Finds deposited at Experience Barnsley

The finds, photos and reports from the project have been deposited at Barnsley Museum. They will be stored here for future generations to research as part of the archaeological archive of Barnsley.

Fieldwork Finishes

Archaeological fieldwork on the Hands on History project has now ended. We thank all volunteers, garden owners and schools who have been involved in the project since 2013.

Over the next few months, we will publish news of a free booklet, which finds will be displayed in Experience Barnsley and our talk at South Yorkshire Archaeology Day.

Fieldwalking Report 2015

Here is the report on the field walking. We looked for pottery and other finds in the area where the crop mark of a possible enclosure was identified.

Download the report.

The enclosure probably survives as a series of filled-in ditches below ground. There is no evidence for it on the ground surface.

Fieldwalking was conduced over two days in February 2015. Four volunteers under the supervision of Bill Bevan walked over part of the geophysics transect laid out by GSB Prospection to investigate a cropmark identified on aerial photographs in this area (see illustration 1).

The archaeological aim of fieldwalking was to look for artefacts that may date and interpret the features identified by the geophysics survey. The community training aim was to train and give practical experience in fieldwalking and recording techniues to Hands on History volunteers.

The overwhelming majority of the pottery was 19^th to 20^th century in date. There were some sherds of 18^th and early 19^th century pottery along with very small quantities of medieval and early post-medieval wares. These are described in the following pottery report. The quantities and distribution of earlier pottery does not help interpret the identified sub-soil features. The vast amounts of late 19^th/early 20^th century pottery suggests a specific series of events such as dumping or manuring from middens during this short period.

Back to School

It is that time of year again! The summer is almost over and the kids are going back to school. So are we!

During September and October we will be at Athersley North, Athersley South and Laithes Academy. About 180 pupils will find out about how archaeologists discover things, have a go at digging a test pit, discover the stories about their finds then do some creative writing about those stories. Look out for the results later.

2015 Test Pits

We have excavated a couple of test pits following interest from the gala. We didn't find much in them but all those who took part enjoyed the day.

Windy Gala

Thank you to everyone who came by, found out about our work and had a go at digging a test pit. It was a successful day depsite the wind constantly threatening to blow away our exhibition!

St Helen's Gala

Look out for us at St Helen's Gala on Saturday 18th July.

We will have an exhibition about our finds and you can have a go at digging a test pit with the help from our Archaeologist and community diggers.

The gala takes place on the Laithes Lane Memorial Field, Athersley from 11am to 3pm.