Test pit excavation within currently occupied rural settlements: results of the HEFA CORS project in 2008

This paper reports on the fourth year of the University of Cambridge Higher Education Field Academy (HEFA) project which combines education and outreach (particularly within the secondary school sector) with the archaeological investigation of currently occupied rural settlements (CORS) by the excavation of 1-metre square test pits in open spaces (mostly private gardens) within areas currently occupied by settlement. Summaries of the results of the HEFA CORS project in 2005–7 have been published in earlier volumes of MSRG Annual Report (Lewis 2005, 2006, 2007a), while the aims and methods have been outlined and contextualised elsewhere (Lewis 2007b) and will not be repeated here

Teenagers, archaeology and the Higher Education Field Academy 2005–11

The University of Cambridge Higher Education Field Academy (HEFA) (www.access.arch.cam. ac.uk/schools/hefa) involves teenagers in new archaeological excavations within English rural settlements. While the research aim is to reconstruct the development of today’s villages, hamlets and small towns, the social aim is to raise the educational aspirations of state-educated 13–15-year-olds and instil skills which will help them fulfil those ambitions. HEFA began in 2005, when it was funded by Aimhigher, itself set up in 2003 to increase the number of young people from lower socioeconomic groups and disadvantaged backgrounds attending university. HEFA was supported by English Heritage between 2009 and 2011. HEFA’s track record since 2005 has enabled it to weather policy U-turns and deep funding cuts, deliveringmore than 12,000 learning days to c 4,000 young people interested in subjects ranging from accountancy to zoology. Rigorous monitoring shows that more than 90% of HEFA participants rate it good or excellent and that after completing HEFA, 80% feel more positive about post-16 education, 85% have developed new skills and more than 90% plan to attend university, a rise of 25-60%

Test pit excavation within currently occupied rural settlements: results of the HEFA CORS project 2010

This paper reports on the sixth year of the University of Cambridge Higher Education Field Academy (HEFA) project run by Access Cambridge Archaeology (ACA). As in previous years, this combines education and university outreach (particularly within the secondary school sector) with the archaeological investigation of currently occupied rural settlements (CORS). The main method used for this is the excavation of 1- metre square test pits in open spaces within existing rural villages and hamlets. Accounts of the results of the HEFA CORS excavations are published annually in Medieval Settlement Research (Lewis 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009), and can also be viewed on the ACA website (www.arch.cam.ac.uk/access/) under ‘excavation reports’. The website also includes the pottery reports from each site, and distribution maps showing the distribution of pottery period by period from the prehistoric to the modern era for every site where test pits excavations have been carried out by ACA since 2005

Test pit excavation within currently occupied rural settlements: results of the University of Cambridge CORS project in 2011

2011 saw the seventh year of test pit excavation within currently occupied rural settlements (CORS) in East Anglia carried out under the supervision of Access Cambridge Archaeology (ACA) directed by Dr Carenza Lewis at the University of Cambridge. As in previous years, this archaeological activity combines education and university outreach (particularly within the secondary school sector) with the archaeological investigation of currently occupied rural settlements (CORS). Short summaries of the results of the University of Cambridge CORS excavations are published annually in Medieval Settlement Research (Lewis 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010), and online at http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/ aca/excavationreports.html. This website also includes pottery reports from each site and maps showing the distribution of pottery period by period from the prehistoric to the modern era for every settlement where test pit excavations have been carried out by ACA since 2005. Anyone wishing to fully appreciate the summaries in this paper is advised to visit the website and read the text in conjunction with viewing the maps

Test pit excavation within currently occupied rural settlements: results of the English CORS project in 2014

In 2014 a tenth year of test pit excavation within currently occupied rural settlements (CORS) in East Anglia was carried out under the supervision of Access Cambridge Archaeology (ACA) directed by Carenza Lewis from the University of Cambridge. The aims and methods of the CORS project are outlined elsewhere (Lewis 2007b) and online (http://www.access.arch.cam.ac.uk/reports/cors). The ACA website includes pottery reports from each site and maps showing the distribution of pottery, period by period, from the prehistoric to the modern, for every settlement where test pit excavations have been carried out by ACA since 2005. Anyone wishing to explore further the summaries in this paper is advised to visit the website and consider the text alongside the maps

