TALK: Sewer Cherries with Amy Jeffs

7.30pm

Salisbury Museum’s mysterious medieval ‘hood of cherries’ badge was found in the city’s disused drains, but its original meanings may have been as hopeful and fresh as the first soft fruits of Summer.

Join author and illustrator Amy Jeffs for an encounter with one of Salisbury Museum’s medieval badges, discovered in a historic sewer system and showing a hood stuffed with cherries. The possible meanings of the ‘hood of cherries’ badge, which Amy became interested in while digitising medieval badges at the British Museum 2014-17, have fed into all her books and helped articulate her commitment to the humanities. Through this single object, she will take us back to apocryphal gospels, mystery plays, contemporary costume and the ephemeral wealth of cherry trees long dead, asserting, on the way, the fruitfulness of hope, however grimy reality.