2025 Talks Line-up
The full programme will be released in April.
We’re excited to announce the very first speakers for the 2025 Chalke History Festival. Sign up to the Festival newsletter for all the latest updates here.
Talks Programme
All talks are now included in the price of your festival entry.
Seating will be filled on a first come, first served basis. To reserve a seat, please consider becoming a member of the Chalke History Club.
Keep an eye on this page for all the latest speaker announcements!
Anthony Scaramucci
Anthony Scaramucci served briefly as President Trump’s Director of Communications, in 2017. He is now a prolific podcaster, author, and founder of global investment platform SkyBridge.
Kevin McCloud
Kevin McCloud is a British designer, writer and television presenter. He is best known for presenting the self-building project television series, Grand Designs.
Tom Holland
Tom Holland is an award-winning historian, author and broadcaster, specialising in classical and medieval history. He is also the co-host of the top 10 Rest is History podcast.
Kate Mosse
Kate Mosse is a No.1 international bestselling novelist, playwright and non-fiction writer, best known for her multi-million Languedoc Trilogy-Labyrinth (currently celebrating its 20th anniversary), Sepulchre and Citadel. She is the Founder Director of the Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Michael Gove
Michael Gove served as a Conservative MP in the UK parliament for nearly 20 years, occupying numerous Cabinet positions. He is now editor of The Spectator magazine.
Antony Beevor
Antony Beevor is a best-selling author and well-known for writing on the Second World World. He was a regular in the 11th Hussars and his book Stalingrad was awarded the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson History Prize and the Hawthornden Prize.
Alice Loxton
Alice Loxton is an historian, author, broadcaster and social media sensation with over 2 million followers.
Max Hastings
Max Hastings is a journalist and historian, who has authored over thirty books, mostly about the Second World War.
Niall Ferguson
Niall Ferguson is British-American historian – the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. He has authored sixteen books, the latest of which is Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe.
Helen Thompson
Helen Thompson is Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge University. She has authored numerous books, the latest of which is Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century. She is a columnist for the New Statesmen and co-presenter of UnHerd’s These Times.
Peter Frankopan
Peter Frankopan is a British historian and writer. He is professor of global history at Worcester College, Oxford and best known for his 2015 book – Silk Roads. His latest book, a history of the effects of a changing climate on civilisations across time, is called The Earth Transformed.
William Dalrymple
William Dalrymple is a Scottish historian and writer, art historian and curator, as well as a prominent broadcaster and critic. His books have won numerous awards and prizes. He presents on the Empire podcast alongside Anita Anand.
Lucy Hughes-Hallett
Lucy Hughes-Hallett is a British historian and author. Her most recent book, The Scapegoat, looks at the rise and fall of the Duke of Buckingham – lover and confidant of James I, and favourite of Charles I.
Helen Castor
Helen Castor is a prize-winning medieval and Tudor, historian and broadcaster.
Tom Parker-Bowles
Tom Parker-Bowles is a British food writer and critic, and the author of numerous popular recipe books.
Ben Macintyre
Ben Macintyre is a journalist, broadcaster and best-selling author of works spanning Modern History – including Operation Mincemeat.
Kate Summerscale
Kate Summerscale is a journalist and award-winning author, best known for her non-fiction work including The Suspicions of Mr Whicher.
The Alphen Group
A network of leading strategic thinkers from Europe and the United States, working to consider the future of the trans-Atlantic relationship and European security and defence.
Alex Bescoby
Alex Bescoby is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, writer and presenter with a love of history, travel and storytelling.
Alan Johnson
Alan Johnson served as a Labour MP in the UK parliament for nearly 20 years, occupying a variety of Cabinet positions. He has published numerous books, including “Harold Wilson: Twentieth Century Man”, about the former British Prime Minister.
Tracy Borman
Tracy Borman is a best-selling author, historian and broadcaster, specialising in the Tudor period. Tracy is also Chief Historian at Historic Royal Palaces. Her latest book is entitled, “Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I: The Mother and Daughter Who Changed History”.
