Friday 19th July to Sunday 4th August at the Fat Fowl.

The photographs of Bradford on Avon shops in the 1950s will be accompanied by a soundtrack of recorded memories from local residents. The exhibition coincides with the publication of ‘Brylcreem and Broken Biscuits’, a Street Trail guide with information on what was in each shop in the 1950s and earlier – in some cases going back to the 19th century. The introduction traces the growth of trade and shopkeeping within the town since Saxon times.

The 112 page book will be available from Ex Libris bookshop in the Shambles in July, priced £6.95.

Back in March Kate reported on the very rapid photographic survey we undertook right across the project area. The purpose was to record the condition of each field so that we had same measure of judging just what ground conditions were current at the time of the airborne LIDAR survey.

Click the photos below to see larger versions.

By chance, a number of the photos show archaeology. One of Kate’s own photos taken near Turleigh is very intriguing, showing a massive earth bank crossing a steep hillside. The LIDAR show this clearly (the arrow indicates the direction of the photo) but leaves us puzzled as to the nature of this huge bank, which clearly curves round as if forming part of a massive enclosure – a prehistoric settlement perhaps?

In the foreground of Kate’s photo is another earthwork, which is not coming through on the LIDAR. When these photo-like images are ‘developed’ from the LIDAR raw data, we have to make a decision on which direction to place the light-source – remember this whole process is digital! – and a surface feature in line with that source will barely show up. The lesson is to illuminate a series of images from different directions.

Get involved!

There are many ways to get involved with the project: looking at aerial photographs, field walking, helping to plot the findings on maps, to name but a few.  For those interested in helping with the project, we will also be running training sessions on identifying earthworks, and other skills.

If you are interested in getting involved with this exciting project, please contact Roy Canham on 01225 866748 or at roycanham@btinternet.com.

If you’re not sure what you could do to help, read our How To Get Involved blog post.

If you aren’t able to help, but you want to keep up to date, then please follow our blog.  We’ll be holding public talks and other events throughout the year, so look out for announcements here.

Click on the image to see a larger version.

This situation occurs around a number of present-day farms, suggesting that the current farm buildings (many of them listed) are the remains of larger settlements – hamlets of Medieval or even Late Saxon date. An intriguing example is Church Farm at Winsley, once an integral part of the village but now cut off by the Winsley Bypass. On the LIDAR image, a series of small square enclosures can be seen running along the line of the bypass to the west (left) of the farm. These squares are too small to be prehistoric or Roman fields, and of course farming in the Middle Ages consisted of countless strips located in the ‘open field’ system surrounding each village.

The squares are most likely to be ‘closes’, small enclosures forming much of the settlement in which houses, barns and orchards were located. Theses closes would have stone walls, and the LIDAR scan is picking up the spread remains of the walls, now just a few inches high. So it looks if Winsley once extended in this direction, perhaps suggesting it was quite large at some point in the Middle Ages. Economic pressure or the plague brought havoc to many such places.

Get involved!

There are many ways to get involved with the project: looking at aerial photographs, field walking, helping to plot the findings on maps, to name but a few.  For those interested in helping with the project, we will also be running training sessions on identifying earthworks, and other skills.

If you are interested in getting involved with this exciting project, please contact Roy Canham on 01225 866748 or at roycanham@btinternet.com.

If you’re not sure what you could do to help, read our How To Get Involved blog post.

If you aren’t able to help, but you want to keep up to date, then please follow our blog.  We’ll be holding public talks and other events throughout the year, so look out for announcements here.

New date for your diary – Saturday 14th September 2013.

The June outing for members of the Museum Society has been postponed, and will now be taking place on 14th September instead.

We will visit the Priest’s House Museum in Wimborne Minster, a museum of local history and archaeology which has a new visitor centre with community space and tearoom, in an attractive garden.

