Chalke Valley History Festivals have been awarded £260,000 as part of the Government’s £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund (CRF) to help face the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic and to ensure the Chalke Valley History Festival and its Festival for Schools have a sustainable future, the Culture Secretary has announced today.

Chalke Valley History Festivals is one of 1,385 cultural and creative organisations across the country receiving urgently needed support. £257 million of investment has been announced today as part of the very first round of the Culture Recovery Fund grants programme being administered by Arts Council England. Further rounds of funding in the cultural and heritage sector are due to be announced over the coming weeks.

​The Chalke Valley History Festival is a unique celebration of history that includes talks, performance, music, living history, and story-telling, covering a very broad range of subjects from the deep past to the near present, and through many different perspectives. It is the largest festival in the UK (perhaps the world) devoted entirely to history and attracts a local, regional, national and international audience. The festival is owned by a charitable trust set up to promote the
understanding and inspiration of the past to the widest possible audience of all ages but especially children through the Chalke Valley History Festival for Schools which runs concurrently.

In the decade since the festival has been running, we have brought a major cultural event to south-west Wiltshire - there is no rural-based cultural festival of this scale anywhere else in the area. It attracts some 25,000-30,000 people annually and also provides a large number of jobs and boosts the local economy; we use local businesses as far as we possibly can.

Over a week, visitors enjoy a blend of talks, discussions and debates, alongside a vast through-the-ages living history encampment featuring interactive events and, at the weekend, air displays of historic aircraft. The festival is noted for the range of performers it attracts from leading academics and nationally renowned figures to the best living historians. In addition to political, social, economic and military history, experts in the history of art, music, theatre and literature educate and entertain the audience.

Following the cancellation of the 2020 festival and the attendant costs already incurred, without the funding from the Arts Council Culture Recovery Fund we were planning a greatly reduced festival for 2021 which would not have included the Festival for Schools. This funding will enable us to mount the Festival, including the Festival for Schools, with social distancing measures in place (provided, of course, that holding a festival at all complies with Government guidelines) from 21-27 June 2021.

Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said:

“This funding is a vital boost for the theatres, music venues, museums and cultural organisations that form the soul of our nation. It will protect these special places, save jobs and help the culture sector’s recovery. 

“These places and projects are cultural beacons the length and breadth of the country. This unprecedented investment in the arts is proof this Government is here for culture, with further support to come in the days and weeks ahead so that the culture sector can bounce back strongly.”

Chair, Arts Council England, Sir Nicholas Serota, said:

“Theatres, museums, galleries, dance companies and music venues bring joy to people and life to our cities, towns and villages. This life-changing funding will save thousands of cultural spaces loved by local communities and international audiences. Further funding is still to be announced and we are working hard to support our sector during these challenging times.”

Festival Director, Jane Pleydell-Bouverie, said:

“We are absolutely delighted and so grateful to have received funding thanks to the Government’s Culture Recovery Fund. We passionately believe that it is only by learning about the past that we can make sense of the present and prepare for the future so this grant will enable us to continue to mount the Festival for Schools alongside the main Chalke Valley History Festival programme.”

​Royal Museums Greenwich is pleased to announce the reopening of the Queen’s House Gallery at the National Maritime Museum on 10 August 2020. The announcement follows the news that Cutty Sark reopened on 20 July, and the north side of the Royal Observatory Greenwich will reopen on 3 August 2020. The Peter Harrison Planetarium will reopen at a later date. 

In addition to some of the treasures of the Queen’s House, including artworks by Reynolds and Canaletto visitors will have the unique opportunity to see the three surviving Armada portraits side-by-side. Faces of a Queen: The Armada Portraits of Elizabeth I will run until 31 August 2020. This is the first time the three surviving portraits have been displayed together in their 430-year history. 

Afterwards, two Armada portraits will remain on display, accompanied by a new intervention, Call and Response by sound artist Peter Adjaye, encouraging new perceptions of the hidden histories implicit in the portrait and its contemporary legacies. 

