Topics in R&D
Ideas currently being researched or developed are:
- Edith’s genealogy, estates and her early life – finding out more about her origins,mapping each of her Domesday manors and investigatiing her pre-Conquest background and manorial role(s) to discover more about who she was as a person
- Edith’s milieu and interests – tracing the influences and traditions which informed her life and governed her actions and beliefs
- Edith’s progeny and diaspora – fleshing out the details of her family life, her children and their subsequent post-Conquest fate and their connection for today
- Edith and Women’s Equality – looking at history, with specific reference to her story, from a woman’s perspective in order to reveal a new understanding of our past and to inform attitudes today
- Edith and Social Welfare – finding ways in which studying how the poor, destitute and lower echelons of society in Edith’s times were treated and how this knowledge might be used to help design and implement meaningful provision for today’s needy, perhaps through the auspices of an ‘Edith’s House’ assistance with accommodation, shelter and food provision
- ‘Swanlight’: a play about Edith’s life and meaning developed for popular dramatic performance on the stage, building on the book ‘Edith’s Last embrace’
- Brassey Heritage and Town Pride – promoting the life, works and public largesse of the Brassey family and their role in helping shape the Town of Hastings and the local area today, with particular reference to its heritage and key institutions. This is a complementary piece of work linked to The Brassey Trail (see Resources)
- A series of illustrated books – (1): ‘In The Shadow of The Crowhurst Yew’, a story of dark deeds in dark times in words and pictures; (2): ‘Les Mortes D’Harold’, the myths and legends surrounding Harold’s death and burial; and (3) ‘Along The Real Saxon Shore’, the journal of the Trek for Edith (see Projects)
- Rewilding and biodiversity – turning the opportunity to plant an indigenous wildlife garden and habitat facilities around the statue in to a fully structured research programme to document its progress and effects.
