On the 20th November we welcomed Mr Victor Blunden, who gave an appreciative audience of over 30 people an illustrated talk entitled ‘Agriculture and Farming in the Nile Valley’. Victor is a lecturer in Egyptology at the University of Manchester and for a number of  years has given classes in Saddleworth organised by the WEA.
Normally a talk about Egypt concentrates on the Pyramids, Luxor or the Valley of the Kings but Victor told us of the activities of the people who built these monuments and how they lived and fed themselves.

The final lecture of the year, on December 4th, was given by Ian Miller of Oxford Archaeology North who are based in Lancaster. Ian is a Project Manager specialising in Industrial Archaeology and apart from Ancoats, the subject of his talk, he was also responsible for excavating the Roman Bath House at Wigan and the civil settlement at Old Carlisle Roman fort. Ian told us of the development of Ancoats as the worlds first industrial suburb based on steam power. He explained, using old maps of Manchester, the growth of the area and how the mills clustered to Shooters Brook initially but then moved to the River Irwell in order to take advantage of the increased water flow for their steam engines.