Bite-size Talk | All Dug Up!
Tuesday 8th September, 2 – 2.30pm | Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum
Each year thousands of finds, excavated across Worcestershire, come into the care of the Museums Service. Join our Curator to hear about significant discoveries and recent highlights.
£4.95 for the talk. Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum is free to visit.
Talk | Ghosts and Apparitions in the English Civil War – with Professor Darren Oldridge
Saturday 24 October 2026, 2 – 3pm | The Commandery
The English Civil War was haunted by spirits. This presentation considers some of the spookiest episodes in the conflict, including reports of “fearful visions” and spectral armies in the sky.
Professor Darren Oldridge will place these tales in the larger context of supernatural beliefs in the age.
£10. Book your place below. If you’d like to look around The Commandery, you can get half-price general admission from the shop on the day of the workshop.
This talk is part of a commemorative programme of events for the 375th anniversary of the Battle of Worcester, 1651.
The Last Battle: 375th Anniversary
Saturday 5 September 2026, 10am – 4pm | The Commandery
Commemorate the final battle of the English Civil War – the Battle of Worcester – with an exciting day of talks, displays and crafts, in the former Royalist headquarters.
Discover Civil War weaponry, with musket and pike drills from Worcester Reenactors, delve into the brutal world of 17th-century battlefield surgery with medical historian Kevin Goodman, and hear from the Battle of Worcester Society.
Younger visitors can decorate their very own wooden standard (flag) to take home!
Plan your visit
General admission applies (children’s crafts included); free admission to those with a season or residents’ pass. Find out more.
Book day tickets to The Commandery. Advance booking is not essential, you can just turn up, pay in the shop, and get stuck in!
Talk | English Civil War fiction – with author Charles Cordell
Sunday 30 August 2026, 1 – 2pm | The Commandery
Author Charles Cordell will be talking about writing historical fiction and Divided Kingdom book #2 – The Keys of Hell and Death. He will describe his journey from ‘Army to Author’ and writing historical fiction set within the English Civil War. The talk will discuss how and why 17th Century historical fiction can feel so relevant today. Q&A and a book signing will follow the talk.
Charles Cordell is the author of English Civil War historical fiction series Divided Kingdom. His writing has received media praise and editorial reviews, including in The Times. His novels have been endorsed by the likes of Ben Kane (bestselling author), David Gilman (award winning author), Professor Ronald Hutton CBE (TV historian) and others.
£10. Book your place below. If you’d like to look around The Commandery, you can get half-price general admission from the shop on the day of the workshop.
This talk is part of a commemorative programme of events for the 375th anniversary of the Battle of Worcester, 1651.
Talk | The Civil Wars in 100 Objects – with Professor Andrew Hopper
Sunday 12 July 2026, 1 – 2pm | The Commandery
The civil wars between 1638 and 1651 were the most destabilising conflicts that the British and Irish peoples have ever endured. During these turbulent times ordinary people experienced a dizzying world of change. This book brings a history of objects approach to access this world of impoverishment, bereavement and suffering alongside exciting changes in religion, science, and politics. From propaganda newsbooks to household goods, through the personal possessions and weapons of the famous, to the architecture that defined religious and military change, these objects offer intimate connections with the past and shed new light on these tumultuous times.
Andrew Hopper is a historian of religion, politics and society in early modern England with research expertise on the British and Irish Civil Wars. He has two monographs ‘Black Tom’: Sir Thomas Fairfax and the English Revolution (Manchester University Press, 2007) and Turncoats and Renegadoes: Changing Sides in the English Civil Wars (Oxford University Press, 2012). He is currently working on his third monograph Widowhood and Bereavement in the English Civil Wars under contract with Oxford University Press, which is based on the AHRC-funded Civil War Petitions Project (2017-2022) for which he is Principal Investigator. Andrew is also the chair of the editorial board of Midland History, a patron of the Naseby Battlefield Project, and Academic Director of the National Civil War Centre, where he was co-curator of the Battle-Scarred exhibition.
£10. Book your place below. If you’d like to look around The Commandery, you can get half-price general admission from the shop on the day of the workshop.
This talk is part of a commemorative programme of events for the 375th anniversary of the Battle of Worcester, 1651.
Talk | Battle wound treatment during the English Civil War – with Kevin Goodman
Saturday 20 June 2026, 4 – 5pm | The Commandery
“I dressed his wound and God healed it.”
Terrible wounds were inflicted upon Royalist and Parliamentarian soldiers during the English Civil War, from swords, muskets and pikes.
Medical historian Kevin Goodman will demonstrate how surgeons treated wounds before antiseptics and antibiotics were available, with the aid of surgical instruments from the period.
£10. Book your place below.
This talk is part of a commemorative programme of events for the 375th anniversary of the Battle of Worcester, 1651.
Bite-size Talk | Introducing the new British Impressionism Gallery
Tuesday 10 November 2026, 2 – 2.30pm | Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum
2026 will see a new gallery dedicated to the display of Worcester City’s permanent art collection. Hear all about about these wonderful artworks, now on permanent display in the Shirley & Rolf Olsen Gallery of British Impressionism.
£4.95 for the talk. The exhibition [not yet open] and Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum are free to visit.
Bite-size Talk | Reflections
Tuesday 13 October 2026, 2 – 2.30pm | Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum
Artist Wayne Warren, curator of Reflections, will delve deeper into the concepts behind the works in this Bite-size Talk.
The exhibition features a diverse range of artists spanning the last three centuries – including works from Worcester City’s own collection as well as high profile loans from the National Gallery. Brand-new works by Wayne Warren and Jonathon Wright have been created especially for the exhibition.
£4.95 for the talk. If you’d like to visit the exhibition too, advance booking will be available online later in 2026. The rest of Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum is free to visit.
Image: Blackbirds Singing to Me Across the Severn, 2004, Kurt Jackson © the artist.
Bite-size Talk | 54321! Counting down to a Great Exhibition!
Tuesday 14 July, 2 – 2.30pm | Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum
Bringing together this extraordinary collection of original screen-used props and puppets, faithful reproductions, original toys, memorabilia and paraphernalia dedicated to the science fiction TV shows of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson (Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Space: 1999 et al), was no mean feat.
See behind the scenes of this nostalgic exhibition and hear about some interesting local links at this talk by the exhibition’s curator.
£4.95 for the talk. This exhibition and the rest of Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum are free to visit.
Bite-size Talk | Glove Affair – Worcester’s Hand in the Global Gloving Industry
Tuesday 9 June 2026, 2 – 2.30pm | Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum
Learn about the forthcoming Glove Affair Gallery which will showcase Worcester’s glove collection and celebrate the skills of the local people that created them.
Worcester gloves were the choice of royalty, international fashion houses, and celebrities across the globe. Hear all about what led to Worcester becoming the fashion glove capital of Britain.
£4.95 for the talk. Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum is free to visit.