The Wellsbourne is back, with a Sussex folklore special…

CHRIS HARE The Secret Shore: curious and unworldly tales of folklore and superstition from the Sussex coast.
In 1868 pioneering folklorist, Charlotte Latham, recorded nearly two hundred ‘superstitions’ that she found ‘lingering’ in Sussex. She documented instances of witchcraft, the evil eye, dragons, cures, charms and totemic beliefs concerning animals and plants. In 2015, Chris Hare led a team of volunteers from the South Downs Society’s Secret Shore project, to try and find out how many of these beliefs still survived till our own times. The results surprised the team greatly – not only did much of the old lore survive but it had been supplemented by new superstitions and some old beliefs had been given a modern twist. All will be revealed in Chris’ talk.

JAMES BURT Chalk Ghosts
From the Long Man of Wilmington to The Devil’s Dyke, this talk explores Sussex myths, ghosts and chalk, demonstrating that our world is just as strange as it has ever been.

ALEXANDRA LOSKE: Visions of the Royal Pavilion Estate
An illustrated talk about The Royal Pavilion and its estate as it was and might have been, featuring rarely-seen views alongside discarded designs and recent digital re-creations. Loske will share unfamiliar, unusual and lost images, sourced almost exclusively from the city’s own archives and collections.