A PACKED hall laughed, tittered and lapped up anecdotes and historical facts at a talk from an enthusiastic young historian. 

Alice Loxton, who is known for her work making history interesting, put on a talk about her latest book UPROAR!: Satire, Scandal and Printmakers in Georgian London at Winchester College. 

Alice, a 27-year-old historian, writer and presenter, has a passion for bringing history to mainstream audiences, and she has previously worked with History Hit, NBC, Channel 4 and The National Trust.

Hampshire Chronicle: Richard North from Hampshire History Trust interviewing Alice Loxton

The event, on Thursday, September 7, had been organised by Hampshire History Trust as a fundraiser to support the work of the trust, which also organises the Winchester Heritage Open Days.

The event was held on the eve of this year's open day series, which sees hundreds of events take place across Winchester and the surrounding area and runs until September 17. 

Alice said: "I was asked to be involved with the open days, which was really nice. I was keen to support it as it's such an amazing thing - getting people into history in whatever way that may be.

"It's opening doors and indulging people's curiosity or nosiness a bit.

"It's really cool. So much of what I do is trying to make people realise that there is history everywhere.

"It is not just in Winchester Cathedral or the Tower of London, there is history on every single street in the country.

"Once you realise that it becomes really exciting as suddenly there's all this amazing history to explore everywhere. I think the Heritage Open Days is a wonderful, marvellous thing." 

Alice's talk proved a hit as she spoke about how the artists of Georgian London profoundly altered British humour, setting the stage for everything from Gilbert and Sullivan to Private Eye and Spitting Image. 

Hampshire Chronicle: Richard North from Hampshire History Trust, Alice Loxton, and Nicky Gottlieb, also from Hampshire

Nicky Gottlieb, chair of Hampshire History Trust, said: “We were very pleased to be able to welcome Alice to give the talk on the eve of Heritage Open Days. It was a very entertaining evening.

“As an organisation, we receive no regular funding and as HODs events are all free to attend the opportunity to hold a fundraising event is very important to help fund our future projects and activities.”

The Hampshire Chronicle is taking part in Winchester Heritage Open Days and will be holding a joint open morning with the Winchester Talking Newspaper on Friday, September 15 from 10am until midday. 

For the full list of event go to winchesterheritageopendays.org/