The Archaeology of Cricket

[drpeterwardle]

The Archaeology of Cricket.

I thought I would start a thread about the archaeology of cricket for those of us who are working on, actively involved or simply interested in the history and archaeology of cricket as well as the game.

If you look at the sports section of my web site you will find the archaeological desk top and building assessment for the pavilion at Worcester. The building recording report will be ready shortly. http://www.historicenvironment.co.uk

During the watching brief I utilised the club facilities cameras facilities to monitor the contractors. We are convinced in fact that in some circumstances remote watching briefs may be far the best way to do it.

Details of the development and the web cam can be found on
http://www.wccc.co.uk/
http://www.wccc.co.uk/news/news.asp?newsID=321
http://www.wccc.co.uk/pavilion/index.asp

Dr Peter Wardle

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Wardle
http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/statsguru...22288.html
The greatest ever spin bowler

[Austin Ainsworth]

Dr. P, how does the DC archaeologist feel about remote monitoring of WBs?

[mercenary]

CCTV for heritage crimes! Genius!

That would surely limit the lies that accompany any watching brief "no we've not dug any holes since you were last here... that spoil heap came from another site."

A CCTV tape/dvd would then accompany any report to the Development Control arch. This might force them to at least acknowledge what they probably already knew, namely that a huge proportion of site work goes unmonitored because the archs weren't notified.

Sorry, sorry :face-topic: I'd love to do some archaeology of cricket. But I'm a Yorkshireman...

[matthew.law]

Dr Peter, remote monitoring sounds very interesting,but l suspect your statement about it above will polarise opinion (and result in quite a few off-topic responses). Perhaps you would be kind enough to offer a few more details, such as in which cases remote monitoring is best, how it works in practice (full-time remote monitoring, or physical monitoring supported by remote monitoring 'out of hours' as mercenary suggests, and also what your agreement with the contractor was should something you see require archaeological intervention on site).

Matt

[andy.bicket]

I was told a couple of years ago by an Aussie, that the west of Scotland has more Cricket clubs than Football clubs...bit surprising, I thought. Don't reckon there's much scope for cricket in Paisley or Coatbridge but I could be wrong, maybe in Milngavie or Newton Mearns. They certainly strolled around the Meadows in Edinburgh on a Sunday in their cable-knits - could just be the proximity to Bruntsfield, Grange and Morningside, the slightly more salubrious neighbourhoods on the south-side.

As an archaeological question, mapping the sporting, social and national makeup (and historical reasons for beginning the clubs) of areas with cricket clubs in west of Scotland to test this claim.

[drpeterwardle]

Have to say the main contractors were as good as gold...

The uses are more applicable to building recording than watching briefs for below ground activities. It has a number of other uses.

The first time I did this it allowed to me to monitor the progress of the archaeological contractor and cut down on the number of monitoring visits. If something was found that I or the curator needed to see than the camera was trained on that and we discussed it on the phone. A variation on this is a photo is taken on a mobile phone on site and sent to me.

The webcam allows you to check on progress so that you know when they are going to do the relevant work. In this case when the flood water receeded controlled when the wb would continue. Nobody had any real idea when this would be.

As you say one benefit is that the contractor cant get away with things but more to the point there is security against looters/vandals etc.

For recording building demolitions the idea is that you could have several cameras mounted on tripods etc so that a plan/elevation could be derived. What I do now for such watching briefs is use a telephoto lense so that I donot have to go anywhere near the actual buildings when active demolition is taking place. Using digital CCTV is thus a variation on a theme.

It also has the advantage that the public can see what is going on when it is too dangerous for them to be anywhere near the site. In the first month there 300,000 hits on the webcam.

One of the things I found interesting about recording the pavilion was the technology behind cricket such as the acccurracy of the radar for predicting when the rain would stop.

I am happy for the spin off from cricket archaeology to be discussed on this thread.

The DC archaeologist found the web cam useful as well.

Dr Peter Wardle

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Wardle
http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/statsguru...22288.html
The greatest ever spin bowler

[matthew.law]

"spin-off"

Thanks for clarifying. It does sound very sensible (and l especially love the element of giving the public a chance to see the work underway).

Perhaps l can phone in absent tomorrow "sorry boss, rain radar says there's no point me going to site"