Online Talk: Historic Building Mythbusting – Uncovering Folklore, History & Archaeology

Date 21 July 2026 19:00 - 20:30

Location Online talk

Speaker James Wright

Historic Building Mythbusting – Uncovering Folklore, History & Archaeology

A Folklore Society online talk by

James Wright

Tuesday 21 July 2026

19:00-20:30 (BST)

Go to any ancient building and there will be interesting, exciting, and romantic stories presented to the visitor. They are commonly believed and widely repeated – but are they really true? These stories include those of secret passages linking ancient buildings, spiral staircases in castles giving advantage to right-handed defenders, ship timbers used in the construction of buildings on land, blocked doors in churches which are thought to keep the Devil out and claims to be the oldest pub in the country.

James Wright will explain the development of such myths and investigate the underlying truths behind them. Sometimes the realities hiding behind the stories are even more interesting, romantic, and exciting than the myth itself...

Speaker: Dr James Wright FSA (Triskele Heritage) is an award-winning buildings archaeologist. He has two decades professional experience of ferreting around in people’s cellars, hunting through their attics and digging up their gardens. He hopes to find meaningful truths about how ordinary and extraordinary folk lived their lives in the mediaeval period. He is the author of the book Historic Building Mythbusting (The History Press, 2024), which was the runner-up in the 2025 Katharine Briggs Award.

Tickets £6.00 (£4.00 for Folklore Society members with the Promo Code–log in to https://folklore-society.com/members-only to get the Promo Code) from 'Historic Building Mythbusting Tickets, Tuesday, July 21  •  7 PM - 8:30 PM GMT+1 | Eventbrite

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