James Wright will be leading a talk and Q&A on Mediaeval Building Myths – The Folklore & Archaeology of Historic Buildings.

- Historic buildings specialists often meet folk who are eager to talk about their properties and their enthusiasm is genuinely infectious. We can learn so much of value about a society by what it builds. However, romanticised and elaborated stories often grow up around certain mysterious features in mediaeval buildings – secret passages, ship timbers and swordsmen fighting on spiral staircases. It is surprising how often these get repeated all across the country and at so many different structures. In this talk award-winning buildings archaeologist, James Wright, will outline the legends, look at the origins of the stories and reveal the underlying truths behind the tales.

- James Wright is an award-winning buildings archaeologist. He has two decades professional experience of ferreting around in people’s cellars, hunting through their attics and digging up their gardens. He hopes to find meaningful truths about how ordinary and extraordinary folk lived their lives in the mediaeval period.