The Society - History

Saturday 9 June 2007
Battle and Hastings or Rye
Details in Spring 2007 Bulletin

Friday 6 to Monday 9 July 2007
Long weekend based in King's Lynn Details in Winter 2006 Bulletin

Sunday 19 August 2007
Bosworth Memorial visit to Sutton Cheney and battlefield
Details in Summer 2007 Bulletin

Saturday 8 September 2007
Return visit to Romney Marsh - this time to see Lydd and New Romney churches
Details in Summer 2007 Bulletin

Non-members welcome.
Please contact Marian Mitchell
Tel: 01376 501984
Email: emsquared.witham@virgin.net

Visits to places of Ricardian and general medieval interest are arranged by a team of volunteers who meet about four or five times a year to plan and organise the programme. The usual pattern is that there is a Continental visit, lasting about a week, in May, and a long week-end visit to somewhere in the United Kingdom in mid-July. The team also arranges two or three one-day excursions a year, and its members oversee the arrangements for the three annual commemorative events, the requiem mass, Bosworth and Fotheringhay.

Continental visits are usually by coach to France or Belgium, though we have also been to Holland and Germany. They start from London as the most convenient meeting and departure point.

In recent years the tours have been to:

Normandy (1996)
Brittany (1997)
Strasbourg (1998)
Holland (1999)
Arras (2000)
Bruges (2001, staying at Blankenbergh and attending the Bruges Procession of the Holy Blood),
Aachen (2002) and
Angoulême (2003)
There was no tour in 2004 (a projected visit to Ireland fell through), and the programme was varied in 2005 by the choice of Edinburgh as the centre, rather than a Continental city.

The July visits are also usually by coach, departing from wherever we have our accommodation.
We have visited:
Northumberland (1997)
Norwich (1998), Carlisle (1999)
Yorkshire (2000)
Leicester (2001)
Welsh Marches (2002)
Kent (2003)
Shropshire (2004)

The pattern of visits was reversed in 2000, with the Yorkshire visit lasting a week, and the Arras one just a few days, as we felt that in the millennium year we should do justice to Richard III’s own home territory.

In 2006, the pattern will again be different. As there will be a packed programme to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the re-founding of the Society, which will necessitate a deeper digging into members’ pockets if they wish to enjoy the full range of events, there will be no Continental tour, but there will be the usual UK week-end in July. (See below.) It is hoped that Continental visits will resume in 2007 with a week in Provence.

To come on a Society visit is a very good way to meet other Ricardians and to make friends within the Society. We all know how enjoyment of a site or activity can be enhanced in the company of like-minded people. The visits team does its best to make everyone feel welcome. If you come on a visit for the first time, do come up at a good moment and make yourself known to the organiser.

The one-day trips organised by the visits team are usually in London itself, or start from there. The team liaises with local groups and branches, and very often members from the area visited come and join the rest. While these one-day events are for everyone in the Society, in practice the constraints of distance mean that most people who attend do come from the south-east, and it should be noted that the London and Home Counties Branch does not organise any further outings, so the south-east does not get a double ration. Everybody is welcome – just as, surely, all branches and groups would extend a welcome to Ricardians from other parts of the kingdom – and beyond.

For further information contact the chair of the Visits Committee Marian Mitchell, emsquared.witham@virgin.net
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