We are looking forward to hosting Fiona Edmonds who is Professor in Regional History at Lancaster University. Her book Gaelic Influence in the Northumbrian Kingdom: the Golden Age and the Viking Age won the Frank Watson Prize 2021. Her lecture is entitled  ‘‘‘Northumbrian institutions’’ reconsidered: three upland communities in medieval Britain’. She will consider the textual record, place-names and archaeological evidence to ask how far we may talk of similarities; and if common features existed, why that was that the case.  

We are excited to welcome BALH members and the public to this fascinating talk which will be of interest to all of us working on the medieval period, upland local histories and comparative studies.

Professor Fiona Edmonds

Professor Fiona Edmonds is Professor in Regional History at Lancaster University. Her book Gaelic Influence in the Northumbrian Kingdom: the Golden Age and the Viking Age (Studies in Celtic History, Boydell and Brewer) was published in 2019 and it is now available in paperback. The book won the Frank Watson Prize 2021 and was shortlisted in Scotland’s National Book Awards 2021. More recently, she has been working with Dr Caroline Brett and Professor Paul Russell of Cambridge University on a Leverhulme Trust project entitled ‘Brittany and the Atlantic Archipelago: Contact, Myth and History 450–1200’. 

The Dymond Lecture

In 2021 BALH were proud to launch of a new annual lecture, to be held each winter, welcoming a distinguished academic to share their research with us. We hope this will become a highlight of our annual calendar for our members and the wider public to enjoy. The lecture has been named in honour of Dr David Dymond, who died in August 2021. David had been closely involved with the British Association for Local History for many years including serving as a council member, trustee, vice-chair, chair and vice-president.

The inaugural Dymond Lecture was held in December 2021 by Professor Andrew Hopper who spoke about his research on the human costs of the British Civil Wars of the seventeenth century. In December 2022 we were pleased to host Professor Briony McDonagh on histories of living with water and flood, examining how the inhabitants and Corporation of Hull managed water and how local history can inform our present and future.