KAS Committee Round-Up
KAS PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE
The Committee has recently discussed a new way forward for the publications of the Society. The following recommendations have been agreed and passed to Council:
That most future publications need to be placed in the professional hands of a commercial publisher.
The KAS produce books that have a wider appeal and can be sold in the usual commercial retail outlets.
The Society should continue to publish primary sources and records useful to researchers, but these are best placed on the Society’s website; this would include the present New Record series.
Various materials from the Society’s collection might also be placed on the website.
The Society commission and then publish a series of books, provisionally entitled Studies in Kent history, with a focus on Kent-wide topics; these would be 40,000-50,000 words in length, illustrated, and published in soft covers.
The Committee would be pleased to receive from members suggestions of possible titles to add to those already provided by Committee members, which include:
‘Kent and the sea’,
‘Kent and the civil wars of the 1640s’,
‘Trade unions’,
‘Early days of motoring in Kent’, and
‘Kent and the First World War’.
The Kent Hundred Rolls has recently been put on the KAS website, and is to be joined by the Kilwardby Survey 1273-4 later this year. The Acts of the Wardens of the Towns Lands of Tonbridge 1574-1760 — the Tonbridge Town Books — is under consideration for the Society to publish in similar format.
The Society has recommended that a well-illustrated manuscript by Jill Allibone and Susie West, Not built to envious show: Penshurst Place, Kent. A social and architectural history, be published as a book in soft covers.
Expenditures have been recommended for a pilot project on the Feet of Fines and Recovery Rolls, and also for a project to microfilm the Kent Pipe Rolls.
Following ideas from various quarters on the future format and content of Archaeologia Cantiana, a subcommittee to discuss this has been established, chaired by the President, and including the Honorary Editor. See page 3 of this Newsletter for further details.
David Killingray
Chairman
KAS HISTORIC BUILDINGS COMMITTEE
The Committee has been working on arrangements for its Autumn Conference, which will be held on Saturday, 18 October in Lenham Village Community Centre. More details will be given in the next issue of the KAS Newsletter.
Progress is also being made on the visits planned for 2008. All the places have been taken for the first one, which is a tour of Westenhanger Castle and Barns on Tuesday, 27 May, starting at 2 p.m. Joy Saynor is now taking reservations for the visit to Boxley Abbey and Barn on Saturday, 19 July, see What’s On section for more information.
Following completion of the booklet entitled Historical Assessment and Survey of Old Buildings, the Committee wishes to record its gratitude to Roger Cockett, who worked so assiduously to produce this 37-page document, see New Books section for more information.
The Committee has been considering other initiatives that would facilitate research into historic buildings. A proposal has been made to compile a list of old buildings for which specific documentary evidence of their history, such as probate inventories, still exists. As will be seen elsewhere in this Newsletter, the Committee is exploring the feasibility of producing such a list.