12.45pm   - Stuart Burrows, Museum of Bath at Work - Filthy and Verminous: Public Health in Victorian Larkhall

If you think you've a healthy lifestyle (avocado smoothies, etc) spare a thought for the inhabitants of benighted Larkhall in 1866 who at best were drinking diluted sewage and at worst dropping dead of Cholera or Typhoid. Come along and find out how our ancestors survived urban living without disinfectant. Filthy and Verminous: Public Health in Victorian Larkhall.

1.30pm – David Pearce – Larkhall History Society – The Great Turnpike Robbery of 1850

The old Swainswick turnpike house on the Gloucester Road looks rather peaceful now but in May 1850 was the scene of a violent robbery.  Two local lads and a local barmaid were charged with the theft of the day’s takings which ended with one of them getting a one way ticket to Australia. This story involves three of our pubs only one of which is still serving alcohol, some very suspect evidence and one of the miscreants turning Queen’s evidence. The event warranted very few column inches in the Bath Chronicle of the time.  I wonder how much it would get today?

 2:15pm – Roger Holly and Bryn Jones - Lark-Hall the House that Was Never a Hall

‘Larkhall’ has no official existence. Originally just Lambridge parish, the area we now call Larkhall grew up around what is now the Larkhall Inn. Folklore says it was a manor house, or a coaching inn. Sadly neither of these descriptions is correct. However, its chequered history from 1775 onwards involved innovative builders and some exotic tenants – even before it became an inn. In this talk we describe these and speculate on the origins of the name that defines our community.