Seen on Britarch - bit of a dream consultation, this one:

From David Gamston of CAMRA:

_____________________________

Consultation on historic pubs in Yorkshire

In the first-ever project of its kind to be undertaken in Yorkshire &
Humber, CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale) is consulting widely to
identify what public house interiors of genuine historic value are left
in the Region today. Few pubs have survived the tidal wave of
modernising change of the past three decades and CAMRA's initial surveys
suggest that, of the 6,000 or so in this Region, the proportion could be
as depressingly low as two percent.

In a field which has been largely ignored by mainstream
conservationists, the first draft of CAMRA's Yorkshire Regional
Inventory, listing pub interiors of special historic interest, is an
honest attempt to promote some debate and shared vision, among a
diversity of professionals, about this dwindling heritage. The aim is to
identify and boost recognition for the pub interiors that most deserve
to be spared from insensitive change.

The consultation documents have gone out to all the Region's local
planning authorities, to civic and amenity societies, to English
Heritage, relevant regional organisations and to many others with a
professional interest in the historic built environment or the licensed
trade.

The hope is that professionals and other interested parties across
Yorkshire & Humber will be willing to share their opinions and
knowledge, and help put the Inventory into a final shape that will have
widespread support. The documents can all be found on
YorkshireRIPubs.org.uk . The Consultation is now well under way and
comment and feedback from Britarch members, whether within the Region or
from further afield, is very genuinely and warmly invited.

Please write to David Gamston, 9 Fulfordgate, York YO10 4LY
Or email: yorkshire.pubheritage@camra.org.uk

The grapevine has suggested that the new target for English Heritage senior management cost cutting exercises is the Regional Science Advisors. These individulas actually provide a useful service to the commercial sector, unlike much of the quango.

It begs the question what EH senior managers think the organization does, that they can remove one of the few useful services to the outside world?

Hi everyone,

I had an interesting debate yesterday about, surprise, surprise, how to improve pay and conditions. I know there are several curators here and I'd like to ask your opinion. The main query was, as the IFA (and BAJR) stipulate pay minima and govern professional standards, why is there not a strict stipulation on archaeological planning conditions that all work must be carried out by an IFA RAO? Thus empowering the IFA to police the profession (and giving a real penalty to organisations struck off the list for whatever reason).

One of the reasons put forward for not doing this was the 'closed shop' argument, which was countered by examples of similar bodies governing other professions such as the General Medical Council, The Law Society etc.

It seemed too simple a solution - there has to be a fatal flaw in this argument, but not having curatorial experience I can't see it. Can you enlighten me?

DISCLAIMER: This is NOT criticism, I would simply like to further my understanding of the issue.

Have a look at the first video (scroll down on the new BAJR web http://www.bajr.org/ )

Its good ol' Monty Python... even though its over 30 years old... it seems that archaeology remains the same!


[:p]

"No job worth doing was ever done on time or under budget.."
Khufu

I am currently looking at several developments which require careful consideration of the piling strategies with regard to preservation in situ, and would like to throw a few queries out into the knowledgeable world of BAJR.

The recent guidance from EH on Piling and Archaeology (2007) steered clear of endorsing the Arup/York concept that 5% loss of the archaeological remains within a development site would allow for the legibility of the deposits to be maintained (remembering of course that the Arup study was specifically aimed at the nature of the remains anticipated in York and could not be taken to apply elsewhere). In fact the EH paper states that 'developments on archaeologically sensitive sites should strive to achieve lower values'.

Further on the document states 'new piling impact on the site's archaeology should be kept to a minimum, and a loss of no more than 2% of the site should be the target. When all other engineering works are also taken into account, such as services or lift pits, a maximum of 5% of the total site should be seen as the upper limit of loss from foundation construction'.