We will also visit Dr Martin Green’s Down Farm, on Cranborne Chase. The Chase is a fascinating landscape of great archaeological interest that includes the Dorset Cursus and Ackling Dyke, Bronze Age barrows and Roman and Iron Age buildings. Down Farm covers many of the rich, multi-period archaeological features, surrounded by lovely countryside which is being restored to chalk downland pasture. Dr Green will show us some of the large collection of ancient artefacts that have been excavated from the farm.

If you are a Museum Society member and interested in joining what promises to be a very enjoyable day out, please contact Jane Mann on 01225 865967 for more details.

If you are not currently a Member, you might want to consider membership – it’s only £10 a year!

Join Bradford on Avon Museum Society -see details here

Saturday 6th July, 2-5pm at the Lecture Theatre, St Laurence School, Bradford on Avon

The following presentations will be given:

1. Digging up Bradford on Avon – problems and possibilities: Roy Canham.
2. Wild West frontier town – Bradford in the politics of Wessex and Mercia: Martyn Whittock.
3. Troubled times – Edward, Ethelred and the Viking Wars: Hannah Whittock.

Refreshments will be available.

Tickets £5 members, £7 non-members, available from 17th June at Museum or TIC, or Roy Canham (01225 866748, roycanham@btinternet.com)

Aerial Photograph, mid-1970s	Ordnance Survey map, 1889	Tithe Map, 1841

You can click on the photograph / maps to see a larger version.

The Ancient Landscapes project will include analysis of aerial photographs. This is a source that often reveals archaeology, sometimes in the form of early patterns in the landscape which have been removed by modern farming techniques.

The aerial photograph (shown above left) shows the land to the north of Hartley Farm, 1 mile west of Bradford. The photo was taken in the mid-1970’s, a period when field boundaries were being removed in much of our countryside to facility more efficient farming. Many features can be seen in the freshly-ploughed soil of the large field, in particular a large dark patch in the centre.

The aerial photograph is oblique, not vertical, so you need to work hard to compare this to the Ordnance Survey map of 1889 (shown above centre) – Haugh Potticks Farm towards the top of the photo is a good starter point. With care you will see that our dark feature appears to have been a pond – or perhaps a small quarry that became a pond.

Do the same comparison with the Tithe Map of 1841 (shown above right) – and no pond! A nice bit of archaeological detective work using three sources and proving that the pond was dug between 1841 and 1889.

But there’s more work to do here. Some of the lines showing in the large field are clearly boundaries seen on the two early maps. But not all of them – note the set of parallel lines running towards the field boundary closest to camera. We recognize these as ‘ridge and furrow’, the strip fields set out and cultivated in the Middle Ages, perhaps from 1200 AD or thereabouts. We have few signs of the Medieval landscape surviving around Bradford so this is a useful discovery. We are hopeful that further research with aerial photos will give use more insights like this, adding to the data we get from the LIDAR images.

Get involved!

There are many ways to get involved with the project: looking at aerial photographs, field walking, helping to plot the findings on maps, to name but a few.  For those interested in helping with the project, we will also be running training sessions on identifying earthworks, and other skills.

If you are interested in getting involved with this exciting project, please contact Roy Canham on 01225 866748 or at roycanham@btinternet.com.

If you’re not sure what you could do to help, read our How To Get Involved blog post.

If you aren’t able to help, but you want to keep up to date, then please follow our blog.  We’ll be holding public talks and other events throughout the year, so look out for announcements here.

Get involved!

There are many ways to get involved with the project: looking at aerial photographs, field walking, helping to plot the findings on maps, to name but a few.  For those interested in helping with the project, we will also be running training sessions on reading aerial photographs, identifying earthworks, and other skills.

If you are interested in getting involved with this exciting project, please contact Roy Canham on 01225 866748 or at roycanham@btinternet.com.

If you’re not sure what you could do to help, read our How To Get Involved blog post.

If you aren’t able to help, but you want to keep up to date, then please follow our blog.  We’ll be holding public talks and other events later in the year, so look out for announcements here.

