Gilmorton History Group Newsletter
March 2024
Our first event of 2024 entitled “Weddings and Bells” (which also coincided with Valentines Day) was a huge success. Our static displays included couples who were married in the village, some as far back as 1611. A little nearer the present day and the displays showed some well know people in the village telling their wedding story including three wedding dresses on display. The dresses made a big impact on the displays.
A big thankyou must go to Marianne Robbins, Gillian Weston and Molly Matthews for allowing us to display their wedding dresses on the day and also to Maggie Hart of the Sewing Centre in the Archway Gallery, Lutterworth for the loan of two mannequins.
On the Tuesday evening specially invited guests The Stanwick Handbell Ringers performed for us. We were not sure what they were going to play but they had put together a special wedding theme for us with tunes you would expect at a typical wedding beginning with the Wedding March. The bells created a considerable amount of interest with many visitors handling (very carefully) the bells themselves.
We are now looking forward to the April 16/17th event “Growing up in Gilmorton “, We are in touch with the school and hopefully we will have some children’s work on display about growing up in the village. We have our own displays being prepared but if you, or your children, have any recollections of growing up in Gilmorton and you feel you could make a contribution, we would love to hear from you. Even if you scribble a few words down on paper – we will do the rest.
A change to our usual two-day events is our event remembering the 80th Anniversary of the D Day Landings. This will run on Saturday 1st June and the village hall will be open for visitors from 10.00am – 3.00pm. If you have any memorabilia, photos or stories about the D Day landings please let us know and we can include them in our displays.
We will be decking up the village hall with bunting and flags and our usual refreshments will be on hand for the whole day. Hot and cold snacks will also be available from the lovely village shop should you feel a little peckish. There will be more details about this event a little later in the year as and when items are confirmed.
The dates for our September and November events are still to be confirmed as one will be about the church and its vicars (quite a controversial subject) and the other will be hopefully about the school to coincide with its 250th anniversary. Once again, more details to follow when confirmed.
After a long break we are back to uploading archives to our website and with thanks to John Buckle we now have Read all About It, Tales of the Unexpected and Weddings and Bells to add to our collection. If you didn’t manage to attend any of these events you can browse the website and see what they were all about. There are more to follow but it is a slow and steady process.
NOTICE - The history group is still looking for suitable people to join us on the committee. The role is quite varied with regular committee meetings and our biggest workload – that of preparing for our five main events through the year which can include research, interviews, writeups etc.
There is always ongoing work to do in preparing and organising our considerable archives in preparation for uploading to our website.
Attendance on the days is always useful from setting up the displays, greetings on the door, chatting to visitors and even help with refreshments.
You need no special skills though basic computer skills are useful and need no prior knowledge of Gilmorton and its history as that comes quite quickly.
So, if you feel you could be part of the team and get involved in Gilmorton’s fascinating history, we would love to hear from you.
Membership for 2024 is now due. Membership is still just £10 for the year and is available at any of our events giving you free entry to our regular events, a monthly newsletter, and first chance at any ticketed event.
Non-members are just £3 pp on the day with the usual free refreshments thrown in.