Additionally, Woburn Treasures has been extended until Easter 2021. This exhibition is a major collaboration, which will see significant works from the private art collection of The Duke and Duchess of Bedford on show in the Queen’s House. The collaboration marks the first time significant collection pieces have been on public display in a national museum since the 1950s.  
 
Considered to be one of the most important art collections still in private hands, the Woburn Abbey loans comprise of over 20 works by distinguished artists such as Van Dyck, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Poussin and Canaletto. The artworks hang alongside significant works from the renowned national collection of Royal Museums Greenwich.  

The visitor experience team have been working hard to ensure the Queen’s House is safe to welcome back visitors. Hand sanitisers will be available throughout the site and staff and signage will be located around the site to ensure guests are observing social distancing. Visitors are being encouraged to wear face masks while on site. 

Although the Queen’s House remains free to enter, tickets must be purchased in advance to ensure social distancing can be maintained. Pre-booked time slots ensure that visits can be adequately spread throughout the day and sites do not exceed capacity. Tickets will go on sale from 3 August 2020. 

Also on the 10 August, the Insight Investment Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2019 exhibition at the National Maritime Museum will reopen. This exhibition showcases the spectacular imagery from the 2019 competition from across our Solar System, galaxy and the wider universe, including ‘Into the Shadow’, the overall winner by Hungarian photographer László Francsics which depicts the 35 phases of the total lunar eclipse that occurred on 21 January. Advance booking is essential. Tickets go on sale on 3 August 2020. 

The rest of the National Maritime Museum will reopen later in the summer. Royal Museums Greenwich will continue to monitor the situation closely and base its approach on advice received from the Government and Public Health England. 

The Queen’s House | https://www.rmg.co.uk/queens-house  ​

Coastal Stories is a new podcast from bestselling author and award-winning presenter Charlie Connelly. 

Every episode brings a true tale drawn from the seas and shores around Britain and Ireland - the heroic, disastrous, startling, hilarious, mysterious, tragic, romantic or just plain weird - told to the relaxing accompaniment of lapping waves.

With each podcast clocking in at no more than fifteen minutes Coastal Stories is a perfect quick escape to the sea for a good yarn, no matter how far from the shore you might be.  

Early tales in the series include an early 19th century encounter with a sea serpent off Orkney, the Eastbourne Bathers' Revolt of 1929 and the man who happily spent eleven consecutive Christmases on a lighthouse two miles off Fleetwood. 

“I’ve collected so many extraordinary stories from around our coasts on my travels, many of which are practically unknown outside their locality,” says Connelly, whose book Attention All Shipping: A Journey Round The Shipping Forecast is one of the biggest selling travel titles of the 21st century. "There seems to be a real appetite for good stories out there, and the response from the growing Coastal Stories audience has been really encouraging."

Delivered with a mix of gentle intimacy and wry humour, not to mention each tale being told over the sound of the waves outside Connelly's home, Coastal Stories will appeal to sea dogs and landlubbers alike.
 
Coastal Stories can be downloaded via Apple, Spotify and most other podcast platforms and has a Facebook page at 'Coastal Stories Podcast'. Charlie Connelly is @charlieconnelly on Twitter.

https://audioboom.com/channels/5013138
https://www.facebook.com/CoastalStoriesPod/

From Monday 22nd to Sunday 28th June, the world’s largest festival entirely devoted to history returns to Broad Chalke, near Salisbury, for its 10th year with an exciting new line-up of activities.  Spread over 60 acres of stunning Wiltshire countryside, the Daily Mail Chalke Valley History Festival is a celebration of the past like no other and is a unique array of interactive living history, activities for all the family, historic aircraft displays as well as talks and discussions with top-class speakers and household names.  The Festival aims to make history accessible to all and to encourage both young and old alike to leave feeling enthralled, excited and enthused about our past.

