Calendar

Speaker: Tony Brooks (speaker on Zoom)

In late 2023, Digventures advertised an online project using their training and admin system asking for volunteers to help by looking at one of three different National Trust landscapes using LIDAR and Google Earth to map any visible archaeology in each area in a systematic area in addition to the already recorded Historic Environment Record, the Derbyshire record system. One of the areas investigated was Kinder, looking for evidence of peat extraction. In total just over a thousand people volunteered of which 750 completed the training. Volunteers from 31 countries were supported and trained by a team of 45. The project was split into three stages: Recruitment, Training and investigation.

DAS member Tony Brooks was one of the volunteers and he will describe the project and his experiences of participating.

A one day conference organised by the East Midlands Group of the Council for British Archaeology in Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire

The Archaeology of Nottingham’s Caves – Gavin Kinsley, York Archaeology
Fieldworkers and Fieldschools: Discovering a Roman Settlement at Laughton – Adam Clapton, University of Leicester Archaeological Services
Community fieldwork in Bradgate Park, Leicestershire – Daryl Garton & Lynden Cooper, Ice Age Journeys
5,000 years by the River Witham: an update on the results of the Lincoln Eastern By-pass project – Nigel Cavanagh & Mike Wood, Network Archaeology
The Archaeology of the North-East Melton Mowbray Distributor Road Scheme – Ben Turner, Archaeological Research Services
Marshlands and Monuments ─ prehistoric floodplain interactions in the Trent Valley – Kristina Krawiec, York Archaeology

The conference fee of £15/£25/£30 includes lunch, tea and coffee. Free parking at the venue.

Deadline for bookings is 31 March.

The Industrial Archaeology Section will be holding it’s annual maintenance working party at Morley Park blast furnaces. We will be undertaking fence repairs, vegetation management and litter picking. Everyone is welcome to come along and help, or simply to learn about the site. We will meet on the lane leading to Morley Park farm at 1000.

Speaker: Amy Bracey

In February 2024 an extensive archive came up for auction. Within its pages the daily workings and the lives of the workers are documented. Drawings, photographs and letters bring to life the people who worked for Holmes of Derby – a company who expanded to other towns and to the great coach making city of London. Spanning 150 years of a 500 year coach making history, the archive is of international importance. The talk will give an insight to the company history and explore the items within the archive. Amy Bracey has a degree in Art History and Heritage Management and has worked with museum collections relating to canals, archaeology and decorative arts, but her love of carriages became a career when working for the National Trust, cataloguing their carriage collection. She now works as Project Curator for The Carriage Foundation, an educational charity, and advises museums and individuals across the globe on the care, conservation, history and research of horse-drawn carriages.