Knowledge, impact and legacy in community heritage research projects

Cambridge Community Heritage (CCH)1 was a Connected Communities project funded by AHRC under the Research for Community Heritage (R4CH)2 call. CCH involved ten University of Cambridge researchers in Archaeology, History, Heritage and Public Engagement in co-produced research collaborations with community groups in eastern England in 2012 and 2013. In 2012 CCH helped 24 community groups develop groups’ own ideas for heritage projects into proposals that they could submit to the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) All Our Stories fund; and subsequently in 2013 CCH worked with 28 successful groups to deliver these projects. CCH projects involved more than 5,000 members of communities of place, occupation, interest and identity including local historical societies, football clubs, church groups, traveller communities, schools, women’s groups and military regiments to explore aspects of their heritage which were important to them. The projects were enthusiastically embraced by communities and generated a wide range of outcomes, receiving excellent feedback from community participants and university researchers alike. This paper reviews the aims and outcomes of Cambridge Community Heritage, analyses the opportunities and challenges encountered in this programme and elicits some of the issues pertaining to sustaining, tracking, identifying and evidencing both short-term impact and longer-term legacies from these projects

Utmark, settlement, marginality and power in medieval lowland England

This paper looks at utmark in medieval southern and eastern England, the uncultivated and thinly settled landscapes of which are largely lost to us today, transformed long ago into arable fields and settlements. It will consider the nature and extent of such ‘lowland utmark’, the use of the concept of marginality in understanding such land, and the factors which affected its development, persistence and transformation

Archaeological excavations in Saffron Walden, Essex

In July 2013, two archaeological trenches were excavated on Saffron Walden Common by 30 local sixth-form students in a programme of excavations funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund ‘All Our Stories’ scheme and supported by the AHRC Connected Communities theme under its Cambridge Community Heritage project. The excavations were planned and supervised by Access Cambridge Archaeology in collaboration with Saffron Walden Museum. The trenches were sited over a feature identified during geophysical survey by Tim Dennis of the University of Essex, which crossed The Common on the approximate line of the outer castle bailey ditch proposed by Steven Bassett in 1982, but not previously proven. Over a period of 5 days, the excavations exposed two parts of a cut feature which proved to be a ditch with 12th century pottery in the base. The excavations thus provided firm evidence, for the first time, for the position and line of the outer castle bailey in this area

Archaeological test pit excavations at Great Bowden, Leicestershire

This report presents the results of a programme of archaeological excavation of 30 1m2 ‘test pits’ in the Leicestershire village of Great Bowden carried out in summer 2013 and 2014. The programme was funded by the Heritage Lottery with the aim of engaging the local community in their heritage. Scores of people from the local area took part in the excavations which provided new evidence for the development of the area now occupied by the village from the prehistoric period onwards. This appears to have lightly used by humans in the prehistoric period, but in the Roman period two sites, one (near the later church) considerably larger than the other, were present underneath the present village footprint. No evidence was found for activity in the 5th –9th centuries AD, but finds of late Anglo-Saxon pottery, especially Stamford Ware, indicate a thriving settlement newly founded between the mid 9 th - mid 11th centuries. The test pit data clearly show the settlement to have grown rapidly into a large and densely packed village which retained some dispersed character arranged around greens and ends after the 11th century. The settlement experienced relatively little decline after the 14th century, and expanded again in the post-medieval period. The excavations were carried out by members of Great Bowden Heritage and Archaeology Society and residents of Great Bowden with advice from Access Cambridge Archaeology using ACA’s standardised excavation and recording methods. The site reports and background history were drafted in the first instance by members of Great Bowden Heritage and Archaeology Group and the final edited report with analysis of the results was prepared by Access Cambridge Archaeology

The medieval period (850-1500 AD

The period 850-1500 was one of great change which saw the East Midlands transformed from a conglomerate of localised chiefdoms or small kingdoms in the middle Saxon period to become part of the much larger and more powerful medieval kingdom of England, at its height during the period of the Angevin empire when it was one of the largest and most powerful forces in medieval Europe