With over 200 talks and activities already planned, the wide-ranging programme promises to suit all tastes.  Speakers already confirmed include: Holocaust survivor Inge Auerbacher; journalist and television presenter Alan Titchmarsh; former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams; globally best-selling novelist Tracy Chevalier; TV historians Dan Snow and David Starkey; international lawyer and best-selling writer Philippe Sands; comedian Al Murray; former lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret Anne Glenconner; celebrated gardener, renowned conductor Jane Glover; BBC Newsnight’s Diplomatic Editor and historian Mark Urban; international best-selling author Jung Chang; comedian and impressionist Rory Bremner; writer, commentator and broadcaster Agnès Poirier; and the greatest living playwright, Tom Stoppard.

2020 of course marks the 75th Anniversary of VE Day as well as the 80th of Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain, and we will be holding special 1940 and 1945 days, including talks, discussions and demonstrations. It’s also an important year for the Festival itself as it celebrates its 10th anniversary.  To get everybody into the party spirit this year, there will be some exciting new changes to the Festival line-up, including a vaudeville theme, live music in the bar every night, and a beautiful new Spiegeltent.  On the Saturday night, fireworks will light up the skies over the Chalke Valley as visitors take to the dance floor and enjoy a full programme of entertainment at the Victory Party, dressed up in their glad rags and Forties finery.

The festival will look very different this year, with living history encampments right in the centre of the Festival site.  Amongst the new additions for 2020 will be four historic dwellings: Iron Age, Medieval, Tudor and a late 17th Century coaching inn.  Each one will be lived in throughout the week and will include a stockaded area for animals and all the features of daily life in those periods.

Also, if you want a preview of what else is new for this year, the list includes an SOE Training Camp, a historic brewery, an all-female crewed Russian T-34 tank, a major WWII field workshop, Soldier School, and a completely new trench experience.  Plus, you can even get your lunch Tudor-style at one of the historic fast food stalls.

For many, one of the highlights of the Festival is the series of spectacular historic aircraft displays that take place at intervals over the weekend.  So, air enthusiasts will be delighted to hear that the aircraft will be back this summer, dazzling visitors as they twist and turn over the Chalke Valley site.

The rich and varied Live History Live programme returns, showing the vital role of both women and men in our developing story.  From domestic day-to-day living to warfare and survival, there will be much to learn from the Roman and Celtic era through to the end of the Second World War.  All the living historians taking part in the activities are experts in their fields and each event will show them making or doing something from the past – and often busting many deeply entrenched myths in conversation with some of our best-loved TV historians and authors.

Last year the Festival for Schools welcomed nearly 2,500 pupils from 112 schools.  Bringing together the greatest historians, academics, living historians and TV personalities to inform on curriculum-based subjects, the Festival makes a major contribution to history education and brings history alive in new and exciting ways.  This year’s schools programme will run on Monday 22nd June (for Years 6,7,8 & 9), on Tuesday 23rd June (for Years 6,7,8 & 9) and on Wednesday 24th June (for Years 10 & 12).

The full programme for the main Festival, and further details about the Festival for Schools, will be announced in the coming weeks. Tickets will go on sale on 28th April.  

The Daily Mail Chalke Valley History Festival will take place at Church Bottom,
Broad Chalke, Salisbury, Wiltshire, SP5 5DS.  

For more details about the Festival, please visit www.cvhf.org.uk  Follow all the news on Twitter at @CVHISTORYFEST and on Facebook and Instagram.

​

Inside History Live! returns to Chester this March with an evening of Crime, Controversy and Corruption from the 19th Century.

Dr Stephen Carver, the author of "The 19th Century Underworld" (Pen & Sword books), will be our special guest speaker for the evening as he tells us more about the seedy underbelly of the Victorian Period. From the bodysnatching murderous duo of Burke and Hare to the 1888 Whitechapel Murders, Dr Carver will vividly bring the period to life. 

