Archaeology and Conservation in Derbyshire and the Peak District - Issue 21 January 2024

ACID

ISSUE 21 JANUARY 2024

Archaeology and Conservation in Derbyshire and the Peak District

Inside:

Phil is still caught knapping

Six centuries of mining at Masson Hill

New AI map of the Peak District Furthest from the sea Our year in numbers and pictures

Contents

Foreword:

ACID Archaeology and Conservation in Derbyshire and the Peak District Editor: Roly Smith, 33 Park Road, Bakewell, Derbyshire DE45 1AX Tel: 01629 812034; email: roly.smith@hotmail.com For further information (or more copies) please email Del Pickup at: del.pickup@peakdistrict.gov.uk Designed by: Sheryl Todd, Moose Design sherylt38@yahoo.co.uk Printed by: Buxton Press www.buxtonpress.com The Committee wishes to thank our sponsors, Derbyshire County Council and the Peak District National Park Authority, who enable this publication to be made freely available.

Derbyshire Archaeology Advisory Committee Buxton Museum and Art Gallery Creswell Crags Heritage Trust Derbyshire Archaeological Society Derbyshire County Council Derby Museums Trust Historic England (East Midlands) Hunter Archaeological Society University of Manchester Archaeology Department University of Nottingham Peak District Mines Historical Society Peak District National Park Authority Portable Antiquities Scheme Sheffield Museums Trust University of Sheffield, Department of Archaeology South Derbyshire District Council

ACID

ISSUE 21 JANUARY 2024

Archaeology and Conservation in Derbyshire and the Peak District

Inside:

Phil is still caught knapping

Six centuries of mining at Masson Hill

New AI map of the Peak District Furthest from the sea Our year in numbers and pictures

Cover pic: A rare example of a surviving miners’ staircase from Masson Hill Mine. (see pages 10-11) Picture: Mat and Nick Adlam Stiles

The views expressed in the pages of this magazine do not necessarily reflect those of the editor or publishers. No responsibility will be accepted for any comments made by contributors or interviewees.

Wonderful stories from the past

Industrial heritage features strongly in this issue. One of the interesting aspects of this region is the mix of industrial and natural heritage and the way these two strands interact, both in the past and today. The Farming in Protected Landscapes-funded limekiln restoration projects, discussed on page 14, are wonderful examples. Other industrial heritage explored in this issue includes framework knitting at Holbrook (p9), cotton spinning at Milford (p13), mining at Masson Hill (p10), and the former gasworks at Sudbury (p27).

As someone who comes from a family of scientists, I am always interested in the use of science and technology in archaeology, such as using AI to assess landscape change (p4), LiDAR to identify new sites (p7) and palynology (the study of spores and pollen) to tell us about past landscapes (p23).

The value of more traditional survey and monitoring work, and the important role that volunteers can play, is explained in two articles, one about A Day in the Life of Cultural Heritage Volunteers (p12) and, on page 16, another on boundary markers on the Peak’s north eastern moors.

Community involvement in archaeology and heritage is so important to ensure it remains a priority for the future. Articles in this issue include an update on the Derbyshire Scouts archaeology badge (p26), continued community involvement at Under Whitle Farm (p23) and the sterling work of volunteers at Bakewell and District Historical Society (p30).

Many wonderful stories can be told about the past through archaeological finds. The everyday objects unearthed at the site of a non-conformist chapel in Derby reveal more about the community in the 1800s. Farther back in time, a 17th-century gold mourning ring and a hoard of Roman coins, both discovered by metal detectorists and offered to museums through the Treasure Act, are discussed on pages 20 and 28 respectively.

Finally, I never expected to be reading about maritime archaeology in a magazine about our firmly landlocked county, but MSDS Marine’s article (p8) reminds us that we are never really that far from the sea in the UK and its influence stretches far inland.

I hope you find something you enjoy in the magazine and are inspired to get out and about to further explore the heritage of this fabulous area.

Martha Jasko-Lawrence Chair of the Derbyshire Archaeological Advisory Committee

2 ACID | 2024

10

16

18

26

30

2 Foreword Martha Jasko-Lawrence, chair of the Derbyshire Archaeological Advisory Committee 4 Using AI to assess landscape change David Alexander describes how artificial intelligence is being used to monitor Peak District landscapes 6 The long way home Bret Gaunt describes the repatriation of Native American material from Buxton Museum 7 The lowdown on LiDAR The advent of LiDAR presents new opportunities for citizen heritage, explains Michael Parker 8 Furthest from the sea Derbyshire is probably furthest from the sea of any county, yet it’s the home of a leading marine archaeology company, as Alison James reports 9 Holbrook’s hidden histories revealed Michael Lobb describes a heritage project at Holbrook which has involved young and old 10 Six centuries of mining at Masson Hill John Barnatt takes us on an industrial archaeological tour of Masson Great Cavern at Matlock Bath 12 Day in the life of...

Cultural Heritage Volunteers Angela and Richard Knisely-Marpole have been Cultural Heritage Volunteers for the Peak District National Park since 2022

No part of this magazine may be reproduced without the written permission of the publishers.

Archaeology and Conservation in Derbyshire and the Peak District is supported by Derbyshire County Council and the Peak District National Park Authority

7

I

’m very pleased to be writing the foreword to this latest issue of ACID which is again full of fascinating articles about the archaeology and heritage, familiar and less familiar, of Derbyshire and the Peak District.