If I have, for example, a development site within which there are significant archaeological deposits across the whole area, to a depth of 3m+ and waterlogged below 1.5m. What are people's views on:
1. Is the 2% referred to in the EH document 2% of the development site or 2% of the footprint of the built development within the site?
2. Is the 'no more than 2% target loss' actual unrecorded loss (i.e. piling through the deposits unseen), or would each pile location need to be examined and recorded?

This latter question brings up further issues - the piling might be configured to represent a 1% loss of deposits, but in order to safely evaluate/record at 3m depth in waterlogged ground the trenches/test pits would need to be larger than the area actually lost to piling - is this really a preservation in situ strategy? Also we would still be left with a number of relatively small and discrete interventions through a very complicated site and it would be very difficult to relate the deposits in one pile location to those on the neighbouring ones.

The client wants to let out the piling contract as a traditional Design & Build, whereas I would see the piling layout as being driven more through a series of pre-designed layouts aimed at minimising the impact on the archaeological deposits. Does anyone have any recent experience in understanding how piling is procured on sites where archaeology is critical?


Thanks

Beamo

http://openspace.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/op...index.html

Has anyone seen this (apart from Steve at Online Archaeology! )

This seems quite new and opens up OS mapping in a googlemap API kind of a way... could not find any examples online... so if anyone does... does this mean that OS have realised that mapping belongs to everyone? Has anyone ever enjoyed the discussions on costs for OS licencing! talk about Quantum ! You need to be in several parralel multiveses before you can even start to comprehend the pricing!

Could this be the long awaited OS data online?



"No job worth doing was ever done on time or under budget.."
Khufu

It appears that the Totnes Atmospheric Engine House is in the process of demolition. Mark Horton has flagged this up on Britarch and there has been some debate there today and amongst members of the AIA. I thought it was worth bring to the attention of BAJR-ites as well.

Here is a copy of Dr. Horton's original message to Britarch for those (like myself) who are not subscribers.

Quote:quote:Many of you will will know about Brunel's atmospheric railway in South Devon - powered by stationary steam engines. Only two engine houses survive intact - at Starcross and Totnes. English Heritage have apparently declined to list the Totnes example - quite extraordinarily and the developer is in the process of stripping the roof, in a way that can only seem to be preparatory to demolition. This is clearly a monument of national importance in every way, and EH should immediately step in and spot list it - and this post is really to alert everyone to the real threat that seems imminent.

Quote:quote:It seems that EH's initial recommendation was that it was of insufficient architectural importance. In fact, it is one of the very few buildings that we have direct evidence that it was designed by Brunel personally, as we have the sketches for it (or one very similar) in his notebooks at Bristol. I hope that this might comprise sufficiently new information to warrant EH to change their minds!

While I'm in the mood for presenting articles :

This one was written to reply to the Opinion in Current Archaeology 213 - concerning how Community Archaeology is not being supported by Curatorial Staff...

It was with great interest that I read the article in current archaeology 213 last month on ?Community archaeology-against the odds?.

As a development control archaeologist working within a council I was not surprised at the initial reaction to the opinions of the authors. There was anger at what was seen to be an ill-informed point of view with sweeping generalisations and a somewhat vague grasp on contract archaeology. Suggesting that ?..most excavations were very small evaluation trenches dug by hand to a shallow depth and that is the primary objective was a collection of artefacts rather than features..?, which was, to say the least, baffling.

I expect that there will be a number of replies from curators and contractors letting off steam, in the general direction of this article. Many will say that there is a great deal of archaeology taking place within the community, and that they can name several projects in the area, they may also say that the authors only had to ask to find out what was going on around the UK.

Curators are singled out as providing little support to local groups, however they are inhibited by budgetary constraints on time and resources.

From a certain angle however the authors are right, there is a lack of easily accessible guides and templates to enable local groups to begin, and I stress begin, an archaeological project.

They do exist, and in Scotland we are in some ways blessed by what could be described as a template for just such a requirement.

