Promoting awareness of the archaeology and history
of north Devon
ACTIVITIES
WEST YEO
Archaeology Projects (external)
Community Landscapes Project: Science and Public Participation: Exeter University, Sean Hawken. (Newsletter No 4 2002)(A project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the University of Exeter & Devon County Council)
Television programmes, such as “Time Team”
and “Meet the Ancestors”, whilst having undoubtedly
helped to fire the public’s interest in archaeology, lack the potential
to offer the public the opportunity to get hands-on experience. The creation
of this three-year project is in direct response to the public’s
enthusiasm and desire for active involvement in the field of archaeology.
Both adults and school students are invited to develop their knowledge
and understanding of both the environmental and archaeological
sciences by actively participating in unravelling the past landscapes
of Devon.
Landscape archaeology is now a key component within the world of archaeology
as it leads to a greater understanding of how people, throughout the ages,
moved within, and interacted with their environment. Essentially it is
concerned with ‘archaeology above ground’: the physical remains
left as earthworks, field boundaries, and trackways etc. As those already
involved can testify, the Project staff encourage and train members of
the public to use an array of survey equipment to record previously unrecorded
archaeological features. All the information from the surveys, along with
the documentary evidence collected by volunteers during visits to the
Devon County Records Office, is then integrated onto maps and into a Geographical
Information System (GIS) for later analysis.
Volunteers also have the opportunity to be involved
in and learn about the scientific aspects Community
Landscapes Project Science and Public Participation of the project. This
part of the project is concerned with the study of soils and the environmental
evidence preserved in the small mires or bogs which are ubiquitous in
Devon. Analysis of organic samples enables us to suggest the level of
vegetation change and human impact on the landscape throughout both the
prehistoric and historic periods. While such scientific backup is not
usually available to local groups or the public, this project is aimed
at increasing public access to scientific techniques and thereby raising
levels of interest and understanding.
The landscape heritage of Devon has often been seen in terms of a few particularly rich areas such as Dartmoor. It has yet to be perceived by the public that all areas have archaeological potential. In order to redress the balance, fairly ‘average’ but diverse areas of the county are being investigated, areas for which at present there is little published or even unpublished information. At present the studies are concentrating on five representative areas in Devon. These include the Blackdown Hills and the Clyst Valley to the south-east, Bantham/Thurlestone in the south, Rackenford/Knowstone Moors in mid to east Devon and - of particular interest to you, as members of the North Devon Archaeological Society - Hartland Moors in the north (see fig. 1). We believe that in Hoskins’ county there is ample potential for public interest, which just needs to be inspired, mobilised and supported. We are therefore also encouraging and supporting groups who wish to imitate our lines of enquiry in their own parishes even if these are outside our study areas.
As to Hartland, we are looking for volunteers of all abilities to be involved at all stages of the study. As a volunteer, you can help with field survey, planning, environmental sampling and recording. There is also the opportunity to become involved in the documentary studies and recording which take place at the Devon County Records Office (and in the case of Hartland, probably at the North Devon Records Office). The Project is also looking for volunteers to help in the desk-based studies, which are normally carried out in our office at the University of Exeter. However, due to the distance the North Devon studies can also be locally based. In many of our study areas the Project currently operates through archaeological officers who, on behalf of the project, liaise with local Parish Councillors, interested groups and the public. We now need to extend this very successful system to the Hartland area and are looking for people to become involved from the outset of our studies.
Community Landscapes Project at Hartland
(plus something new for NDAS!) Sean Hawken (CLP Project Manager) (
Newsletter No 5 2003)
In the Autumn 2002 edition of the NDAS Newsletter, Sean Hawken described the Community Landscapes Project and pointed out for the particular attention of NDAS members, that one of the areas singled out for study is Hartland Moors.
Work here is now getting underway, and we have received
the following from Sean:
Although the Community Landscapes Project archaeological survey work for
the parishes of Hartland, Clovelly and Woolfardisworthy (Woolsery) has
yet to get fully underway, we have made a good start on the palaeoenvironmental
side of our research. We owe a very big thankyou to Mick and Kath Browne
of Clifford Farm Holiday Cottages as they treated Charlotte and myself
to a lovely stay in one of their cottages, as a result of which we were
able to get an early start. We managed to find suitably deep boggy, spring
mires in the parishes of Hartland and Woolfardisworthy, and so, within
the two days, we collected all three cores required for pollen analysis.
We would like to say thank you to R. Cleave, Leslie and Ann Deadman and Brian and Wendy Heard for allowing us access to their land and the opportunity to take the cores we needed.
