Other events - Summer Meeting

Every year we organise a residential summer meeting - often overseas - and some years we will hold a similar meeting in the Spring or Autumn as well. These meetings are open to all members, who may bring their families and friends along too. (For a taste of this, see the account of a summer meeting in Brabant).

Meetings usually last for about four days, and take the form of visits, talks and social gatherings.

2010 Summer Meeting

The 2010 Summer Meeting will be held in the Solent area, between 26th and 30th July 2010.

This meeting is arranged by our members drawn from the Newcomen Soiciety's Southern Branch. Accommodation will be at the Portsmouth Holiday Inn, which is within walking distance of Old Portsmouth, with HMS Victory, HMS Warrior and several museums nearby.

We are arranging three parallel programmes for each day, which means that we can cover some twenty sites of interest, including:

• Warship and submarine design and testing, including the tanks at Haslar
• New aircraft carrier design and maintenance
• History of local aircraft manufacture
• Petrochemicals
• Radar
• Optoelectronics research
• Air traffic control
• Flight simulation
• Hovercraft
• Silk manufacture
• Water works
• Railway engineering
• Waste processing and energy recovery
• English Heritage historic objects store

Full details are in Links.

Previous meetings

2009 Summer Meeting in Asturias

The 2009 Summer Meeting was held Asturias, Northern Spain, based in Oviedo, moving on to Bilbao. The Asturias region is best known for its extractive industries, so visits were planned to these industries and the transport links that served them. There is a tradition of cider making here (as in Normandy, the location of the 2008 summer visit!)

2008 Spring Meeting in Normandy

The Spring Meeting held in Normandy in April was based on the Cherbourg Peninsula. It included visits to WW1 sites, lime kilns, remains of the Mulberry Harbour, steam engines at the mining museum at Molnay Littry, copper and pewter manufacturers, bell foundries and other subjects of interest.

2007 Summer Meeting in Bohemia

The 2007 Summer Meeting in Bohemia included such highlights as:

• silver mine workings in the mediaeval silver sity of Kutna Hora - a world heritage site
• a brewery - in Pilsen of course!
• famous crystal glass-works
• former pumping station designed by William Lindley with original steam engines and spectacular sewer complex
• 1909 tram depot with large collection of historic vehicles
• preserved mining complex at Pribram with winding engines
• the Skoda Museum
• collection of steam locomotoves and narrow-gauge railway

2006 Summer Meeting in Bristol

This meeting included the Brunel Bicentenary Conference, at Bristol Temple Meads.

2006 Spring Meeting in Holland

Based at Venlo, close to the Dutch border with Germany, visits were arranged to sites on both sides of the border, including 'hidden' steam engines at Limburg and Brabant, a post mill, coke works, steelworks, sugar mill, canal sites with a boat trip.

2005 Spring Meeting in Cornwall

This meeting was designed to help celebrate the 70th Anniversary of the Trevithick Society and to mark the nomination of the Cornish mining landscape for inclusion on the list of World Heritage Sites.

Visits included:

• Treffry Viaduct, Luxulyan, 1842
• Tour of china clay industry
• Visit to Eden Project
• Charlestown - the late 18th Century Smeaton-designed china clay and copper ore port
• Harvey and Copperhouse foundries, swing bridge and early railway remains at Hayle
• Valley of River Kennall with Gunpowder works
• Perran Foundry
• National Maritime Museum at Falmouth
• Cable & Wireless Museum at Porthcurno
• Annual Dinner of the Trevithick Society at Geevor
• Rosevale Mine at Zennor (dating from 1700s) - deep mine visit
• Levant mine with steam engine - surface mine visit
• St Just and Botallack Mine