Our Editor, Nick Kevern, will begin the evening with "The trials of Lizzie Borden" which will focus on the double murder of her father and step mother in Fall River in 1892 and Borden's subsequent trials through Jury, media and public opinion.

Dr Carver will also be launching his new book, The Author who outsold Dickens: The Life and Work of W.H Ainsworth, at the event with copies available for purchase at the event. Dr Carver will also be at hand for signings and a chat.

Copies of Inside History: Crime and the Underworld will also be available.

Tickets for this event cost £5 and are now live on our online store. Please note that the venue does have limited space so we have set the tickets available to 60.

For more information and tickets please visit insidehistorymagazine.ecwid.com/

Pre-orders for Inside History Magazine are now on sale via crowdfunder.co.uk. 

​Our aim is raise enough money to print as many copies of the magazine as we can which we will then sell through stockists and our own website. We hope you can join us on this journey by getting your copy of the magazine, donating or even getting your hands on some of our amazing posters. 

The first issue of the magazine focuses on the history of Medicine and Surgery. We are delighted to be working with Dr Lindsey Fitzharris (The Butchering Art), Dr John Woolf (The Wonders) and Louise Wyatt (A History of Nursing) who are providing some excellent articles.

For every order, we are also entering every backer into our prize draw where you can win signed copies of books from our amazing writers. 

Plus, we also have some cool historical posters on offer. 

To find out more, simply head over to our crowdfunder page and if you like what you see please be sure to support us. 

The Chalke Valley History Festival brings history to life in more ways than you might think. People might travel far and wide to see their favourite historians deliver talks and to sign their books but the festival also has many more things up its sleeve to entertain and engage history lovers. 

Having gone around the festival, our Editor has picked his top 5 things to do at the festival. There really is something for all ages and historical interests here at Chalke Valley.

1 The Giant Hawker Typhoon “Tiffy”
​(Free)

High on the hill is the Giant Hawker Typhoon “Tiffy” It has been a collaborative effort with Qinetiq and the MOD Boscombe Down S.T.E.M team working closely with universities, colleges and schools to create the largest model World War II fighter plane ever. 

For those who remember crafting their small Airfix models and dreamed about a larger scale version...then this is for you. 

The Hawker Typhoon created is four times the size of the ones that flew over Normandy on D-Day. Whilst there are over 50 Spitfires still flying today, there is not one Typhoon. For fans of this spectacular plane this is a must see.

2. World War II Trench
​(£11.50 Book in Advance)

Brace yourself as you prepare to experience this immersive experience within the World War II Trench. Re-enacting a scenario from Normandy in 1944 you will be guided through the Trench with pyrotechnics going off around you. This the not for the faint of heart but certainly gives you a vivid flavour of what conditions in which the men who fought faced.

3. The History Tellers
​(Free)

Performing 10 different shows over the course of the festival, The History Tellers will bring history to life for all ages. From sailing the ocean waves with the Mutiny of the Bounty to Secret underwater Espinarge, this is a real treat for the whole family. Think along the lines of Horrible Histories are you are practically there. 

My personal favourite is the story of Maurice Wilson who aimed to reach the summit of Everest in the 1920s. No talent, never climbed before and no clue. Be sure to check them out.

4. The History Maker
​(Free)


The History Maker AKA Adam Schuch-Des Forges vividly brings to life the story of Major C.K King who was also known as “Banger”. Focusing on “Banger” Schuch-Des Forges recounts the stories of the men who fought in the East Yorkshire Regiment on D-Day. Skillfully acted and wonderfully told you will find some of the anecdotes amusing but will also leave with a deep respect for “Banger”. This is a must watch.   

5. The Moot 
(Free)


For all things “Living History” head to the rear of the festival and visit The Moot. With a wealth of historical periods covered from the Romans to the Second World War, re-enactors will show you cookery, warfare and of course, my personal favourite, the history of brewing.

For more information and to get tickets for the Chalke Valley History Festival please visit:
https://cvhf.org.uk/  #AmazingHistory