Clearance at the IHGS at Northgate in Canterbury continues as we prepare to sell one quarter of the building and receive a generous legacy of the William Marsh Harvey antiquarian library. Whatever duplicates there are will be added to our own our enormous collection of extra books for some kind of ongoing grand sale during the summer. Our Diamond Jubilee Awards Day and Celebrations are now fixed for July 31 and preparations are now underway. Zoom tutorials and lectures continue to draw very healthy audiences. My own consolidated Canterbury Probate Index which brings together grants of probate and administration from all courts for the city parishes is now well advanced. Once sorted it will be interesting to be able at a glance to see all the inhabitants of one parish, the occupants of the various almshouses, or perhaps all the Canterbury silkweavers in one go. The first tranche will cover c.1720-1858. Having for years dreamt about writing a parish history I have at last settled on Reculver. Judicious purchasing of reference works has reminded me how much background reading to the sources is necessary before undertaking a venture of this nature, although at 67 I hope to have long enough to complete it, DV ! One plus point of course is that unlike most places whose recorded history might begin with Domesday Book at the earliest, here we start with the Roman fort of Regulbium and the important Anglo-Saxon church of St Augustine founded in A.D. 669. Thus there is much to consider between then and the intrusive and unsightly modern caravan site so horribly close to such venerable remains. It is just as well that the site is guarded by English Heritage for otherwise what would be left in a another generation? I have already witnessed partial destruction and losses since my own childhood. Sic transit gloria mundi.
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