The image shows an area south of Winsley. The land slopes down towards the River Avon – the curving feature bottom left is the Kennet & Avon canal. We knew from fieldwork that the remains of an ancient field-system survived in this area, largely obscured by trees. The layout of these fields is now clear – long substantial banks or ‘lynchets’ running NW-SE, diagonally across the test area, with the minor banks that divide the fields showing faintly, at right-angles to the main lynchets. Clearly the LIDAR laser pulses have got through the tree cover under winter conditions (flight was on 11th January) and successfully modelled the ground surface.

The map to the left shows the same area (south of Winsley) as the image above.

You can click the image and the map to see a larger version.

Images copyright of Bradford on Avon Museum.  The LIDAR survey for the Ancient Landscapes project was conducted by the Environment Agency.

Read our earlier blog post to find out more about LIDAR.

Get involved!

There are many ways to get involved with the project: looking at aerial photographs, field walking, helping to plot the findings on maps, to name but a few.  For those interested in helping with the project, we will also be running training sessions on reading aerial photographs, identifying earthworks, and other skills.

If you are interested in getting involved with this exciting project, please contact Roy Canham on 01225 866748 or at roycanham@btinternet.com.

If you’re not sure what you could do to help, read our How To Get Involved blog post.

If you aren’t able to help, but you want to keep up to date, then please follow our blog.  We’ll be holding public talks and other events later in the year, so look out for announcements here.

Click for details of our first Public Talk to be held on Wednesday 24th April at 7:30pm in Bradford on Avon Library.

A public talk by Roy Canham, former County Archaeologist for Wiltshire, and leader of the Museum’s exciting new project ‘Ancient Landscapes of the Bradford Hundred’.

Tickets are £2.00 and can be purchased on the door.

Our LIDAR flight took place on Friday 11th January, but within a few days the whole area was covered by snow making it impossible to conduct a survey of the state of each field.  However, Roy had divided the 12 square km area into zones, and as soon as the snow began to clear, the field checking team went into action.

Armed with a pen, a map, a camera, and a large packet of wine gums, and wearing some sturdy walking boots to avoid slipping in the mud on the steep bits, Mandy and I ventured out on Saturday 26th January to check what was in each field in Winsley Zone 4.  It was a cold day, but Winsley Zone 4 provided a nice walk as we plotted the most efficient way to get around all of the fields on our map.  There was still a bit of snow about, and it took us about 2.5hrs in all, longer than we’d expected, and we just about made it back before it got dark.

At each field we stopped, took a photograph of the field, noted the photograph number on the map, and the point and direction of the photograph, and filled in the check sheet, selecting the most appropriate description (Pasture; Winter Wheat / Barley; Kale; Plough Soil; Other), noting the height of any grass / crops, and checking for livestock (Cattle; Sheep; Horses; Other), with the most notable ‘Other’ on our walk being 3 alpacas.  We also had to note any Hay / Straw Bales or Heaps Manure / Silage although I didn’t see any in Winsley Zone 4.

On Sunday 27th January I set out again, this time with Giles, to check Turleigh Zone 2.  Sunday was a much brighter day, and all traces of snow had disappeared – it was even warm enough to take our coats off.  Turleigh Zone 2 is an area I don’t know well at all, and we had a lovely walk (albeit stopping every few minutes to photograph and document fields).  Taking photographs as well as writing on the check sheet turned out to be very worthwhile, as although I didn’t spot any Archaeology myself, Roy spotted some in some of my photographs.

All in all, I felt very virtuous for my two country walks in one weekend, and I’m pleased to have contributed something to this exciting project too.

Get involved!

There are many ways to get involved with the project: looking at aerial photographs, field walking, helping to plot the findings on maps, to name but a few.  For those interested in helping with the project, we will also be running training sessions on reading aerial photographs, identifying earthworks, and other skills.

If you are interested in getting involved with this exciting project, please contact Roy Canham on 01225 866748 or at roycanham@btinternet.com.

If you aren’t able to help, but you want to keep up to date, then please follow our blog.  We’ll be holding public talks and other events later in the year, so look out for announcements here.