13 Milford’s former ‘Cottonopolis’ Dan Waterfall gives an overview of recent archaeological work at Jedediah Strutt’s Milford Mill

14 Farming for the past – and for the future Rebekah Newman and Anna Badcock explain the importance of supporting farmers to protect our cultural heritage

26 Squirrels are nuts about archaeology Over 1,000 Scouts from all over Britain now hold the Derbyshire Scouts Archaeology Badge, as Morgause Lomas reports

16 Marking the boundaries Ruth Morgan describes a new survey of boundary markers on the Peak’s North Eastern Moors

27 Industrial heritage on a country estate Ian Mitchell of the Derbyshire Archaeological Society describes how the society revived the regional industrial archaeology heritage event

17 Dissenters of the faith Victoria Owen and Carina SummerfieldHill provide a unique snapshot into a 19thcentury non-conformist community in Derby

28 A nummus for your thoughts?

Ros Westwood of Buxton Museum & Art Gallery describes the find of a major hoard of Roman coins at Parwich

18 ‘I tend to lose interest when metals came in’ Roly Smith catches up with Time Team’s flint-knapping expert Phil Harding 20 Find of the Year: In memory of Sir Thomas Derbyshire’s Finds Liaison Officer Meghan King describes a gold late 17th-century mourning ring found at Walton on Trent 21 New light on a Dark Age Caitlin Halton and Milena Grzybowska provide an update on excavations at Oxcroft Lane, Bolsover 22 Welcoming new members to the volunteering family Catherine Parker Heath describes a new volunteering force in the National Park 23 Peeling back and digging deeper in the Upper Dove Ian Parker Heath reveals some exciting news from the Upper Dove Valley 24 News from round the county Buxton Museum closed: Ken Smith new Park chair: Hardwick tapestry restored

29 On track at Wingfield Station Lucy Godfrey tells us the exciting story of the rescue and restoration of the unique Wingfield Station 30 Seventy not out Museum manager Mark Copley celebrates a notable anniversary for the Bakewell Historical Society 31 Bakewell’s missing mural Stephen Coates unearths a long-forgotten mural which once graced Bakewell Town Hall 32 Bookshelf Editor Roly Smith reviews the latest archaeological books on the county 34 Our year in numbers Planning and heritage statistics for the past year 35 Our year in pictures A pictorial selection of some of the things we’ve been up to 36 Picturing the Past Arbor Low in context 2024 | ACID 3

Using AI to assess landscape change DAVID ALEXANDER, Senior Research Analyst for the Peak District National Park, describes how artificial intelligence is being used to monitor Peak District landscapes

M

Aerial photo ‘patches’ for varying habitats and land cover as AI predictions

4 ACID | 2024

onitoring landscape change in a repeatable and accurate manner has historically been expensive and time-consuming. Rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are enabling us to automate landscape monitoring, opening up a range of possibilities in conservation work.

In the Peak District, using high-resolution aerial photography, we have recently used AI methods to survey habitats and land cover with high accuracy and across an unprecedented area. A process which previously took years for a team of experts now only takes one day for a computer.

The last detailed land cover census in National Parks is now over 30 years old. It was carried out by the Countryside Commission in 1991, using aerial photography from the early 1970s and late 1980s. Interpreting these images was done by hand, meaning it took nearly four years to map all UK National Parks.

Repeating such a survey is not practical nor affordable, so we set out to develop an easily repeatable, accurate and cost-effective way of measuring land cover change across our dynamic and varied landscapes. We partnered with Cranfield University and the Alan Turing Institute to draw on current AI research. Land cover and land cover change were classified from aerial photographs using Convolutional Neural Networks, a deep-learning AI method that excels in labelling natural photography.

Together, we developed a new variant of deep-learning network that classifies landscape into different land cover classes. Broad, high-level classes (moorland, woodlands

or grasslands) were predicted with 95 per cent accuracy, equivalent to human error rates. Within these broad classes, the model then predicted low-level, detailed classes (heather moor, grass moor, deciduous or coniferous woodland) with 72 per cent to 92 per cent accuracy. The AI predictions were merged with topographic maps from Ordnance Survey to create a complete land cover map of the Peak District (see opposite page).

The data we used is visible colour aerial imagery at 12.5 centimetre resolution supplied by Bluesky International. We fed the AI model with small ‘patches’ of aerial images, of 512 pixels by 512 pixels in size, from which it learnt to predict the corresponding land cover. Example patches are shown in the image below. In total, over 360,000 patches make up the Peak District National Park, demonstrating the power of AI to process and analyse data quickly at this detail and scale.

We developed a new variant of deep-learning network that classifies landscape In addition to mapping current land cover, we explored deep-learning techniques to identify landscape change between two years of aerial imagery. One of the challenges of AI change detection is for the programme to learn what change is relevant and what is ‘noise’ due to seasonality (e.g. leaves or no leaves on trees), sensor normalisation (different camera/colour saturation) and differences in shadows that can exist between multiple images. Our recent experiments have shown deep-learning methods are well-suited to overcoming this complexity, opening up promising directions for mapping land cover changes at landscape scale.

We are now using AI to map historic field boundaries of hedgerows and drystone walls. Significant lengths of drystone walls and hedgerows have been lost from the Peak District National Park since its designation in 1951. We aim to quantify this loss by comparing historic maps from the 1950s to present-day aerial photographs.

AI is already helping us improve our landscape monitoring by providing data useful for efficient decision-making, with a minimal requirement for ground-based sampling.

This does not replace detailed site surveys by trained professionals, but instead allows us to make predictions based on these surveys at an unprecedented scale. For example, AI will help us identify which habitats or heritage features are most vulnerable to landscape change enabling us to better allocate resources.

2024 | ACID 5

Bret, pictured left centre, at the handing over of the artefacts to members of the Haida Nation council and repatriation committee at the Haida Gwaii Museum.

To his right is Nika Collison, Executive Director of the museum Assiniboine pennant decoration (below).

