) and the Royal Earlswood Asylum for Idiots, Redhill
- John Evelyn in Surrey
- Land of my Father's Fathers: Tracing your Welsh ancestors
- Let the Road Rise to Meet You: Tracing Your Irish Ancestors
- Life and Labour in a County Village - or learn to love your Ag Labs!
- Magna Carta, Runnymede and all that
- Maps for Family Historians
- 'Michael Field' in Reigate: Queer Women Writers and Surrey in the 1890s
- Netherne circa 1955: A Surrey Psychiatric Hospital in Focus
- Oliver House: The story of a 16th century cottage
- Out of Sight, Out of Mind? Sources for the History of Surrey's Mental Hospitals, 1700 to circa.1990
- Planting Ideas: Sources for the History of Gardening in Surrey.
- Portrait of a Surrey Town between the Wars: the photographic archive of Sidney Francis
- Reflections on the Lewis Carroll archives, on the 150th anniversary of 'Alice through the Looking Glass'
- Researching in Archives
- Richard III: A Drama in Three Acts
- Sir William More of Loseley
- Surrey Writers
- Terror from the sky: mapping air raids on Surrey in World War Two
- The afterlives of executed bodies from Kennington Common
- The Book That Changed My Life
- The Changing Face of Nursing: Black Nurses in Surrey Hospitals
- The Gentleman's Magazine: A Panorama of Georgian Surrey for Family and Local Historians
- The Most Wretched Man in the World: The Life and Loves of the 5th Viscount Midleton
- The Princess Mary Village Homes in the Twentieth Century
- The Portable Antiquities Scheme in Surrey
- To the Manor Born: An Introduction to Manorial Records for Family Historians
- What did you do after the war, Grandad? – 1918 to 1925: de-mob, jobs, pensions, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the British Legion
- Where There's a Will
- Who Do You Think They Were? Discovering the lives and experiences of our ancestors
Most talk descriptions can be found on our Talks and Tours page. Each talk consists of a 45 minute to an hour illustrated presentation followed by questions asked during the live talk. You can also email us with any questions you may have after the talk and we will pass them on to the speaker to answer. Price £6. To purchase a recording please visit the Surrey Heritage Shop. Please note talks may contain references to historical legal terminology, sexual practices and crimes, used in the historical context but which some viewers may find offensive.
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