Christmas Ghosts: Gloucestershire

To be held at the Chipping Clubroom at 19.30

We've told supernatural tales at midwinter for a very long time. In this talk Kirsty Hartsiotis takes us back to the earliest winter tales of the Middle Ages and the age of Shakespeare and Marlowe. We then explore the lost years of the 17th and 18th centuries, where it’s often thought that Christmas wasn’t celebrated much – but ghost tales at Christmastide were very part of the season.  In the 19th century many traditional Christmas ghost tales were collected, and even now it’s considered one of the spookiest times of the years. Gloucestershire has an unusual number of these seasonal tales once told by the folk, and Kirsty will bring them to life to leave you with a seasonal ghostly thrill!

Kirsty Hartsiotis was the curator of the decorative and fine art at The Wilson Art Gallery and Museum, Cheltenham from 2008 to 2023. She is currently a curator at Swindon Museums, where she also worked prior to 2008.  At Cheltenham she looked after the Designated Arts and Crafts Movement collection. She’s also a freelance researcher, currently researching the work of Arts and Crafts designers in churches in the South West. She’s also been an oral storyteller for over 20 years, and has published a number of collections of stories – including Gloucestershire Ghost Tales with Anthony Nanson. She is a regular writer for Cotswold Life, writing their ‘Cotswold Ways’ column all about local folklore, and writes for diverse other publications on art history and folklore.