Dakota USA.19th century

The long way home BRET GAUNT describes the pioneering repatriation of First Nations and Native American material from Buxton Museum

R

Haida alder wood ceremonial feasting ladle with decorated bowl. Haida Gwaii, 19th century

6 ACID | 2024

epatriation is very much a live topic of conversation in the museum sector at the moment, with the Parthenon Marbles and the Benin Bronzes at the centre of much of the discussion. However, it is not just national museums that are involved. Many smaller museums, including Buxton, are forging ahead with innovative ways of looking at repatriation, engaging in meaningful dialogue with indigenous communities, and achieving amazing results.

In 2022 I was very fortunate, and honoured, to receive a Headley Fellowship from the Art Fund. The Headley Fellowship programme enables curators to carry out research projects which deepen collections expertise and foster wider engagement and understanding of collections.

The material I was dealing with originally came from the Derbyshire School Library Service (SLS). This was set up in 1936 to provide children living in isolated rural towns and villages in Derbyshire access to museum-quality items. The service eventually closed in 2018 due to budget cuts and the material was transferred to Buxton Museum and Art Gallery.

Funding was secured from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation to enable ethical futures for the collection to be found. By the end of the project in January 2022, a total of 107 museums, galleries, archives, libraries, trusts, and foundations across this country and abroad received items as part of a free transfer – and Buxton Museum kept some. They include paintings, studio pottery, world cultures material and some archaeological and social history.

It was while working on the SLS project that I realised not all the material was better placed at other museums in the UK, particularly that from North America. It was for this reason that I applied for the Headley Fellowship so that the material could be researched and then returned to the indigenous communities in Canada and the USA. There were 51

items from North America which covered an area from the southern United States to northern Canada, and with a broad date range from prehistory up to the 20th century, though the majority dated from the mid-19th century. This was a time when European colonial settlers were moving in across North America and displacing indigenous communities, often with disastrous results. What made the project different to other repatriations is that I approached the communities first and offered the material back unconditionally. This was in stark contrast to the usual museum approach.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Canadian government, with the backing of missionaries, banned the ceremonies and traditional way of life for indigenous people, known since as First Nations. This involved, among other things, taking the sacred ceremonial items and either destroying them, selling them to private collectors or giving them to museums – and this is probably how some of the items ended up in Derbyshire.

During my Fellowship I forged meaningful and important links with many communities across North America. It was during dialogue with these communities I became more aware of the trans-generational trauma that they are suffering because of the effects of colonialism, and how important it is to have items returned to them.

The results of repatriation are many, including cultural and community pride, indigenous language revitalisation, artistic renaissance and evolution, land and water rights, reconciliation, and a greater political voice, to name but a few.

As part of the repatriation project, I made a trip to personally return five items to the Haida Nation off the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada. It was here that I saw the beneficial effects of repatriation for a community still coming to terms with cultural genocide.

Nika Collison, Executive Director of the Haida Gwaii Museum, said: “We’ve only had a handful of museums in Canada approach us about returning cultural treasures. To have a museum out of the country and continent do this is really stunning in the best of all possible ways.” And Aay Aay Gidins, repatriation coordinator, commented: “You and your museum are the first in England and the EU to ever repatriate back to Haida Gwaii. Small museums can set a big precedent.”

The lowdown on LiDAR The advent of LiDAR presents new opportunities for citizen heritage, explains MICHAEL PARKER

Roman Road (above) running from Arbor Low to the SSE, Arbor Low visible in the foreground.

Picture: Dave Ratledge

M

y introduction to the world of LiDAR took place around three years ago when I started studying for a BA (Hons) in History at the University of Derby.

LiDAR – an acronym for ‘light detection and ranging’– is a relatively new technology that creates images of the land surface.

Simply put, the images are made by an aeroplane (or more recently by a drone) flying over a site, from which the LiDAR equipment fires down pulses of light, whose reflected elements are timed. The first part of the light pulse returned comes from features such as treetops or grass, and the last part of the light pulse returned is reflected by the ground. By collecting millions of light point readings, and viewing the last reflected parts only, a quite incredible map of the ground surface is obtained that shows features sometimes invisible to the naked eye.

I was playing around with free LiDAR maps available on websites such as lidarfinder.com and archiuk.com when I wondered whether I could find any archaeology that was, as yet, unknown.

After a year of trying, I managed to find a site that did not appear on the Heritage Gateway. It was a beautifully circular feature in the Peak District to the north of Bakewell, perched on a slightly sloping site (much like Arbor Low), around 70m in diameter with a bank that had been reduced to no more than two feet in height.

But then what? Who should I check it with? Well, after consulting my course leader, Dr Ruth Larson, I was given the contact details for Steve Baker, Derbyshire County Council’s Archaeologist, who soon confirmed my find was a ‘new’ site and (phew) a possible henge!

This was just the beginning though; I had got the bug and was not satisfied with just the one find. Luckily I found that I was not alone in this obscure pastime, and several Facebook groups concerning map anomalies, LiDAR and

Possible henge monument (left) to the north of Bakewell.

Picture: Clifford Hayes

aerial photography provided the support and guidance that I required.

Subsequently, I have found several other archaeological sites in Derbyshire, such as a playing card-shaped Roman site just to the east of Buxton (which measures roughly 70m x 50m), and also a large but very faint trapezoidal Roman site to the north of Hartington (approx. 240m x 210m).

Most recently, however, I have found a previously unknown Roman road that is presumed to run from Arbor Low to Rocester, which has been confirmed by Dave Ratledge of the Roman Roads Research Association (www.romanroads.org).

The majority of the road towards Rocester is indiscernible, but using LiDAR it is possible to see the section that runs from Arbor Low for a couple of miles in a SSE direction before it doglegs around Newhaven and continues SSW for another couple of miles until it disappears under the old railway embankments.

