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Timeline - where Archaeology meets History.

Yesterday I went to a fascinating meeting in York which showed me how the boundaries of archaeology are being pressed ever-outwards. This is presumably more than a mere marketing ploy.

I used to semi-believe the stereotype "Historians study documents; Archeologists study artefacts", but its validity was denied by those present representing the Council for British Archaeology.

The meeting of Timeline York Plus was attended by some 20 representative history groups and others from the York area. These included the following (edited from a previous Timeline newsletter):

N.B.: This blog still being edited.

(Timeline York Plus is an informal association of historical and archaeological societies in the area of greater York, providing a forum for the exchange of news and views.)

• Acomb Local History Group

This group meets on the second Wednesday of each month except August. They cover a very wide range and are very well attended. The subject matter varies considerably; one of the most successful recently was on the history of Boyes Store.

• Bishopthorpe Local History Group

This group is working together with the Bishopthorpe Millennium Trust to develop the Pinfold Area producing ceramic plaques on the history of Bishopthorpe. Other projects are ongoing.

• Derwent Archaeology Group (DAG)
  

Derwent Archaeology Group was formerly part of Dunnington through the Ages. Its aims and objectives remain the same i.e. to investigate the history and settlement of the Derwent Ward. To date we have carried out resistivity surveys on two sites which we believe indicate the presence of Roman roads. We aim to confirm these with “digs” in the late autumn. Cropping permitting, we also hope to investigate a possible iron age site located close to Dunnington.

• Dringhouses Local History Group

The history of Dringhouses extends back at least 2000 years, with evidence of Roman occupation, a medieval village, the brick making industry, the turnpike road, grand Victorian properties, the church and school etc. The adjacent Knavesmire has not only the history of the racecourse but also a former Royal Observer Corps building and the Wood, originally planted in the 18th century.

Dringhouses Local History Group coordinates research and information about all this and more! The Group has a programme of talks and visits to places of local interest and always welcomes photographs and memories of Dringhouses past and present. For further information please contact York 706384.

• Dunnington Through the Ages

Meetings are on the 1st Thursday each month. For further information, contact 01904 488433 or 01904 488229.

• Friends of Hagg Wood

The Friends of Hagg Wood celebrated their 10th anniversary as a community group in 2006. They have recently been awarded a LHI grant for a historical survey of the wood and its environs to be undertaken by Stephen Moorhouse, a well known landscape historian. He will be giving a talk on Wednesday 11th October 2006 entitled “Hagg Wood in its Historical Context”, describing how he will approach the LHI landscape history project. It will be held in Dunnington Reading Room, in the centre of the village, at 8 p.m. All welcome. Free for members and £1.50p for non-members.

• Friends of Hobb Moor

Plans for archaeological work on Hob Moor include two projects. The first will consist of investigations to try to determine the site of the medieval water mill which was situated in the north-east corner and for which there is documentary evidence from the 16th and 17th centuries. The second project will attempt to determine the age of the ancient causeway which crosses the original common area from south-west to north-east. Anyone interested in these projects can contact the Friends of Hob Moor on York 703970.

• Forest and Hopgrove Local History Group

Our members live in the Stockton on the Forest and Hopgrove areas of York. To contact us please speak or write to either:
Terry Briggs: 46 Kingsmoor Road, Stockton on the Forest, YO32 9TY (Tel. 01904 400013) or Steve Burton: 98, the Village, Stockton on the Forest, YO32 9UW (Tel. 01904 400066)

• Haxby Local History Group

Pauline Briggs prepared a display, to mark the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, which was on display in the local library in June and July. This was also taken to the Haxby Carnival on July 8th and displayed along with much other material in a marquee. There was a gratifying amount of interest: we were busy all afternoon and some useful information came to light. Also, the “Flying Ducks”, the Haxby Youth Theatre, gave a performance of the Haxby Sword Dance; they hope, sometime in the future, to be able to revive the Plough Stotts Plays (these were apparently performed by the ploughboys – other villages in the area also have these plays). The word “Stott” is defined in the Annandale Concise Dictionary of 1896 as a Scots word meaning young bullock or steer!

• Poppleton History Society

The archaeological group carried out a geophysical survey of the scheduled ancient monument site near St. Everilda’s church over a period of two weekends during June & July 2006. The objectives were to confirm the initial findings of Channel 4 Time Team, that indicated the existence of a Tudor manor and to carry out an initial survey of the platform of the moated site. The results were encouraging and prompt further research using other geophysical techniques. A report on the activity will be sent to English Heritage.

The History Society will resume its monthly schedule of speakers’ events in the autumn.

For further details contact 01904 338610.

• South Ainsty Archaeological Society (SAAS)

The group formed in 2004 to promote interest in the archaeology and local history of the area roughly southwest of York within a triangle bounded by the A64 and the rivers Ouse and Wharfe.

