Member Exclusive Lectures
Our Members can enjoy exclusive Lectures from leading experts on a wide range of topics connected with churches and heritage.
These lectures take place on the second Monday of the month and begin at 6pm in the evening.
If you are a member, then keep an eye out for the members' e-newsletters every month for details of upcoming lectures and information on how to join these exclusive lectures. You can also contact the Membership team at [email protected] or by calling 0800 206 1463.
These lectures are only accessible to Members of the Churches Conservation Trust and run in addition to our monthly "An Evening with CCT" Lectures that remain 100% free of charge and are accessible to all.
If you wish to become a Member to access these lectures, you can do so from as little as £3.50 a month. More information about our membership offer, and the many benefits, can be found here.
Upcoming Members' Exclusive Lectures
All of our Member's Exclusive Lectures are available to watch on CCTdigital.com by logging in with your membership details. Please email the Membership team at [email protected] if you encounter any technical difficulties with accessing these lectures.
We look forward to welcoming our CCT Members live from 5:50pm to hear about these fascinating topics. Instructions on how to join us will be sent in the Members' E-newsletter.
Monday, 11 December - Gifts and Books: from Ancient Temples to Modern Myths with Dr Nicholas Perkins.
We all know about gift-giving: it can nurture our friendships and help to mark the most important moments in our lives. But gifts can also be a source of anxiety, or a reminder of unequal relationships. Writing has always existed alongside the dynamics of giving and exchanging, and in this lecture,
Nicholas Perkins will introduce some striking, beautiful and meaningful books as gifts. He will discuss myths of the gift from a number of cultures and times, and suggest how storytelling itself is a form of gift in our lives.
Nicholas Perkins is a Professor of Medieval Literature at the University of Oxford, and Fellow in English at St Hugh’s College, Oxford. His books include Medieval Romance and Material Culture (ed., 2015) and The Gift of Narrative in Medieval England (2021; paperback 2023). This year, he curated a major exhibition in the Bodleian Library, Gifts and Books, and edited a book of essays about this theme: Gifts and Books: From Early Myth to the Present (Bodleian Library, 2023). ‘As every reader knows, books are the best gifts by far, and this exhibition and its lovely accompanying book will give great pleasure to very many visitors and readers’ (Philip Pullman).
Monday, 8 January 2024 - When Monumental Brasses Lie with Kelcey Williams
More information about this exciting lecture to follow shortly.
Monday, 12 February 2024 - John of Gaunt: A European Prince with Helen Carr
Son of Edward III, brother to the Black Prince, father to Henry IV and sire of all the Tudors, John of Gaunt was always close to the English crown. But was he too rich and too powerful and did he have his eye on his nephew’s throne? Why was he such a focus of hate in the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381? Bestselling historian Helen Carr tells the story of this extraordinary medieval figure who held the power behind the English throne, passionately upheld chivalric values, and took huge risks to be with the woman he loved.
Helen Carr is an award nominated historian specialising in English medieval history. Described by Dan Jones as ‘one of the most exciting voices in narrative history’, Helen has built her career in making medieval history exciting and accessible whilst rooted in scholarship. Helen is the Author of the Times best-selling, The Red Prince: John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, one of the Sunday Times best books of 2021 and shortlisted for the prestigious Elizabeth Longford Prize. She is also the co-author and editor of What is History, Now? with Suzannah Lipscomb.Helen’s next book, a new history of the fourteenth century and the last Plantagenets, will be published by Hutchinson Heinemann (Penguin Random House) in 2025.
Helen writes a monthly column for BBC History Magazine and contributes to the TLS, The Spectator, Unherd and The New Statesman. She has been a royal historian CNN, NBC, Sky and CityTV and is an elected fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
Monday, 11 March 2024 - Writing on the Wall: Graffiti, Rebellion and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Britain with Maddy Pelling.
What if walls could talk? For historian Madeleine Pelling, they can - if you know where to look. A brilliant new cultural history of the long eighteenth century, Writing on the Wall is told through the marks its citizens left behind, bringing into focus lost voices from the highest to the lowest in society. From the centre of London to the islands of the Caribbean, Pelling goes in search of graffiti, evidence of how ordinary people experienced the world-changing events that defined their lives - from political prisoners to travelling vicars, homesick sailors, Romantic poets and the artisans of the industrial revolution. Here are lives, loves, triumphs and failures, scratched into the walls of prisons and latrines, chalked up on doors and etched into churches. The names of their creators may be lost to history, but together they tell the real story of Britain's most rebellious and transformative century.
Dr Madeleine Pelling is a historian, writer and broadcaster. She holds a PhD from the University of York, and her first book, Writing on the Wall: Graffiti, Rebellion and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Britain, will be published by Profile Books in March 2024. Madeleine is also co-host of History Hit's After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal podcast, and is a regular contributor to television made by broadcasters including Channel 4 and Warner Bros. Her words appear in The Guardian, The Independent, BBC History Magazine and History Today, as well as across a range of international scholarly journals.
Monday, 8 April - Bird Species in Spring with Beccy Speight
More information about this exciting lecture to follow shortly.
Keep an eye on this page for further updates about upcoming lectures. Our programme for the coming months will soon be announced.