The availability of free LiDAR maps has provided the tools for this new and interesting citizen heritage activity, which has led to my involvement in archaeological digs and geophysical survey work, something I had never anticipated when I started. For anyone wishing to attempt this pastime I would suggest joining one of the Facebook groups such as ‘LiDAR and Aerial Archaeology’ (my group), to gain advice and feedback on your finds. I think it is probably the easiest way for beginners to make the fastest progress.

2024 | ACID 7

Members of the local community attend a research day at the MSDS offices

Holbrook’s hidden histories revealed

Furthest from the sea Local Cubs inspect a pulley block from the Earl of Abergavenny wreck on a Heritage Hive visit to Ruddington

Alison James of MSDS shows a mum and child assorted marine finds at the Farthest From the Sea Festival in Derby

8 ACID | 2024

Derbyshire is probably furthest from the sea of any county, yet it’s the home of a leading marine archaeology company, as ALISON JAMES of MSDS reports

M

SDS Marine of Holbrook is in the strange position of being a marine archaeology company based in landlocked Derbyshire. A lot of our work takes place in the seas around the UK and further afield but last summer, thanks to funding from Historic England, we have been taking our work to new, inland audiences.

Fifty years ago the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973 was enacted, allowing the Government to protect nationallyimportant historic shipwreck sites. There are currently 57 wreck sites in England designated under the Act, which is administered by DCMS and Historic England. To celebrate 50 years of the Act, lots of activities took place around the country, including Derbyshire, where we delivered 50 events to celebrate 50 years.

Traditionally, maritime archaeology outreach has focused on areas that are close to the sea and on the wrecks themselves. Many UK counties are landlocked and claim to be furthest from the sea, including Derbyshire. Many residents of the county do not have the opportunity to visit

the coast and engage with maritime heritage, yet Derbyshire has strong links to maritime history that are little known.

MSDS Marine have been taking our ‘Heritage Hive’ trailer on the road popping up in lots of diverse locations to enable as many people, from as many different backgrounds as possible, the opportunity to interact with maritime heritage.

Derbyshire has many links to maritime heritage which the project team have used to make the pop-up events more relevant to local communities. Examples include: • The Three Ships and Nelson Monument at Birchen Edge: The three outcrops are carved with the names of warships from the Battle of Trafalgar – Victory, Defiance and Royal Soverin (sic). Nearby is the Nelson Monument, an obelisk built in 1810 which also commemorates the 1805 battle.

• Derwent Valley Mills: In 1799 Simon Goodrich was sent on a tour of the industrial Midlands by the Admiralty to see how emerging technologies could be incorporated into naval and ship-building technology. Goodrich was shown round the cotton mill at Derby by William Strutt, and his visit inspired technology later used at Chatham Dockyard.

• Morley Moor Quarries: This gritstone quarry made holystones for ships up until the Boer War. Holystones were used for scrubbing the wooden decks on board.

• Samuel Plimsoll: Plimsoll was the Liberal MP for Derby from 1868–1880. He was responsible for introducing the Merchant Shipping Act and inventing the Plimsoll line, a reference mark located on a ship’s hull that indicates the maximum depth to which the vessel may be safely immersed when loaded with cargo.

• Pearson’s Pottery, Chesterfield: The pottery manufactured the Royal Navy’s famous rum bottles.

• Haslam, City Road, Derby: From 1881 ships fitted with Haslam refrigeration machinery were transporting frozen meat from Australia and New Zealand to London.

We would love to hear of more links to maritime activity in Derbyshire. Get in touch by emailing info@MSDSMarine. co.uk. For further information on the project visit www.MSDSMarine.co.uk.

MICHAEL LOBB, Historic Buildings and Geomatics Manager at MSDS Heritage, describes a heritage project at Holbrook which has involved all ages

I

n 2022 Historic England funded a wide range of projects round the country through its ‘Everyday Heritage Grants: Celebrating Working Class Histories’. These 57 community-led and people-focused projects aimed to further the nation’s collective understanding of the past, with a focus on heritage that links people to overlooked local historic places and celebrating working class histories.

Community and heritage organisations were invited to apply for grants to unlock untold local stories and hidden histories. MSDS Heritage, who are based in Holbrook, in partnership with Holbrook Community Society and Holbrook Church of England Primary School, were awarded a grant for a project exploring ‘Holbrook’s Hidden Heritage’.

Holbrook stands just outside the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site, and while there is a large degree of public awareness of the textile industry in relation to the mills, there is less awareness of the associated cottage industries that existed in the villages surrounding the Derwent Valley mills.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the village community in Holbrook was employed in a mixture of working class trades, as agricultural labourers, miners or stocking frame knitters.

By 1845, there were 54 stocking-frame workshops in the village with 152 stocking-frames operated by 146 workers, who had the materials for their livelihood supplied by the nearby mills at Milford and Belper. Today there are two listed stocking-frame knitters’ workshops in the village, but evidence for many more in the fabric of the other historic buildings in the area.

The project aimed to inspire the local community to investigate the histories of their own houses, streets and village through the use of documentary evidence and analysis of the historic buildings in the village.

The project kicked off with an open evening at the local

Community Hub, the Spotted Cow pub, to help shape the project to suit the needs and interests of the local community.

MSDS coordinated visits to the Derbyshire Record Office and used online research to produce a range of resources for the project, including historic maps and censuses, as well as walking tours of the village with local historians and research days at MSDS offices with community volunteers.

MSDS also worked with Holbrook Church of England Primary School and led class workshops and ‘History Hunts’ around the village, showing the children how archaeologists examine and record historic buildings.

