https://www.facebook.com/staploe.archaeology.7  

Contact us via    STAGArchContact@gmail.com

Staploe Archaeology Group was established in 2019 with the aim of researching the history of the Staploe Hundred and the surrounding area through archaeology and archaeological geophysics.   The catchment area for membership is East Cambridgeshire and to the south of the Ely area. We meet on the second Wednesday of the month (January to November) in Soham and aim to run at least one training session or group activity each month.

Activities during 2023 included a two-week excavation at a late medieval moated site at Caxton End, Eltisley in conjunction with Eltisley History Society, as well as STAG members joining National Trust site excavations at Wimpole Hall and Reach 24, plus a community dig at Reach Hythe.  Geophysical surveys were undertaken at Croxton Park and Bedwell Hey near Little Thetford, while in house training included QGIS and LiDAR (for beginners!) and Wenner resistivity pseudosection refresher training.

Plans for 2024 include

·      further geophysics and excavation in the field north of the farmhouse at Bedwell Hey Farm near Little Thetford where previous Mag and Res surveys have indicated a possible trackway and roundhouses

·        field walking along the old course of the River Ouse south west of Ely

·        geophysical surveys at several new locations 

Visit our website at https://peterborougharchaeology.org/

At FRAG you will find a lively and friendly archaeology group interested to learn more about the people who have lived in and around Peterborough over many centuries.

We are predominantly enthusiastic amateurs but we work with expert archaeologists. The experts lead our community excavations, and they are available to train us in best practice techniques.

Our primary focus is the Fane Road site in the northern part of Peterborough where we have uncovered a large Roman villa.

The Peterborough area has been an attractive place for people to live since prehistoric times. Flag Fen and Must Farm highlight the populations living at the Fen edge in Bronze Age and Iron Age times. Durobrivae was one of the largest Roman settlements in the country – centre of extensive pottery and iron-making industries. The Cathedral provides a continuous record of occupation and prominence on a national level since 655AD. And there is more modern historical legacy associated with city’s expansion as a railway and engineering centre.

FRAG has a regular schedule of meetings. These talks and workshops aim to inform you about local archaeology and relevant archaeological techniques. Our meetings take place every month or two and are usually held at the Parkway Sports and Social Club in Maskew Avenue.

There are usually opportunities each year for members to participate in excavations at Fane Road or other local sites.

During the summer we arrange periodic visits to nearby archaeological sites with knowledgeable guides.

Members can attend FRAG lectures free of charge and they receive periodic e-newsletters with more information about local archaeology.

We work closely with other history and archaeology groups to make it easy for everyone to find out about excavations, meetings and activities in the area.

Orwell Local History Society Website

The Society is open to all and offers lectures on topics relating, as far as possible, to the county of Cambridgeshire.  We meet in the Methodist Church schoolroom, Town Green Road, Orwell, at 8.00pm on the last Tuesday evening of the month from January to May and from September to November. In June and July we visit places of historical interest within easy reach of Orwell, usually on the last Tuesday of each month.

The Society has been researching the early history of Orwell over the past two years by digging archaeological test pits at various sites around the village. In March 2018 we staged an exhibition of the results so far and we will continue digging during this year. For details contact our secretary.

A small group of Orwell LHS members is also involved in maintaining and continually adding to our website, Orwell Past & Present, set up in 2012 with the aid of a Heritage Lottery Fund grant.  The site is an ongoing record of life in our village over the past 2000 years, but also gives information on current events, clubs and facilities in the village. Contributions and comments are welcomed and the site includes a link to the Orwell Community Archive of old photographs within the Cambridgeshire Community Archive Network.  An 80 page book containing a selection of these photos, with notes on Orwell history, is available price £5, from the secretary at the above address.

Membership: £10 per annum, payable at the November meeting. Non-members are welcome at £2 per meeting.

Programme 2018

April 24th    How Cambridge celebrated Queen Victoria’s Coronation - Speaker - Tamsin Wimhurst

May 29th.   David Short, former landlord of the Queen's Head, Newton, on the history of drinking in England and his experiences as an innkeeper at the centre of a village community.

This meeting will be held in the Lordship Community Room - NOT IN THE USUAL VENUE  AT  THE METHODIST CHURCH.

June  26th.  Guided visit  at  All Saints Church, Barrington, at 7.00pm,               followed by supper at The Royal Oak.

Saturday 28th July - from  2.30pm  to 5.00pm.  Visit to Burwell Museum, with a talk and a guided tour.   £4 per head.  Please book at our May meeting.

Tuesday 25th September - Meetings begin again in the Methodist Schoolroom. with a talk by Dr Sean Lang  entitled  ‘The Blues, the Reds   and the Whites: Cambridge and the Russian Revolution’

Visit our website at http://oakingtonhistory.co.uk/

Our Society was set up in 2008 as a result of village interest in the archaeological excavations that were taking place on the Recreation Ground in preparation for the build of our new pavilion. After an initial trench evaluation two excavations areas were opened within the footprint of the new sports pavilion (Area A) and the MUGA (Area B). Both areas were test-pitted first at the level of a preserved early soil, Area A then saw full excavation to the level of the underlying natural subsoil while no further excavation was undertaken on Area B as this area was to be ‘preserved in situ‘. An assemblage of about 600 sherds of pottery, over half of it Early to Middle Saxon, was recovered from the test pits, along with animal bone, metalwork and Neolithic flint.

The full excavation of Area A saw seventeen burials excavated, all dated to the latter half of the sixth century. The burials included both sexes and all age groups. Eight of the burials contained multiple grave goods, the most common being twinned saucer brooches with strings of beads, chiefly amber. Bone combs, wrist clasps, square-headed and great square-headed, annular and disc brooches were also recovered. Four of the burials held smaller finds assemblages, a knife or single brooch, and five contained either no grave goods or a single large pot sherd.

The burials belonged to a larger cemetery of then unknown extent, part of which had been excavated in 1994, and were set within a palimpsest of Roman, Early to Late Saxon and medieval ditches. Two of the burials recorded in the evaluation remained unexcavated, again supposedly to be preserved in situ, and two more burials were recorded in a watching brief on a service trench, bringing the total number then known to twenty-one. Twenty-five burials, including a single cremation, were recorded in the 1994 excavations.

The society is the custodian of the ‘Village Archive’ which is gradually being copied and transcribed, in order to build this website into a comprehensive history of the villages of Oakington & Westwick. We as a society are indebted to the hard work and tenacity of Ralph Warboys and Terry Chapman who between them built up a great deal of material and photographs that formed the basis of our archive. Over the past decade we have endevoured to carry on this work and the archive has grown considerably since the society was formed.