Royal Docks History Club

About Royal Docks History Club

The Royal Docks History Club was the name of a project launched by four friends with a shared passion for History: Rose Geaney, Valery Alliez, Gareth Evans and Marieta Evans.

The project consisted in organising monthly History talks at their local community centre, the Royal Docks Learning and Activity Centre. Those evening events became very popular and covered local History and wider British and World History themes, from Roman Empire stories to Royal Docks maritime and recent social History, in a friendly, casual and welcoming environment, where talks and community discussions were followed by Dinner and Drinks served by the Community Café.

For a number of years, the project continued from strength to strength and even found a new life on social media platforms where online talks replaced in person meetings through the Covid times.

Although, at present, there are not monthly meetings taking place, organisers and participants of Royal Docks History Club events have continued to work and volunteer with different Newham and East London Heritage projects, partnering with organisations such as East London Radio, The Thames Festival, The Royal Docks Delivery Team, Newham Council and the Newham Heritage Month.

Marieta Evans keeps the History Club Facebook Page alive and is always happy to use this platform to promote other Heritage, History and Culture projects or activities. If you have an event that needs promoting you can contact Marieta on marietaborreda@gmail.com

The movie “Oh, What a Lovely Time!”, which will premiere as part of 2024 Newham Heritage Month, was commissioned as part of a wider History, Culture and Music project run by the Royal Docks History Club and The Royal Docks Activity Centre, with support from National Lottery Heritage Fund.

The movie has been written and produced by television and film professionals, journalists and history buffs Neil Cole and Marieta Evans – the same team behind the much-loved heritage documentary about the disappeared West Ham Stadium, which premiered last year at an screening event at The Royal Docks Good Hotel, before touring the East End with further community screenings in the Royal Docks and also the Docklands Museum in Canary Wharf.

You can read more about Neil and Marieta’s heritage documentary work here.