Coming Events & Programs
2024 Schedule of Events & Programs
Please check our website frequently for additions, updates, and cancellations to our schedule. At this time, masks are optional at all planned events unless otherwise noted.
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In addition to this website, we have a Historic Lyme Facebook page, and we’re on Instagram.
| Sunday, May 18 4:00-6:00 pm | Biking Lyme with Ronnie Romance Cycling legend and local resident Ronnie Romance has described himself as a wholistic cyclist who has embraced all forms of cycling, from racing to mountain biking, backroads touring and wilderness camping. He views cycling as a tool to connect more deeply with nature, and his life and design aesthetic shine through in his thoughtfully crafted, custom-built bikes that sell out almost immediately. Join us at the Lyme Public Hall for a very special opportunity to hear Ronnie discuss how Lyme and the surrounding river towns have emerged as a cycling destination. He will also be sharing his personal cycling philosophy as well as a few of his bicycles that have been purpose-built for the unique terrain and paths that make our towns so lovely to explore by bike. |
| Wednesday, May 21 6:00-7:00 pm | Conservation of Stone Walls with Robert Thorson Stone wall interpretation provides new opportunities to thread together historical, archaeological, aesthetic, geological, and ecological interests. Historically, the walls are important adjuncts to the thousands of historic houses and buildings, cemeteries, battlegrounds, and monuments throughout the region. Archaeologically, they are above-ground ruins. Aesthetically, they convey essential themes in literature and art. Psychologically, they provide boundaries in space and time. Geologically, they are signature land forms for the Anthropocene epoch, the counterpart to the babbling brooks, inland wetlands, coastal dunes, kettle ponds, and bedrock ledges of the postglacial Holocene Epoch. Ecologically, they create dry lands as porous, elevated, and elongate volumes of surface stone that drain quickly. These words by Robert Thorson convey the importance of New England’s unique stone walls, and he is the authoritative expert, having written the book (Stone by Stone: The Magnificent History in New England’s Stone Walls) back in 2002. His urgent mission is the preservation of these ubiquitous structures: a step wise approach to the conservation and interpretation of New England’s stone walls that considers these diverse values while also remaining respectful of the presence of Indigenous stonework in the landscapes. We invite you to come and explore these ideas with Dr. Thorson in this fascinating talk – it’s one you won’t want to miss! Robert Thorson has advised countless federal, state, and town governments, non-profit historical societies, conservation groups, law practices, and private landowners. In a 2023 Smithsonian essay he linked the history of stone walls to literature, ecology, climate change and geoscience, an article selected by the History News Network for the “Best History Writing of 2023.” At the University of Connecticut, he coordinates the Stone Wall Initiative as scholarly engagement within the Connecticut State Museum of Natural History. For three decades he’s been a stump evangelist for the preservation of New England’s historic landscapes. |