The school also engaged with elderly residents in Holbrook, who talked to the children about their memories of growing up in the village.

In addition to the Historic England grant, the Worshipful Company of Framework Knitters also provided funding to the project so that the school children could visit the Framework Knitters’ Museum in Ruddington, Nottinghamshire and see how people would have lived and worked in the buildings. The result of the school workshops will be displayed in a project exhibition showing the work of all the groups involved in the project, and open to the wider community.

The project has identified a number of buildings within the village that show signs of having been part of the framework knitting industry and, through documentary research, tied them to individuals and families who lived in them.

The initial phase of funding for the project concluded in September last year and will produce digital and printed resources to allow the local community and those living further afield to continue to explore the history of the parish.

The enthusiasm generated by the project has meant that further projects are already being planned to keep exploring Holbrook’s Hidden Heritage, with future plans to look at Roman and Medieval activity within the parish.

A pupil from Holbrook Primary School with her building archaeology project

2024 | ACID 9

Six centuries of mining at Masson Hill The ‘pipe workings’ comprise many interconnected passages, some filled with miners’ waste.

Picture: Mat and Nick Adlam Stiles

10 ACID | 2024

JOHN BARNATT takes us on an industrial archaeological tour of Masson Great Cavern at Matlock Bath

M

asson Great Cavern at Matlock Bath, known by its original lead miners as the upper ‘Nestus Pipes’, is of international importance as an outstanding example of multi-period mineral extraction over at least 600 years.

For much of its history the main output was lead ore, but in the 20th century the passages were extensively reworked for fluorspar, a non-metallic mineral commonly used as a flux in iron and steelmaking.

An area of the mine complex known as Masson Great Cavern is open to the public as part of the Heights of Abraham visitor attraction, but the extensive passages that run off from this are the preserve of mine explorers, while mine galleries to the far north-west were quarried away in 1979-80.

In late 2022, the results of a major underground archaeological survey project were published in detail by myself and Terry Worthington in Mining History, Volume 2, parts 5/6. An analytical survey of the 2.9km of the Nestus Pipe passages was undertaken in 2016-18 and led by myself, with extensive help from a team of back-up volunteers.

Particular credit must go to Terry for his practical knowledge of past and present mining; to Mat and Niki Stiles for the photographs; and to Wayne Sheldon, who led on laser survey that tied my detailed survey into a metrically-accurate framework for the mine as a whole.

A miner’s inscription dated 1705. Picture: Mat and Nick Adlam Stiles

In their natural state, the Nestus Pipes comprised an intricate interconnected series of irregular mineral deposits with cavities at their hearts known as ‘vughs’. These were lined with crystals of various minerals, including lead ores (often galena).

These deposits were cut by natural cave passages, including large caverns. Some of these are as old as the mineralisation and date to the Upper Carboniferous period, around 300 million years ago. Others are much later, formed before the Matlock Bath gorge was created by meltwaters in glacial times. Some sediments within these have reversed magnetic polarity.

When the first known miners came here they used the natural cavities as their starting points for exploration. The earliest recognisable mining, found only in the south-eastern workings, has very fine scars made by chisels or small picks.

These were used where rich lead deposits were carefully taken from the lined ‘vughs’ at a time when simple smelting techniques did not easily cope with material reduced to powder.

Solid areas of mineral between the ‘vughs’ were often removed by the ubiquitous heavy pick, while in some cases the ancient technique of fire-setting was used to break limestone.

From the late 16th century onwards, lead miners extended the workings north-west and also enlarged earlier galleries to the south-east. From the 18th century they were not only using heavy picks but also gunpowder, with the explosive allowing extensive passages in limestone, rather than mineral, to be created for the first time. Shafts allowed access and the metal ores to be taken to the surface.

The show cave was created in the early 1870s and is still open today, with many thousands of people being shown spectacular underground highlights. The last mining at the Nestus Pipes beyond the show cave was undertaken by the Bacon family between 1919 and 1971. For the most part, they reworked the waste left by the old lead miners and took this up old shafts after doing initial processing underground.

The extensive passages of different dates and character reflect changes in mining practice through time, and a multitude of features remain, such as pick work, gunpowder and high-explosive scars, 17th and 18th-century graffiti, coffin-shaped access levels, rare miners’ staircases, and fluorspar processing plant. There is also a suite of complementary geological and mineralogical features, which taken together, make the Masson Hill Caverns a place of great importance.

A rare example of a surviving miners’ staircase, only reachable today by crawling through a low passage largely filled with cold muddy water. Picture: Mat and Nick Adlam Stiles

Plan of the Nestus Pipes and Masson Great Cavern show cave

2024 | ACID 11

A day in the life of a... Cultural Heritage Volunteer

The Knisely-Marpole heritage partnership

The Folly Platform Cairn (left) scheduled monument, taken with Richard’s drone Monitoring on Beeley Moor (right) – are you sure there are stones here?

12 ACID | 2024

ANGELA KNISELY-MARPOLE and her husband RICHARD have been Cultural Heritage Volunteers for the Peak District National Park since the role was set up in 2022

Milford’s former ‘Cottonopolis’

N

DAN WATERFALL of CFA Archaeology gives an overview of recent archaeological work at Jedediah Strutt’s Milford Mill

o two days are the same as a Cultural Heritage Volunteer. One important job we do is monitoring scheduled monuments. Having previously arranged access with landowners and tenants via Catherine Parker Heath, Community and Conservation Archaeologist at the National Park, we are allocated specific sites.

The first thing is to obtain the official list entry from the Historic England website, which gives the date it was scheduled; its list entry number; the 12-figure grid reference for the centre of the monument; the detailed description of the site; and, most importantly, the area that is actually scheduled. Sites range from prehistoric up to modern.