Currently our energies are focused on the excavations at the Knights Templar field in Copmanthorpe which is the subject of a dig co-ordinated by professional archaeologists Chris Fenton-Thomas (of ‘On Site Archaeology’) and Catrina Appleby (our Chairperson). We are as confident as we can be from our interpretation of old documents and aerial photos that the area under excavation is the site of the order’s preceptory which would have functioned as a large farm. However, the initial purpose of the dig is to establish if this area is indeed the site. We hope to find some evidence of stone buildings, ditches, enclosures and (Medieval) rubbish pits.

Our normal programme includes lectures, meetings and visits; and we are also keen to develop activities to complement our archaeological work, especially a project in oral history.For more details contact: Tel. 01904 705478 or 744263.

Stop Press: The excavations over the weekend of 15/17 September unearthed a quantity of medieval tile, pottery and glazed floor tiles in the general area of the dig. So far, there have been no specific finds to report but we wait for later developments.

• Stillingfleet Chroniclers

We are a small group with just 6 members, nevertheless we have applied for an Awards for All grant to buy equipment to help with the recording and storage of Stillingfleet's history.

Two public events were held this year: an open day in March and a film show of old pictures in April. Both were a great success so it has been decided to hold another event next Spring on the theme of "Stillingfleet in World War II".

We will continue to collect as much information as possible on Stillingfleet and have already acquired a full set of census returns, parish records from 1700 to present day, school registers, monumental inscriptions from both churchyard and cemetery and lots of old photographs, particularly ones of the schoolchildren through the ages. We have found two old maps of the village, one for 1751 and one for 1810 and would like to find the missing Tithe Map for the village. There is also a village plan for 1788 held by the Minster Library but that too has gone astray. We are searching the newspapers in Selby Library for mentions of the village but so far have found very little.

Hopefully if/when we get our Lottery Grant, the new equipment will entice some new members and eventually lead to maybe a village website and perhaps a book.

• Strensall Local History Group

Progress has been made in the investigations into the history of Strensall Tannery, and a new subject of research has commenced. The Tannery was started around 1805. Why a tannery was established specifically in Strensall is not certain, but the fact that it was built next to the Foss Navigation (first opened in 1796) with its easy access to York and beyond may have been the deciding factor. Our Family History sub-group has looked at the Strensall census returns for 1841 onwards and found that most of the tannery workers were born outside the village. Were they agricultural labourers looking for work? The new subject of research concerns an area north of Strensall stretching from Lilling Green Roman period farm (?) to the site of a mill on the River Foss near to Sheriff Hutton Bridge. This area is all that is left of the ancient Wapentake of Bolesford. From the limited amount of field observations and studies of old maps, we conclude that Bolesford has a lot of history that needs "unlocking".

Fulford Battlefield Project - Hungate Young Archaeologists - New Earswick Group – Newton-on-Derwent Local History Society - Stamford Bridge Community Archaeology - Tang Hall Local History Group - Wiggington History Group. We hope to include the news from these groups in future editions.

Pearsonian Peregrinations

This blog will include random thoughts linked one way or another - often at several steps removed - with the person and/or ideas of Karl Pearson - universally recognised as 'KP', and one of the few persons generally defined by just two initials. ('GBS' is 50% weaker.)

'Peregrination' means not just a rambling (this was the meaning I ascribed to it - rambling is a mode of talking as well as a way of walking: thus giving a completely new meaning to the "Ramblers Association"). Peregrination is also a journey, indeed even a pilgrimage. All three meanings - rambling, journey, pilgrimage - are germane to the way my interest in KP has developed.

Pearson's interests ranged far and wide, especially in his younger years (chaptered as "Lehrjahre of a Poetic Wrangler" in Porter's biography of KP, reflecting KP's chapter "Lehrjahre and Wanderjahre" in his own biography of Galton). Galton wandered further, wider and earlier than Pearson, but KP was no slouch for his day. Maybe he wanted to get away from UK domesticity at Cambridge and Hampstead? (His uncle however was in India in 1859 - not that it did him much good, as he died at sea on his way home - not many people know this" - see his gravestone at Crambe.)

Pearson's intellectual Wanderungen created problems and adventures for this ardent member of the KPFC (Karl Pearson Fan Club), as it leads to such a divergent range of materials - medieval theology, German folk-theatre, art, epistemology, etc.., etc.. It is remarkable in all this how the discourse of commentators so often slips naturally into germanics -

Levine's Dying to Know has a chapter on Pearson ("Karl Pearson and the Romance of Science"), as does Herbert's Victorian Relativity ("Karl Pearson and the Human Form Divine"). (I have not yet seen the latter, other than at GoogleBooks.)

Levine (2002, p13) reports how his book's "animus ... changed as it lived through at least a decade of reflection." Starting life as a "critique ... of the impossible scientific ideal of disinterested scientific knowledge", it ended discontented at today's complacency, which refuses to accept "not only the possibility of objectivity but of the good faith of quests for it .... '(O)bjectivity' in much academic discourse has become a curse word ..."

I was in the USA recently, and was fortunate enough to meet up with Levine. It is interesting how professors of literature, germanics and women's studies all include Pearson within their remit.