MVP Newsletter June 2024

Our year of meetings started, as it always does, with our Christmas Party in January, and as usual we had a lovely selection of food contributed by attendees, and a free bar courtesy of the ‘committee’. There was a local history element too, in the form of a quiz, with much collaboration and not too much competition! In February, Carolyn continued our general history of Mortimer, and picked up where she had left off last year, ie after the Norman Conquest. We learnt what life would have been like for the inhabitants of Stratfield Mortimer in medieval times. Continuing that theme, in our March meeting Chris talked to us about the Lords of the Manor of Stratfield Mortimer, from the first Ralph de Mortimer in the 11th century, up until Sir Richard Benyon in the 19th century…trying to keep track of the various Benyons and their relationship to each other required major concentration and frequent diagrams, and we can still see what the Benyons contributed to the village today, from the rebuilding of St Mary’s church, to the school and the cottages. The Mortimer Men’s Club, built in 1892, has only relatively recently been demolished. It was all hands on deck for our April meeting, where we looked at many of the mysterious brown envelopes that make up a large portion of our archives, most of which haven’t been seen by current members of the group. Contents were sorted and lists were made, all of which will be typed up to make them more searchable. We are in the process of setting up a website, and digitising our collection, but it’s going to be a work of several years…or decades…

Mortimer Club - early 1900’s