Then our equipment is collected – ranging poles, photo scales, camera etc. and, most importantly, the recording forms and spare paper, all on a clipboard. If allowed, we sometimes use a drone (Richard is a registered and licensed user). A GPS is useful too, especially for helping locate piles of stones in high heather! Not forgetting lunch and coffee and outdoor gear suitable for a Peak District day, we set off.

Once parked, we kit up and walk to the area. First, we walk around the site to see what’s there. We look to see the general state of the site. Are there trees or other vegetation growing? Is there damage from burrowing animals, cattle, tourists? Then we set to work. This involves drawing a sketch plan to indicate areas of vulnerability, and to record the direction of photographs.

When it’s just the two of us, I usually do the paperwork while Richard takes photographs, but sometimes we go out

O Angela: Cultural Heritage Volunteer

as a team working with other volunteers. The forms are very easy to fill in, with number, name, recorders and date completed even before we leave home. I wait to do the grid reference for when we are on site as it may be incorrect.

The type of monument – ‘earthwork’, ‘upstanding archaeological feature’, ‘structure/building extant’ or ‘ruin’ – is circled. Land use, threats and vulnerabilities, management regime, condition, and risk are all mainly just tick boxes. If fixed point photography has been done previously, we have these photographs for comparison and to ensure that photos taken are from the same location.

On arriving home after a good day out, all the information is sent to the Cultural Heritage Team. And we look forward to what our next volunteering day might bring!

ne of the earliest features of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site is Jedediah Strutt’s 18th-century cotton mill at Milford. It is a rare example of one of the mills which only survives in archaeological form, and therefore gives us a unique opportunity to discover the processes and sequences of one of the core WHS mills in its entirety.

It was in the 1780s when Strutt established a cotton mill at Milford, and shortly after added a bleachworks. Waterpower was used extensively to drive waterwheels at the main cotton mill site and in the adjacent bleach and dye works.

The cotton mill complex on the south side of Derby Road was demolished in 1964 and the original buildings comprising the bleach and dyeworks were demolished in the 1960s and 1970s. While the site of the cotton mill was no longer used for spinning cotton, the English Sewing Cotton Company modernised the bleachworks site which then continued in operation until the late 1990s at which point, after an association lasting 200 years, Milford’s role as a centre of cotton manufacturing and textile finishing came to an end.

Following the closure of the bleach and dyeworks at Milford, Amber Valley Borough Council granted planning permission for the construction of residential properties on the former industrial site, on the condition that archaeological investigations would take place as an integral part of the redevelopment. Derbyshire County Council’s archaeology team secured the archaeological work and the retention of key WHS features within the proposed scheme.

In order to evaluate the level of survival of earlier features below modern ground level, 10 trial trenches were excavated across the site.

Remains of walls and floor surfaces were uncovered in five of the trenches informing the consequent excavations. The earliest building at the heart of the bleach and dyeworks site was constructed around 1790 and comprised a ‘T’ shaped structure which straddled the mill lade (an artificial channel bringing water to the mill). This building was identified on early plans of the site as a printing mill although subsequently it was described as a bleaching mill.

Clearance of rubble overburden during the excavation revealed the original west end of this building with neatly-laid flagstone floors within its rooms, along with fragments of the original east wall of the printing mill with small areas of the internal flagstone flooring.

Of particular interest was the discovery that the wheel pit and associated tail race for the water wheel attached to the printing mill were well preserved below modern construction levels. The design of the new residential blocks has been adjusted so that the wheel pit and tail race will be preserved.

Two stone-lined cisterns were recorded in a building labelled as ‘Bleach House’ on a mid 20th-century plan of the site. Both cisterns were constructed from large, neatly prepared slabs of sandstone, with particular care taken to provide a watertight seal at the four corners of each cistern.

The chemical bleaching process involved numerous stages of soaking the yarn in different solutions followed by washing in clean water, before moving on to the next process.

At the north-east corner of the site, the remains of a large, single storey building containing three paired groups of bricklined tanks, each group comprising two rows of eight tanks flanking a central drain, were uncovered. Residues left on the interior of the tanks indicated they had been used for soaking cotton yarn in chemical solutions, with the tanks providing textile processing capacity on an industrial scale.

While power for the machinery at Milford was originally provided by the River Derwent, steam also played an important role at the bleach and dyeworks. The remains of three settings for boilers were uncovered which had raised steam for use in various processes.

New building types and construction techniques were developed in the Derwent Valley during the late 18th and early 19th centuries which advanced the design of fire-resistant buildings. Evidence for the use of fireproof construction techniques was recorded in three of the buildings uncovered, with the broken shafts of cruciformsectioned cast iron columns visible in the floor surfaces of the early 19th-century structures, showing how the Strutts were swift to incorporate new technology within their facilities.

Aerial view showing the full extent of the development site

2024 | ACID 13

Farming for the past...

Survey work underway before the restoration of the Alsop Moor pyekiln. Picture: Richard KnisleyMarple

and for the future The Minninglow limekiln in all its glory after restoration.

Picture: PDNPA

REBEKAH NEWMAN, Project Manager, and ANNA BADCOCK, Cultural Heritage Team Manager, Peak District National Park Authority, explain the importance of supporting farmers to protect our cultural heritage

T

he future of protected landscapes – Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and National Parks – relies on a resilient, sustainable approach to farming and land management, combining national and local priorities, and providing financial support to do the things that make protection and enhancement possible.

Farming in Protected Landscapes (FiPL), a Defra-funded programme, is enabling us to do exactly that: to give grants to farmers and land managers to aid heritage conservation, support nature recovery and climate resilient businesses, and improve access for people to enjoy the National Park.

