Meetings 2022: Difference between revisions

Guest speaker Steve Howe, local resident, photographer and author of the virtual stroll around Chester City Walls told us about “The [['''[[Ermine]]''']] Hotel” (aka “The Flookersbrook” Pub), a site of long interest situated as it is on the old Roman road, the turnpike and then linked to the railway. He also explained the origins of the pub=sign and the link to St Peter at Plemstall and the Hurleston's of Newton Hall, both of which have been the subject of recent talks.

Society's AGM and Christmas social. Some of the business at our AGM can be a little dry, so this year we added a pantomime (with an all-star cast!) which had been specially "written" for the Society. The subject is the somewhat tragi-comic [[Osborne Aldis]] who was the benefactor of Plegmunds Well, and most of the text is adapted from his various court appearances and other actual historical documents researched by members of the Society. Osborne, as you will recall from our talk at Plemstall, was a Cambridge graduate who was catapulted to fame (and prison) for his fraud on the Bank of England and then spent many years living off relatives while failing at various business schemes. He eventually moved to Chester where a chance meeting led him to restore Plegmund's Well, before his dodgy dealings had him back in the dock. Was he really a crook? - or does his reputation require repair? After the panto the jury gave a majority vote that he WAS a crook! As Osborne said before a somewhat agitated judge, quoting some other playwright, "whether the evil that men do lives after them and the good is oft interred with their bones".