When: 11:30am, Sunday 11th January, 2026

Where: University of Nottingham, Monica Partridge Foyer

This year, The Vernacular Architecture Group is holding its winter conference on the theme Vernacular buildings in urban contexts: the study of urban building types and integration with urban studies.

Over the past 25 years a number of notable studies have demonstrated the huge potential of studying vernacular buildings in urban areas – studies both of specific towns and cities and of urban building types more generally. Many of these have illustrated the value of multi-disciplinary approaches to the subject of urban buildings, but it is also clear that there is more to do in making vernacular buildings a key part of wider urban historical studies.

My contribution will be to look at women’s work in inns and alehouses in the seventeenth century. I’m hoping to start a discusion about how an understanding of people’s working lives can help us to interpret buildings in a fresh way. The alehouse sold drink, yes; but it also hosted judicial, economic, and even liturgical activities. Might we see the alehouse as a social venue; financial venue; a judicial venue?

If you cannot make the event but would like to hear the talk, I will be pre-recording it. Please drop me a line on ajbslondon@gmail.com if you would like to see/hear it.

To book tickets, visit the Vernacular Architecture Group’s website here: https://www.vag.org.uk/conferences.htm