In the programme’s first two years, we awarded £1.65 million direct to Peak District farmers and land managers to support projects making improvements for nature, climate, people and place. We have a further £3 million to award before March 2025.

So far, projects with cultural heritage interest include providing permissive paths to historic lead mining areas, and repairs to stone barns and other structures – including restoring three significant limekilns.

Some examples of this work are given below.

RESCUING THE MINNINGLOW LIMEKILN

Limekilns are a visible link to our agricultural and industrial past. It is important to preserve these structures in place to reveal our landscape stories.

Visitors to the High Peak Trail will be familiar with the impressive limestone embankment that curves gracefully 14 ACID | 2024

around the western flank of Minninglow Hill. Formerly the Cromford and High Peak Railway, this section is testament to the early 19th-century railway builders. Such is its significance, part of the embankment is a listed building.

Perhaps less well-known are the heritage features that relate to the railway’s construction.

Next to the trail, a disused limestone quarry once provided raw material for the embankment; now it’s a valuable wildlife habitat. Nearby, a large limekiln built in limestone blocks stands five metres high, set into a cutting in the hill. A smaller quarry next to it would have had stone extracted, broken up and fed into the top of the kiln, to be burnt and raked out from the arch below. We believe the lime it produced was used in constructing the railway. Once the railway was running, lime may have been transported elsewhere for use in agriculture, construction or other industries.

Fast forward to the exceptionally wet winter of 2019/20.

National Park Rangers and concerned walkers reported a dramatic change to the limekiln; the front section had collapsed. The soil underneath the supporting arch had become waterlogged and slipped, bringing down a large portion of the structure. Incredibly, it revealed that the last ‘charge’ of limestone was never fired and remained in the kiln.

Some of the kiln walls were intact too.

As a significant part of the National Park’s industrial heritage and a Grade II listed building, we needed to support Minninglow Grange Farm to secure the limekiln’s future and were able to do so through FiPL. With listed building consent obtained, the restoration took place in summer 2022. It was carried out by Restoration Projects Ltd., supervised by Evans Vettori Architects. The work involved replicating the limekiln’s original stone coursing – fortunately, we had photographs to refer to. Stones were specially selected and placed with weathered faces on the exterior surface. The surrounding soil was also stabilised.

FiPL awarded £96,000 for the restoration of the Minninglow limekiln.

REMAKING THE ‘PYE’ AT ALSOP MOOR The limekiln at Alsop Moor is a ‘pyekiln’ type, so called because of its shape. Although not unusual in its construction, it is the best surviving example we know of in the Peak District.

The structure was deteriorating and needed consolidating.

The landowner of Five Wells Farm, Taddington realised the programme might be able to help.

With FiPL support, we were able to bring together National Park Community and Conservation Archaeologist Catherine Parker Heath, the landowner, cultural heritage volunteers and members of Derbyshire Dry Stone Walling Association, to conserve the limekiln.

Volunteers cleared out debris from the kiln and recorded the structure using photogrammetry and measured survey.

The DDSWA team rebuilt the kiln walls back to what we believe was their original height. Visit the National Park website https://www.peakdistrict.gov.uk/looking-after/livingand-working/fipl to see 3D images showing the limekiln before and after consolidation.

FiPL awarded £1,000 to consolidate the Alsop Moor pyekiln.

PICKING UP THE PIECES OF PIKEHALL LIMEKILN At the time of writing, the limekiln at Green View Farm, Pikehall was in line for restoration with FiPL support.

Although small in comparison to the Minninglow kiln, it was nonetheless in need of attention. The structure had collapsed over time and a first phase of surveying work was needed to establish its original shape and form.

The Alsop Moor pyekiln nearing completion of the restoration.

Picture: Richard Knisley-Marpole

The planned work included rebuilding and resetting loose stonework to the kiln’s arch barrel, flanking walls and head wall. The aim was to make it intact for the future with the original kiln ‘pot’ consolidated and a heavy-duty, livestockproof metal grille installed for added protection. Check out the National Park website for an update.

FiPL earmarked £38,270 for the restoration of the Pikehall limekiln.

For more information about the FiPL programme for farmers and land managers, and FiPL projects in the Peak District National Park, visit www.peakdistrict.gov.uk/ looking-after/living-and-working/fipl 2024 | ACID 15

Dissenters of the faith VICTORIA OWEN and CARINA SUMMERFIELD-HILL provide a unique snapshot into a 19th-century non-conformist community in Derby

A One of a group of stones (above) labelled B.J.Y. on Wet Slack Ridge A Reginald Henry RimingtonWilson stone (right) beside the Duke’s Road on Broomhead Moor

Marking the boundaries RUTH MORGAN describes a new survey of boundary markers on the Peak’s North Eastern Moors

O

ver the last few years, the Bolsterstone Archaeology and Heritage Group has been doing walkover surveys of the grouse moors which lie west of Sheffield and in the far north-east section of the Peak District National Park, comprising Broomhead, Bradfield and Strines Moors, from the Ewden valley down to the A57.

The fieldwork is inspired and led by Dr Tim Cockrell, who is a very active member of our small group. His interest is in prehistoric remains, but all finds are recorded and over time the extent and vulnerability of the many boundary markers, some of which could be way-markers (as distinct from guide stoops), has become clear.

So I picked up the search, and now over 100 stones have been recorded; all stones have been photographed on all four sides, measured and their location recorded

by GPS. Their elevation lies between 335 and 480m. This is still work in progress – studying their layout on maps and delving into archives is Well-shaped stone of Deakins Moorhall on still to be done.

