Boltby Millennium Group

Description: Boltby is a rural village on the fringe of a National Park, mostly comprising buildings of the 17th-19th centuries. Documentary research by the residents, supported by advice from the National Park Archaeologist, suggested that a previously unrecorded complex of earthworks in paddocks on the edge of the village might be a manorial complex, possible the original home of the locally powerful de Boltby family, who had left the village by 1281.

Issue: Inspired by Time Team, the Group had initially looked to geophysical survey to provide them with a conclusive answer as to whether the earthwork complex was indeed a manorial complex. Though they had successfully applied for funding to commission a geophysical survey by commercial contractors, this approach distanced the residents from the research process.

Strategy: Informal contact with English Heritage archaeologists based in the local Regional Office prompted the advice that the residents should carry out an investigation and analytical field survey of the earthworks in advance of the geophysical survey, under the supervision of English Heritage experts. Although this work had not been budgeted for within the Heritage Lottery Fund grant application, the opportunity to train members of the Group and demonstrate best practice, as well as to involve the community in research into their local heritage, justified the involvement of three members of the English Heritage Archaeological Investigation Team in a weekend-long training course.

Outcome: The analytical earthwork survey demonstrated that the complex is indeed a manorial complex, of schedulable quality, and the SMR and NMR have been upgraded accordingly. The position of the complex in the wider context of the village is better understood. Equally importantly, over the weekend, 30 members of the village, of all ages, participated in the investigation under the supervision of English Heritage experts, with unanimous enthusiasm and appreciation. Those who took part learned more about their local heritage and developed a better understanding of different survey techniques and the goals of landscape archaeology in the process. English Heritage staff made themselves responsible for writing the report on the field survey, but the residents made use of the research and an interpretative version of the earthwork plan in a booklet written entirely by members of their Group, entitled Boltby: a history.