A Brief Interlude

As much as we would love to spend all our time in the field uncovering the ancient history of Ancaster, the real world does tend to intrude every once in a while and work commitments mean we will not now be digging again at Ancaster until early July.

I will have the dates for digging in July ready shortly but in the meantime we are starting to plan for other projects which  can continue when we are not digging and particularly which can be pursued through the winter.

First and foremost of these is the Parish Boundary Project being organised by the Council for British Archaeology East Midlands.  

In the words of the CBA website:

"The idea of this project is to involve local groups in a regional exercise to map their local parish boundaries and identify features  of archaeological and historic interest. The result will be a unique online resource accessible to anyone with an interest in historic landscapes and will serve as an important record. The database will be built up over time and it is hoped  that eventually the whole of the  East Midlands will be covered"

The two parishes we are initially interested in are of course Farndon in Nottinghamshire and Ancaster in Lincolnshire. 

To begin with we will have a Wednesday night session looking at current and old maps to identify the existing parish boundaries and whether or not they have changed over the last couple of centuries. After this we will begin mapping the features that delineate the boundaries using the system developed on the pilot project in Bingham. All the details of how this will be done can be found on the CBA Parish Boundary Project website. 

Ian Ross is in the process of registering FARI to carry out the work at Farndon and once it is underway we will also begin work at Ancaster. Depending on how well the project develops we can then look at expanding it into adjacent parishes. 

The first meeting to kick off the project for FARI will be on Wednesday 25th July. 

If anyone has any input, suggestions or questions please contact either myself or Ian Ross.