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Open Meetings
Bowburn Local History Society (LHS) organises various meetings to which everyone is welcome.
All normally take place at Bowburn Community Centre,
normally on the second Monday of the month,
starting at 7pm.
All welcome. Admission free but donations welcome.
Meetings in 2025
(All meetings will normally be held on the 2nd Monday of the month.)
January 2025
No meeting
Monday 10 February 2025 – 7pm
Mark Carpenter – Stone-Age Britain and Beyond in 50 Objects
Monday 10 March 2025 – 7pm
Richard Annis – Water, wind & wheat: a look at some north-eastern mills
Monday 14 April 2025 – 7pm
Gary Parker – Tursdale Workshops – Mining Machinery
Monday 12 May 2025 – 7pm
Cloe Sparrow – Community engagement project re Bowburn local history
Monday 9 June 2025 – 7pm
Visit to Graham Robson’s mining equipment workshops at Broomside
Monday 14 July 2025 – 6pm
Bowburn Reminiscence Walk No. 2 – including South of the A1(M)
Monday 11 August 2025 – 6pm
Annual General Meeting – followed by Open Evening at 7pm
Monday 8 September 2025 – 7pm
Gordon Henderson – Finds from Binchester
Monday 13 October 2025 – 7pm
Jimmy McGrath – Musical events and venues in Bowburn
Monday 10 November 2025 – 7pm
Mike Syer – Bowburn in the 1930s
Monday 8 December 2025 – 6pm
Members / Committee meeting
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Meetings in 2024
(and other events!)
Monday 12th February:
Graham Robson:
“Mining Equipment used at Bowburn Colliery”
Monday 11th March:
Warrick Rochester:
“Metal Detectorists’ Finds in Old Quarrington and elsewhere in the North East”
Monday 8th April
Tony Hutchinson:
“Mary Ann Cotton, Notorious Serial Killer”
Monday 13th May
Gordon Henderson:
“Roman Medicine”
Monday 10th June
Michael Chaplin
“Sid Chaplin: From Durham Pitman to Acclaimed Man Of Letters”
Saturday 13th July
Big Meeting Day – Durham Miners’ Gala
Monday 29th July
"Bowburn – Now and Then"
A Reminiscence walk round Bowburn
Meet in Community Centre car park at 6pm
(If weather is bad, alternative date = Monday 12th August)
Monday 19th August
AGM and members’ evening:
“Now & Then” photographs + Plans for 2025
Friday 6th September
Geoff Smith (English Heritage):
Finchale Abbey – afternoon visit
Meet in Community Centre car park at 2.30pm
or at Finchale Abbey at 3pm
Saturday 21st September
Bowburn Fun Day – including local history display
Thursday 3rd October
Members of Coxhoe & Bowburn local history groups:
“A Night at the Flicks – Coxhoe and Bowburn Cinemas”
Meeting at St Andrew’s Church Schoolroom. Front Street, Coxhoe
Monday 4th November
Nick Miller, Edith Cavell Archivist, Swardeston:
“Nurse Edith Cavell (1865-1915): why did a Bowburn banner remember her in 1920?”
(Meeting by Zoom – since posted on YouTube)
[No formal meeting in December]
History & Heritage Room
Bowburn LHS has a room in Bowburn Community Centre which is dedicated to the history and heritage of the area.
Books, maps, photographs and artefacts of local historical interest have been collected here – thanks to donations that are being added to all the time – for the use of local research and interest.
The Room is now open to visitors again every Wednesday, from 12 noon till 2pm.
Appointments can also be made by e-mailing bowburnlhs@gmail.com.
Publications
Our latest book, “Early Years of a Pit Village”, is now on sale.
With 394 pages, it lists hundreds of events in, or affecting, the village of Bowburn up to and including the year 1930.
Copies of the book are available, priced £5, from the History & Heritage Room in Bowburn Community Centre (when open – see above), or e-mail bowburnlhs@gmail.com or leave a message at the Community Centre for other arrangements.
Please add £3 for post & package, if books cannot be collected.
Cheques should be made payable to “Bowburn Local History Society”.
We are grateful to Bowburn & Parkhill Community Partnership and to the Co-operative Community Fund for funding this publication.
Without that, it would not have been possible to publish this book at this low price.
(The sources of information included in “Early Years…” are not included in the book itself, to save space.
They can be found, however, elsewhere on this website: “Early Years…” sources.)
Calendars
Our main source of income for several years came from the sale
of an annual calendar, with a picture of local history interest for each month.
Some back copies of these are still available.
However it has now been decided to publish them on-line.
See: Bowburn Local History Society calendars.
We ask everyone to respect the copyright on many of these photographs.
Guided Walks
Bowburn LHS has presented a number of local guided walks,
as part of the County Council’s Countryside Service regular programme.
(See also Local history walks)
Website
Recent additions to this website
The most recent addition to this site (March 2024) was a history of the Methodist Church in Bowburn by John Fuller.
In December 2023, we posted transcriptions of the 1921 Census entries for Cassop-cum-Quarrington, Shincliffe, Coxhoe and Cornforth parishes.
For other censuses, see: Local censuses etc.
(These entries were updated in November 2019.)
Transcriptions are also there of local entries in the National Register 1939.
(This listed every resident in the UK, with addresses, dates of birth and occupations, on 29th September 1939.)
Page updated
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