Scotland's Rural Past is an exemplar five year project which supports local committees across Scotland to investigate deserted rural settlements. The website provides a portal from dozens of project groups to communicate and access essential information, including templates and recording, notes on reporting, photography, survey and a host of other useful skills. This empowers people to be both independent and to easily access the contact details of useful groups and individuals that they may need to take a project from an idea to a reality.

Alongside this the Council for Scottish Archaeology (CSA) has an adopt-a-monument officer, Helen Bradley, who provides practical advice and training to volunteer groups to improve the condition accessibility and even interpretation of a site that they chose. I like to see Helen as a Finds Liaison Officer for sites, and personally believe that there should not be just one but ten such officers across Scotland, to support local people who care about their own local archaeology.

In Perth & Kinross, the ceaseless work of the Heritage Trust has turned an archaeology week in 2003 into an archaeology month, due to increased popularity and demand with many local and national organisations now joining to create an international event in a local scale, and includes excavations at several sites across the county with many volunteer opportunities available.

In my own county, and taking the view that this is a local project for local people we have the Prestongrange project, with a large waiting list of people looking to participate in a remarkable venture that ranges from excavation of industrial remains through to oral history and educational spin-offs. It may not make the national headlines, but the dedication of both the professional archaeologists and volunteers makes this a special event for the people of Prestonpans.

The point I'm trying to make, is that there is a lot going on and that there are resources available. Some events and projects are known across the country, while others are designed to be local events - and to suggest there is somehow a link between commercial archaeology and public archaeology and that the former is somehow impacting upon the latter is nonsense.

What is clear, is a need for public archaeology, and a need for easily accessible information on who to talk to, how to carry out the work, where to get funding from, who to get help from, how to report?. etc and rather than attacking county archaeologists, we should be looking at the real causes such as lack of funding for HERs and a reliance on goodwill to get projects going, the article took potshots at the wrong people, but it does make us confront what is happening and how we can make it more accessible.

A simple Guide to starting a project would be a first step, and the first step all should take, is contacting the local council archaeologist, who can inform the group about possibilities and available resources. Perhaps we should also be asking the people what they want, and contact local groups across the UK to ask opinions. Public Archaeology is essential for the continued support of the community as a whole for archaeology in general, if anything, although wide of the mark in some respects, this article focused our attention on what is an important subject.


Scotland?s Rural Past: http://www.scotlandsruralpast.org.uk/
Adopt a Monument: http://www.scottisharchaeology.org.uk/pr...adopt.html
Shorewatch http://www.scapetrust.org/html/shorewatch.html
Perth & Kinross Heritage Trust: http://www.pkht.org.uk/Events.asp?id=7
Prestongrange Community Archaeological Project http://www.prestongrange.org/pcap/


"No job worth doing was ever done on time or under budget.."
Khufu

Whilst doing some unfocussed websurfing, I came across this website:

http://www.bfro.net/

Apparently one of their 'field investigators' is an archaeologist with the US Forest Service, who has written a guide to investigating Bigfoot using archaeological methods (see under Hypotheses and Projects) - incorporating this into the risk assessment would be interesting!:face-huh:

Typical Americans, even the beasts they encounter on woodland surveys have to be bigger than ours.

Hi all,

Been a long time since I have contributed but I thought I would see what everyone's views are on an issue that has been troubling me...

I have noticed that certain areas of the UK have curators that appear to be closely associated with contracting units (for example Hull, Norfolk, and parts of Lincolnshire).

Although the two should be mutually exclusive (otherwise it would be like your dad marking your GCSE exam for you for example! :face-confused, I noticed that a response by a curator to a developer detailing the work they would require also included a Written Scheme of Investigation by their associated contracting unit.

This somewhat flies in the face of commercialisation surely, and is basically a method to maintain a monopoly of the commercial archaeological works within that county.

I am not surely of the illegality of such methods (will have to gen up on barriers to trade and all that), but I was wondering what other archaeologists' views were.

Cheers,

Moby