Date/Time
Date(s) - 21 October 2026
7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Price
£5.00 - £10.00
Categories No Categories
Sussex Inn Signs and their History
Wednesday 21st October (not 22nd as previously advertised) 7 pm – doors open 6.30 pm. Admission charge £5 for members and £10 for non members. Prior booking not required. Refreshments available.
The research for Janet Penningtons doctoral thesis, The Inns and Taverns of Western Sussex, 1550-1700: A Regional Study of their Architectural and Social History, (2003) took her to pubs all over Sussex and in many other counties. If you think you know your White Horse from your Red Lion, or your Kings Head from your Royal Oak, come along and learn something new.
Inn signs were, and still are, much more than advertising for food, drink and accommodation nowadays. The signs and their brackets reveal patronage, land ownership, social status, local personalities and events, opening up a window to the past. Sussex Inn signs are a colourful addition to our urban and rural surroundings and they are still full of meaning in the 21st Century.
Janet Pennington is an independent historian with a PhD in early modern Sussex inn and tavern history. Her MA dissertation is about Sir Thomas Shirley, the Elizabethan owner of Wiston House near Steyning. While working as an archivist at Lancing College, she also taught local history and palaeography for the Centre of Continuing Education at the University of Sussex. She is a member of the Wealden Buildings Study Group and a past chairman of the West Sussex Archives Society, and at present Hon. President of the Brighton and Hove Archaeological Society.
Janet gives illustrated talks throughout Sussex, particularly on pubs, aspects of Wiston Estate History, including Chanctonbury Ring, and a variety of other subjects such as the ritual protection of the home and travel in the past.
Bookings
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