We are excited that the Society’s Spring conference for 2025 will take place in partnership with The Food Museum, Stowmarket.
Visit The UK’s Only Food Museum
In a change to our usual format, the conference will take place across two venues. On Thursday 24th April it will be held at the historic venue of the Guildhall, Bury St. Edmunds.
Bury St Edmunds Guildhall | A Historic Venue in the Heart of Suffolk
On Friday 25th April it will be held at The Food Museum, Stowmarket. The conference Fee will include free entry to the museum, and participants will be offered a two-hour guided tour of the museum as part of the conference.
The conference dinner will be held at the museum on the early evening of Friday 25th April. This is not included in the basic conference fee.
Participants should organise their own accommodation (see below). The conference fee includes free coffee, tea and drinks on both days; a drinks reception at the Bury St. Edmunds’ Guildhall on 24th April; and lunch at the Food Museum on 25th April.
There are many venues for eating meals in Bury St. Edmunds.
The Food Museum contains reconstructed farm and industrial buildings from East Anglia, a rich collection of historical farm machinery and tools, extensive grounds with livestock and orchard, exhibitions of historical crafts, and – of particular interest to the society – a permanent exhibition and recordings of George Ewart Evans. It also features regular visiting and temporary exhibitions.
Thursday 24th April, Court Room, Guildhall Bury St Edmunds
1.00pm-3.00pm: Session One – Agriculture in East Anglia
Chair: Sarah Spooner (UEA)
Richard Glass (Suffolk): Memberships of Suffolk farmer’s clubs in the 1840s.
Jon Gregory (UEA): The limits of improvement: heathland and enclosure in Norfolk c.1750-1850
Harvey Osborne (Suffolk): Tithing and the Swing Disturbances of 1830 in East Anglia
Neil Wiffen (UEA/Essex Record Office): Where’s the War? The extent to which Essex farmers were ‘Digging for Victory’ c.1790-1820
3.00pm-3.30 pm: Break
3.30pm-4.30pm: Roundtable – Halls for All: A History of Village Halls
Louise Beaton (ACRE); David Clark; Charlotte Hursey
4.30pm-6.00pm: Session Two – Scottish Land Use
Irene Hallyburton (Dundee): Secession and improvement: The rental book of Culfargie
Alan MacDonald (Dundee): The lime boom in early 17th-century Scotland: a case study of the Dundas estate, West Lothian
Scott Macfie (Glasgow): Farmers’ societies and agricultural improvement in Ayrshire, 1750-1850
6.00pm-7.30pm: Reception
Friday 25th April, Food Museum, Stowmarket
9.30am-10.00am: Arrival and coffee
10.00am-10.15am: Welcome from Jenny Cousins, Director of The Food Museum
10.15am-11.015am: Keynote Lecture
Mark Bailey (UEA): Reconsidering serfdom in the Middle Ages: England and southern Germany compared
11.15am-12.15pm: Session Three – British Capital and Global Agriculture
Costanza Fileccia (Bern): The impact of railway expansion after the gold rushes on southeast Australian agricultural land use and climate adaptation
Adrian Zarilli (Quilmes): Environment, landscape and destruction. Transformations in the Argentine Gran Chaco and the role of British capital in a process of intensive deforestation (1890-1950)
12.15pm-12.45pm: Session Four
Robert Ashton, Ask the fellows who cut the hay
12.45pm-1.45pm: Lunch
1.45pm-3.30pm: Museum Tour
Optional tours of Alton Watermill or The Dairy Cottages or free time to visit the School Dinners exhibition
3.30pm-5.00pm: Session Four – Producing, Consuming and Traveling in Rural Landscapes
Charlotte Hursey: Travelling photographers: tracing the transient across rural Britain
Victor Morgan (UEA): Food for A Feast: The agricultural back story to the menu at the Norwich Guild Feast, c.1560-1700
Gregory Salter (LSE): Risk and value in 14th century leases on the estate of the Bishop of Winchester
5.00pm-6.00pm: Annual General Meeting (Society Members)
6.30pm: Conference dinner
BAHS Spring Conference Accommodation
As there is limited accommodation available in Stowmarket, we recommend you stay either in Ipswich or Bury St Edmunds and travel by train or car. However, conference participants may well be able to find other Bed & Breakfast options in Stowmarket or surrounding villages, if they are travelling by car. Here is a list of possible options. Listing does not represent a recommendation on the part of the BAHS.
Bury St Edmunds: Places to stay
A useful website with many listings. We only provide a selection with a range of prices below.
https://visit-burystedmunds.co.uk/business-directory/category/places-to-stay
Bed and Breakfasts in Bury St Edmunds
https://visit-burystedmunds.co.uk/blog/top-b-bs-in-bury-st-edmunds-beyond
Hotels
- The Angel (from £200 per night): Angel Hill, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, IP33 1LT. Top of the range hotel, beautiful location.
- Travelodge Ipswich Stowmarket, A14 (Prices between £35- £55 per night). Haughley, Stowmarket, Suffolk, IP14 3PY, 2 miles from Stowmarket, good parking.
- Premier Inn Bury St Edmunds Town Centre hotel (between £75 and £125 per night). The Churchyard, New Shire Hall, Raingate Street, Bury St Edmunds, IP33 1RX. Centrally located and a 10-minute walk from the Guildhall.
- Premier Inn Bury St Edmunds North (A14) (between £75 and £125 per night). Etna Road, Bury St Edmunds, IP33 1JZ. About 16 mins walk from the Guildhall, with good parking.
Ipswich: Places to stay
- EasyHotel – 3-5 Northgate Street, Ipswich IP1 3BX (about £40 per night). Basic budget hotel.
- Travelodge Ipswich Central (from £35 per night) budget hotel. 2-6 Russell Road, Ipswich, IP1 2BE.
- Premier Inn Ipswich Town Centre (Quayside) hotel (around £60 per night). Basic but comfortable in central Ipswich. 33 Key St, Ipswich IP4 1BZ.
Full listings are found at https://allaboutipswich.com/whats-here/places-to-stay/
All the above can be found by booking directly with the establishment or consulting booking.com, Expedia.co.uk. If you’re looking for budget accommodation, we suggest booking via https://www.airbnb.co.uk/
Premier Inns have a website for booking https://www.premierinn.com/gb
The Travelodge website is https://www.travelodge.co.uk/
Car Parking
Bury St Edmunds Car Parks
https://www.westsuffolk.gov.uk/parking/car_parks/bse_car_parks/index.cfm
Car Parking Food Museum – parking and directions
https://foodmuseum.org.uk/visit/find-us/
The Food Museum is just a 10-minute walk from Stowmarket Station
Train times
If travelling from Ipswich the journey time to Stowmarket is around 10 minutes, and from Ipswich to Bury St Edmunds it takes about 35 minutes. For all journeys there are on average 2 trains per hour in each direction.
The journey from Bury St Edmunds to Stowmarket (and vice versa) takes around 20 minutes. Currently there is a train from Bury St Edmunds to Stowmarket on the hour and at 25 past the hour. For the return journey the trains leave at 10 and 34 minutes past the hour. (although timetables for April haven’t been released yet). Details on the trains can be found here or on trainline.com
Current standard fares are: Ipswich to Bury St Edmunds return: £23.80, Bury St Edmunds to Stowmarket return: £16.40 and Ipswich to Stowmarket return: £14.00.