Heritage Talks
Our specially curated programme of heritage talks will be held at the village hall this year, on the corner of Cliff Road at the top of the village. It's a super-accessible space and they're running a great cafe. Catch our free taxi at Chapel Yard up Staithes Bank to the car park, and then it's a short walk. Whitby Museum will also be there, showing artefacts from their Staithes collection, and advising on how you can trace your local heritage. Best to buy tickets in advance but there will be some on the door.
Saturday
Staithes: Life, Light and Landscape A new book about The Staithes Group of artists by Adam Chadwick 10.30-11.30am £4
Author, auctioneer and museum curator Adam Chadwick opens our heritage programme by telling us about his forthcoming book on the fascinating colony of artists who descended on the village at the end of the 19th Century, and put Staithes and its inhabitants on the map.
It’s the first book published on the group in over a decade and looks at the relationships between the artists, their individual styles and connections to patrons, and the artworld of the time. Adam will be showing previously unpublished archive and imagery from both museum and private collections.
Gertrude Bell, The uncrowned Queen of Iraq by Gordon Hetherington 11.45-12.45 £4
Back by popular demand, last year’s spellbinding and most talked about talk! Brought up in Redcar in a wealthy family of ironmasters, Gertrude defied Victorian social conventions. She was one of the earliest women to go to Oxford University, and the first to obtain a first-class degree in modern history. Fiercely intelligent and determined, she’s famed for her skilled mountaineering, journeys through the desert as an archaeologist, involvement in the formation of Iraq with TE Lawrence and Winston Churchill, and for founding their national museum. Dubbed the Queen of the. Desert, she led a life extraordinary for a woman in a man’s world.
Dennis Buck, Captain Cook: the Great Navigator. From the North Sea into History 1.30pm-2.30pm £4
It’s been a while since the festival featured the Great Navigator who first fell in love with the sea while working in a shop in Staithes. So we’re delighted to present passionate Cook expert Dennis Buck, a guide at Whitby’s Captain Cook Memorial Museum and a curator of the Cook collection at Whitby Museum. Dennis offers more than a journey through Cook and his voyages, he’ll be looking in detail at the local connections who enabled his talent and ambition to take him "farther than any other man has been before”, examining popular myths around the man, and looking at his impact on world history, science and culture.
Art and archaeology at Street House by Dr Stephen Sherlock 3-4pm £4
Leading archaeologist Dr Stephen Sherlock on the artistic reconstructions of his discoveries up at Streethouse, including the Saxon Princess, the UK’s earliest saltworks (6,000 years) and his most recent discovery…. Illustrations and photographs incorporate the important work of artists showing finds, and depicting how the site looked from the Neolithic period through to the Saxon era.
Can Geology Save The World? TV Geologist Professor Chris Jackson (WSP & Imperial College London) 5.30-6.30pm
Geologists just look at rocks, right? In this talk, BBC TV geologist Chris Jackson invites you to reimagine the almost unimaginable ways in which geology and geologists shape our lives, livelihoods, and even Labour's red wall. He’ll take you on a multi-billion-year journey through space and time to reveal how many of the great social,
environmental, and economic challenges of the 21st Century require geologists.
Tickets in advance: www.linktr.ee/StaithesRocks
Sunday
Discover the Staithes Mermaids Legend – Sarah Peverley 10.30-11.20am £4
Join mermaid expert and cultural historian Professor Sarah Peverley for an illustrated talk about the famous Mermaids of Staithes, Yorkshire’s only mermaid myth which was recently featured on the BBC. Discover the earliest known versions of the legend and learn about its connections with other mermaid stories from around the British Isles. With witches, superstitions, folklore, and the sea, there is something for everyone in the intriguing history behind the legend
Every Now and Then: a fascinating look at the work of Victorian photographer Frank Meadow Sutcliffe by Mike Shaw, former owner of the Sutcliffe Gallery
Frank Meadow Sutcliffe (1853 -1941) made a living in Whitby taking portrait photographs of Victorian holiday makers in his studio during the late 1800s, but became famous for his more atmospheric and artistic images of the town and surrounding villages. He also photographed everyday working people, illustrating the rigours of Victorian life of the times. Mike Shaw has worked with the collection all his life and will be showing a selection of Staithes photographs, some of which have never been seen before, and others from late 1800s fading into the same scene today 11.30-12.30 £4
Lost Tales of Staithes - Stories and Photographs by John Tindale 12.40-1.40pm £4
An amusing and interesting look at tall stories and tales of Staithes from a generation ago. John Tindale was a senior photographer at the Whitby Gazette and a leading post-war photo-journalist. His son David Tindale presents this amusing talk and film show
Mined Over Matter by Chris Toth 1.50-2.50-pm £4
Chris Toth from the Boulby Underground Laboratory is again back by public demand and ready to illuminate the mysterious world of the ever-elusive Dark Matter. He’ll report on the experiments conducted 1.1km beneath our feet in a light-hearted physics lecture for all ages. No prior physics knowledge required!
Staithes Stories – John Cole, Colin Harrison and Bill Hinchley in conversation with Mandy Wragg 3-4pm £donations in aid of the Great North Air Ambulance
Join long-time Staithes residents, hailing from three of Staithes’ oldest families - fisherman John Cole, Colin Harrison the fourth of five family generations to serve in the RNLI, and village historian Bill Hinchley as they discuss the life, traditions and characters of Staithes as they knew them, and beyond.