15th January Hoby & District Village Hall
“Death Is A Market Place Where All Men Meet – an introduction to Swithland slate headstones” by Colin Hyde
Many people have noticed Leicestershire’s rugged and characterful Swithland slates on the roofs of older buildings in the county. Quarried from Roman times to the end of the 19th century, Swithland slate has been used for many things over the years and this talk will be a look at its use for headstones in churchyards. The grey, blue and purple tinges of the slate add huge visual appeal to the region’s churchyards, while the content of the carvings – like headstones across the world – tell us something of the people and cultures that created them.
Colin has been working with oral history archives since the 1980s and is currently managing the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project at the University of Leicester. Colin also has an interest in local history in Leicestershire & Rutland, and photographing and recording urban and rural environments, which is how the current talk developed.
The Covid pandemic resulted in the cancellation of all the events in the rest of 2020