Takeley Local History Society: Review May 2009

The Society has had another successful year and the membership remains at over 50. Meetings are held at least 4 times a year and we are grateful to Takeley Primary School who allow us to hold our meetings in their hall. We also have one local outing. Last year was to Great Canfield Church and this year in June John Monk will be conducting us on a tour of historical sites within Hatfield Forest including the site of the famous Doodle Oak and the area used during the war as a secret ammunition dump (a secret well known to the local children at the time).

Since the last Parish Assembly we have had the following speakers and events:

14 June TLHS 10th Anniversary Celebration Barbeque and Display of Photographs.

16 September, Speaker Georgina Green - Dick Turpin

25 November, AGM and Jack Wright (Farming between the wars) and Steve Hazon (The TLHS website and history research without leaving home)

Our planned talk on 3 February Speaker: Richard Thomas. The Royal Gunpowder Mills was cancelled due to bad weather. This talk has since been given to the Takeley Wives and so Richard will be rebooked speaking on a different subject.

5 May, speaker Fred Feather. Arsenic and Old Essex

No new booklets have been published by the society this year but our 20 titles continue to sell well. Two of our members, John and Nia Watkiss have independently published their book on Bassingbourn Hall and this is now available.

We continue to develop our website with many new resources having been added during the year. Email contacts continue to arrive from those researching their Takeley ancestors and in many cases we are able to help them with local information.

We have recently augmented the committee by the addition of Terry Eagleton from Little Canfield. Terry has been a member of the society for many years and his local knowledge of Little Canfield will greatly assist us to include Little Canfield history which is so closely linked with that of Takeley.