08.04.2005
Professor Fred Gray, Dean of the Sussex Institute, University of Sussex, will deliver the next University Centre Hastings (UCH) Lecture at 6.30pm on 18 April 2005 at UCH in Havelock Road, Hastings.
In his lecture, entitled 'The Historical Landscape', Professor Gray will explore some themes and ideas in mapping the historical landscape of the Hastings area over the last three centuries.
Drawing on local examples the lecture will look at:
- What makes the Hastings landscape distinctive and special
- Some of the major ways the landscape (and especially townscape) has changed
- The role of local people as opposed to external forces in the making of their own landscapes
- Various ideas of 'seaside Hastings' as a distinctive landscape, looking at its uses and users and how they have evolved over time
- What the changing local landscape tells us about the relationship between nature and society
To set this in context, Professor Gray will also use examples from other seaside places, from Bexhill, Brighton and further afield.
Visit the UCH website: www.uch.ac.uk
1. University Centre Hastings (UCH), opened in September 2003, is a novel and innovative initiative in partnership with the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) and is managed by the University of Brighton. It aims to increase progression through further to higher education, offering improved opportunities for young people in their home town but also contributing to employer communities by providing courses targeted at those in work or seeking to make a career change.
UCH provides courses delivered and awarded by the University of Brighton, University of Sussex, Open University, Canterbury Christ Church University College and Hastings College of Arts and Technology. It is a core part of Hastings & Bexhill Task Force's education-led strategy for local economic regeneration.
2. Fred Gray is Dean of the Sussex Institute, one of the University of Sussex's five new schools. He is also Professor of Continuing Education and from 1991-2001 was Director of the University's Centre for Continuing Education (CCE). Originally from south London, he came to Sussex University in 1974 as a research fellow. As part of his work in CCE he is particularly proud to have been involved in establishing the Hastings Modern History Workshop - today's Hastings Local History Group - 25 years ago.
Fred Gray's work interests include lifelong learning (he is the editor of a recent book, Landscapes of Learning, about lifelong learning in rural Britain) and the cultural and architectural history of seaside resorts. He has just completed a book about seaside architecture called Designing the Seaside.
Honorary historian for the Brighton West Pier Trust, he is the author of Walking on Water: The West Pier Story, published by the Trust in 1998. He is also a Director of the West Pier Trust, the Gardner Arts Centre at the University of Sussex, the Brighton Festival Limited, and president of the Hastings Local History Group.
3. The next lectures in the 2005 UCH Open Lecture Series are:
16 May - The Contemporary Political Landscape, Dr Anthony Seldon, Headmaster,
Brighton College
20 June - The Landscape, Professor Rory Mortimore, Professor of Engineering
Geology and Head of Geology, University of Brighton
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