Ancestral Celebration

On 30th August, members of the Fieldwork Committee left their usual meeting place to gather in East Kent, at the house of Committee Chairman, Chris Pout. This meant that members had only a short distance to travel to see the progress of the latest season of excavation at the Abbey Farm Villa. However, there was also a little piece of coincident history to ‘celebrate’.

Archaeologia Cantiana, Volume I, records the first AGM of the Society held on 30th July 1858. In those days the formal business of the AGM was followed by visits to sites of archaeological and local historical interest. Thus, in 1858…”During the afternoon, various parties, by the kind courtesy of Mr Pout and Mr Wood, visited the Chequers Inn, mentioned in Chaucer as the resting place of pilgrims visiting the shrine of Thomas à Becket”.

It transpires that this great-great-great uncle of the present committee chairman, was a Mr John Pout, the son of a mayor of Canterbury in the 1820’s and the owner of an upholstery business on the Chequers Inn site. He appears to have achieved some later notoriety when the source of a major fire in Canterbury was traced back to his workshop (with the implication that the fire had been started by the owner as some sort of early insurance fiddle!).

In the early days of the Society, the AGM was also rather well attended. The report in AC Vol I goes on…”At 4.30pm the dinner took place, three hundred and ten were accommodated at the tables, above one hundred more were disappointed of seats”.