Further work is still required and will firstly involve volunteers in the recording of the spring mires from which the cores were taken. Secondly, whilst searching for suitable palaeoenvironmental sites, we stumbled across two previously unknown sites with relic building platforms, possibly representing deserted medieval farmsteads. These earthworks, both in Hartland, will need surveying. We therefore require the assistance of volunteers from North Devon. Whilst this undertaking does have the support of the Hartland Society, we are always on the look out for more help. For many, this will be a good opportunity to get some hands-on experience of surveying.
In addition, one of the Community Landscapes Project volunteers, namely Doug Hislop, has been applying his IT skills to the maintenance of the CLP Web site and has also produced the first North Devon Archaeological Society web page! At the moment this is limited to one page, but as further information is supplied to the CLP, then you should be able to access newsletters, find dates for events etc, all with a mouse-click. This is just part of the support offered by the Community Landscapes Project.
To access NDAS’s first web-page, go to: http://www.ex.ac.uk/projects/devonclp, then simply click the button for ‘links’ to access ‘North Devon Archaeological Society’. As things progress, we will create a more direct link, but at least it’s there! All the best!
Community Landscapes Project at Hartland: An Update. (Newsletter No 6 2003)
Sean Hawken, the CLP manager (and incidentally one of our members) is very disappointed. Following the inclusion in the last NDAS newsletter of an account of work undertaken so far and work planned in Hartland,Wolfardisworthy and Clovelly parishes, NO volunteers from NDAS made contact or turned up on the June dates which were supplied. This is a great shame, because the Community Landscapes Project represents one of the best opportunities for local, non-specialist, but interested people to become involved in new research and new discoveries.
The Hartland, Wolfardisworthy and Clovelly area, with
its monastic background and wealth of prehistoric and medieval archaeological
evidence is potentially one of the most interesting in the county. Any
members living in that direction would find a couple of day’s volunteer
work helping out with survey very rewarding. The Hartland Society are
the volunteers on the spot, but members of NDAS are
eagerly invited to contribute. As it stands, palaeoenvironmental work
is underway, pollen cores having been sub-sampled, but not yet analysed.
Documentary work is going ahead in the Devon County Records Office and
further abandoned medieval farmsteads are being sought in the study area.
These may be discovered as earthworks, and it is with the survey and recording
of these that assistance is currently required. Sean Hawken will be very,
very pleased to hear from anyone able to offer an occasional Saturday.
To find out more about CLP, visit the website www.ex.ac.uk/devonclp, where
you will also find a NDAS website.
Community Landscapes Project: Update and Prospects - Sean Hawken (Newsletter No 7 2004)
Since its inception in 2001, this Devon-wide project, representing a collaboration between the University of Exeter and Devon County Council and funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the University of Exeter & Devon County Council, has focused on areas of Devon which hitherto had received little archaeological attention. Landscape studies were set up in five areas of Devon: the Blackdown Hills, the Clyst Valley, parts of the South Hams, Rackenford/Knowstone Moors and Hartland Moors. The aim was to increase the opportunities for public participation in the archaeological sciences. Compensating for the inability of the major archaeological societies and the local authority archaeological services to meet the requests of local groups for help, the CLP has enabled a large number of people to become involved in earthwork survey, documentary research, environmental sampling, inputting information into a GIS data-base and receiving training in laboratory techniques.
Now the Community Landscapes Project is in its final phase. While there is still a very small amount of fieldwork to complete in the Blackdown Hills, this phase principally involves assembling and disseminating the results of work to date. There are drawings to complete, data to enter, aerial photographs to examine and final radiocarbon dates to collect. Then, of course, everything has to be written up and published.
During its lifetime the Project has enthused people throughout the county. The permanent staff of the Project have gone out to village halls and farmhouse kitchens in the study areas and beyond carrying the message, that it is possible for local people to participate in researching the history and archaeology of their locality and to make genuine discoveries. Such discoveries are not necessarily headline material, but are steps in understanding how settlements and communities evolved. People have learned where to look and how to understand what they see.
So where does the Project go from here?
Currently, funding is being sought in order to continue the valuable work
that has been done. A new project would be different, however. During
its brief life this project has developed a methodology and expertise
which can be applied anywhere where there is interest and need. So, rather
than academically determining which areas should be investigated, a future
project would invite any local group to seek help and guidance from the
Project staff in furthering their researches. The CLP staff could provide
specialist services such as geophysics and palaeoenvironmental work, where
these are required, or could train non-specialists in the use and interpretation
of, for example, geophysical survey. Thus groups at Winkleigh or Hatherleigh
or Parracombe or Brayford or anywhere else could call upon CLP to help
them with a landscape project, whenever special expertise was found to
be desirable.