Welcome to Whitchurch and Ganarew Area History Society.

After ten years we have expanded our area of interest to encompass the villages within the parishes of Whitchurch, Llangarron, Marstow and Goodrich. On March 15th 2025, we officially changed our name to Whitchurch and Ganarew Area History Society.

This will provide a greater area of interest enabling us to attract more visitors to our website and increase our membership.

Changing our name is the easy part. Our website homepage will have to be completely revised to reflect our wider interest. This is work in progress, so please bear with us.

Here at WAGS our formal aim is to:

​To further and encourage skills in local history and to disseminate information

On a more informal level, we like to provide interest and enjoyment to our members and, on a broader scale, be part of a thriving community and contribute to life in our area. 

To do this, we organise talks, visits and local events. 

Our members were particularly busy during the Covid lockdown recording life in the village in 2020 in the form of a modern day ‘Scrapbook’. 

Time was also spent preparing an Exhibition on the Swinging Sixties which happened at the end of July. You can find out more about this exhibition under our Posts page and for future talks and events, look on the Events page.

Our next event.

Our next event is the V E Day anniversary exhibition. On Thursday, May 8th we are posting a talk on Land Girls, followed by an exhibition over the weekend. https://wagshistory.com/2025/05/03/v-e-day-event/

Roaring 20s Exhibition

This exhibition was held on 3rd/4th June 2023 at the Memorial Hall Whitchurch, was a great success. It helped us celebrate 100 years since the hall was officially opened.

There was be Morris dancing outside on the Saturday, and Charleston dancers and singers on the Sunday. Exhibits included life in, and artefacts from, the 1920s and information on the decades between now and then.

On the previous evening (Fri 2nd June) there was

a ‘Roaring 20s’ themed jazz evening featuring the ever-popular Hot Fingers band who will play 1920s numbers. The hall will be suitably decorated and dressing up in 1920s costume was encouraged.

We would love to have more members, so if you think you would like to be part of our society, then please go to the Membership section and we look forward to welcoming you in person.

Sally Yeshin

Chair