Speaker’s Name: Chris Martin

Speaker's Name	Chris Martin
Are you an Individual or represent an Organisation / Company?	Volunteer History Research Team Wrest Park
Email	Email
Telephone / Mobile Number	Wrest Park telephone number, (during Reception working hours, Monday to Friday): 01525 860000
Would you be able to present In Person, via Zoom or either?	Zoom and/or In Person
What equipment do you need to be provided by hosts? eg Screen, laptop, projector	Equipment If you have the following it would be really helpful, but we can bring some equipment with notice. - Projector with HDMI connection. If you have an older model with a VGA connection, let us know and we will bring an HDMI adaptor. - Projector remote control/pointer - Windows-compatible laptop, (if you are happy for us to use a memory stick). However, most of us will bring their own laptops, if you can help to connect with your projector. - Screen, or a reasonable space of plain wall. - A microphone, (if you need one for people with hearing difficulties.) - Extension cable, with sockets for laptop and projector, and access to a mains socket. - A separate table (4 ft is ideal) for equipment and resources.
Any travel restrictions? Such as Time or Distance	Timings We will arrive in good time before the start of your session, so that we can set up equipment and talk over your timetable for the evening.
What are the charges? Such as Travel Expenses, Charge for talk.	Donations English Heritage asks for a voluntary donation of up to £50, payable to ‘English Heritage Trust’. If writing a cheque, please would you write your name and contact address on the back.
Speaker's Biography	Wrest Park Volunteer History Research Team - Talks We are members of the Volunteer History Research Team, working with English Heritage. We offer talks and tours to bring alive the fascinating history of our estate, its occupants and its workers from the 13th to 20th centuries. Wrest also offers tours of the gardens, trees, statues, wallpaper rooms, ‘Behind the Scenes’, and Archaeological Stores Collection. Most are regularly available and free, while others can be booked. Room guide and golf buggy driver, leading tours of wallpapers, garden and trees. Part of a research team, (the ‘Tree Huggers’), completing a survey of the 4,000+ trees at Wrest Park. Retired after many years’ service from a local engineering company where I held several posts in the Structures, Design and Marketing Departments, although I started my career as a Graduate Apprentice on Concorde. My particular interests in Wrest Park range from the initial holding of a messuage in the 1230s, through land holdings in 8 counties plus three castles in the 1400s, losing nearly everything in the early 1500s, and regaining the title from Elizabeth I, up to William of Orange.

Medieval and Tudor Greys - Sir John of Shirland	Talks usually last around 45 minutes plus questions.	The Greys come to Wrest, marry well and serve King Henry, although brother Richard supports Simon de Montford.
Medieval and Tudor Greys - Reynold de Grey, 1st Baron Wilton	Talks usually last around 45 minutes plus questions.	Welsh and Scottish campaigns in service to the King. Reynold may be the Sheriff of Nottingham who captured Robin Hood.
Medieval and Tudor Greys - Reynold Grey, 3rd Baron Ruthin	Talks usually last around 45 minutes plus questions.	‘as if the park and warren had been in the hands of the French’. Just as hard on neighbours as he was on the King’s enemies.
Medieval and Tudor Greys - Edmund, 1st Earl of Kent, Hero or Blackadder?	Talks usually last around 45 minutes plus questions.	Rises to Lord Treasurer of England by the end of the Wars of the Roses, including changing sides at the Battle of Northampton.
Medieval and Tudor Greys - The long way back after the ‘waster’ Richard	Talks usually last around 45 minutes plus questions.	‘an vnthriftie vncle of myne’ who wasted the family fortune taking 50 years to recover under Queen Elizabeth I.
20th Century Wrest - Wrest Park Hospital Fire	Talks usually last around 45 minutes plus questions.	The fire of September 1916 and the end of the De Grey connection with Wrest.