Archaeology and communities
York Archaeological Trust is an independent charity, founded in 1972, which investigates the past for the benefit of present communities and future generations.
The Trust has an impressive portfolio of published and ongoing work on historic buildings, extensive landscapes, urban investigations, artefact assemblages and environmental studies. Its specialist services - artefact studies and curatorial skills, archaeological conservation, publication and IT - are available to clients not only locally and regionally but nationally and internationally.
The trust’s Jim Symonds, Regional Director of ArcHeritage (Yorkshire), explains: “There are basically two sides to the trust. On the one hand our commercial work for developers - finding out what’s there on sites, dealing with planning, excavating, removing and preserving remains and so on, and on the other sharing knowledge and making it available to various groups.”
In the past, much of the trust’s work has centred around the historic City of York, where it also currently operates three visitor attractions. It excavated the site that was to become the Jorvik Viking Centre, and also operates DIG (formerly the Archaeological Resource Centre) and Barley Hall in the
City. The trust has also published a number of books bringing its findings to a wider audience, while it regularly supports the work of community archaeology groups.
Having previously focused on the York area, the trust has now opened a new office in Sheffield, with the intention of spreading its work across the Yorkshire region. Symonds continues: “Archaeology
can be very good in places like Sheffield, to maintain a historical attachment to the lost industrial past. Commercially, archaeology is increasingly important as it’s classed as a material consideration in the planning process. Since 1990, developers have been required to investigate archaeological issues before work begins on site, so that’s led to quite a healthy commercial archaeology sector.
“Of course, during the recession, we have seen a drop in the number of schemes looking for planning permission. However, archaeology projects with community involvement, such as our Hungate excavation in York, have been proven to be sustainable. The Hungate excavation is paid for by the developer Hungate (York) Regeneration Ltd and the scheme has involved numerous local community groups taking part and learning about archaeology.
In 3 years over 16,000 people have visited the Hungate dig and over 1000 people have been involved in the project. This is a prime example of developers working with a Local Authority to provide access to the nations heritage.”
With Local Authorities employing in-house archaeological advisors who will flag up planning applications that may have heritage impact, organisations such as the trust are involved with the work from this sector. Indeed, authorities are also often keen to have archaeological digs taking place as they can often boost public interest and increase tourism. With significant brownfield development taking place around the country, such as the redevelopment of large former steel works sites in Sheffield, there’s plenty to keep archaeologists busy, and Symonds believes that such work offers the opportunity to keep local communities informed on what is going on around them, and indeed what
has gone on previously.
Symond concludes: “The important message is that developers and planners should get in early with archaeological investigation, as soon as they acquire a site, or even before. It can be easy to see investigation as a hindrance to a development, but in fact it’s the opposite.
Archaeology is about what goes on both above and below ground. Of course we want to preserve and learn from what is under the ground, but we’re also interested in what will go above the ground when we’ve finished. By working closely with planning authorities and developers, that’s exactly what we can achieve.”