Broomhead Moor 16 ACID | 2024

The stone posts may mark routes across the moors or land boundaries, whether individual grouse moor estate or county boundary. The survival of this quite unique collection is probably mainly due to private ownership and the fashion and passion for grouse shooting. However, partly due to wartime practices of laying flat or burying the stones, or gamekeeper activity in moving or breaking stones, many stones recorded on old maps have been lost completely or are now challenging to find.

Around half the stones are inscribed with initials or full names and mark the extent of landowning property, mainly for the purposes of grouse shooting. Many are beautifully made with finely carved lettering; 12 record Mappin family ownership (Frederick and son William), and Lord of the Manor from Broomhead Hall, Reginald Henry RimingtonWilson. Rimington-Wilson held the world record for the most grouse shot in a day in 1904 at 1371 brace (2,742 birds) – and was keen to put his initials on many stones.

Shooting game birds was introduced during the Civil War; John Wilson claimed an ancestor who died in 1687 was the first local person to shoot game on the wing on the Hallamshire moors. Some stones are inscribed with a single letter and remain to be understood. Stones may be back-toback or in groups of three.

The other half are rough gritstone posts, most are unmarked or may display an arrow; many of these mark the Derbyshire-Yorkshire county boundary. Linked to the stones is evidence of stone-getting, particularly on Strines Moor – hollows and vertical faces where stones were split away, and partially finished stones intended for markers or gateposts.

Thanks to Tim and to Andrew Tissington for many beautiful days on the moors.

s a result of advice from Derbyshire County Council’s archaeological team and on behalf of the University of Derby, York Archaeology undertook an excavation on the site of a former non-conformist Chapel in Agard Street, Derby between November 2022 and February 2023. The site was initially highlighted as having potential for deposits or structures associated with the former Great Northern Railway viaduct, built around the 1870s.

As fieldwork progressed, the remains of a burial ground associated with one of a number of Baptist chapels erected in Derby in the 19th century was identified – providing a unique opportunity to understand a close-knit Derby community within a site occupied for perhaps only two to three generations.

Excavation revealed that the area had been extensively used as early as the 11th century, and continued in use into the present day, where the site remains within a lively developed area. Thick deposits of ‘made ground’, formed of soil, building debris, and other material imported to the site to facilitate deeper burial in the area north of the chapel, yielded large amounts of pottery, ceramic building material and animal bone associated with the continuous turnover of the burial ground, in which a minimum of 107 individuals were buried.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the chapel, vestry and burial ground were installed on the site, falling out of use only 76 years later when the site was demolished for the railway. The surviving foundations of the chapel included a substantial sandstone wall measuring 13m in length, 1.22m in width and 2m in height, along with later foundations that included a number of worked stone pieces that may have derived from the demolition of the chapel.

Excavations not only recovered the inhumed individuals and coffins, but also indications of the lives of industrial communities and a broader sense of the society to which they belonged.

Pottery was recovered from the site detailing an image of a woman, wearing a dress of the 1830s and riding a horse rearing up on its hind legs, which is almost certainly the type of clothing worn by the middle class section of the chapel congregation. Other finds, such as gilded shroud pins, shell

buttons remaining from white burial tunics and trouser buttons were also recovered.

The ongoing postexcavation analysis of the human remains has revealed a tell-tale range of conditions that are consistent for the Industrial period on a national scale. The increased number of younger to middle-aged adult female interments at the site, and those of infants or young children, are consistent with the national statistics for the 19th century and the increased risk of death associated with childbirth.

Recorded causes of infant and childhood death typically rise and fall alongside outbreaks of infectious diseases such as typhoid or cholera, where children and the elderly were the most vulnerable to infection. Derby was hit by the cholera epidemics of the 1830s, and then again in the later 1840s, both of which occurred during the short lifespan of the Baptist chapel.

The Agard Street site has provided a fascinating insight into the lives and deaths of a close-knit non-conformist community in Derby. Further extensive study of the site and its recovered population is to be carried out in the coming months.

Carina (above) analysing skeletal material Coffin tin grip plate (left) displaying the common design of two-winged cherubs

Blue transfer printed ware shallow bowl (left) dating from the 1800s showing a historical scene of a lady wearing the dress of the time riding a horse

2024 | ACID 17

“careers” folder had nothing at all under “archaeology”. So after leaving school, he worked briefly in the Pelham puppet factory in Marlborough before eventually fulfilling his dreams by becoming a full-time archaeologist in 1971.

He initially worked for the Southampton City Council Archaeology Unit, combining this with five seasons of excavations (between 1972 and 1976) run by the British Museum at the famous Neolithic flint mines at Grimes Graves in Norfolk’s Breckland.

“It was a great adventure,” he recalls. “Visiting these workings, 4,500-years-old and 40 feet underground, by means of two wooden ladders tied together was quite an experience. There were no proper safety measures at that time, but you soon got used to it, just as our Neolithic forefathers must have.”

“My aim is to pass on my passion for archaeology” Still potty about archaeology. Phil (left) with his good friend the late Mick Aston

‘I tend to lose interest when metals came in’ Editor ROLY SMITH catches up with Time Team’s flint-knapping expert PHIL HARDING for this edition’s archaeological profile

I

n that rich, warm Wessex accent which seems to come straight from a Thomas Hardy novel, Time Team’s Phil Harding explains how he became an archaeologist: “I expect I made my first archaeological finds digging up my parents’ garden – much to the annoyance of my mother – in the village of Wexcombe in the Vale of Pewsey in Wiltshire,” he recalls. “But I was only eight years old when I first visited an excavation within sight of Stonehenge,

18 ACID | 2024

and was accepted on a training excavation, run by Bristol University Extra Mural Department at West Overton, when I was fifteen – the seed was sown!”

“From an early age I have always unashamedly been a prehistorian. I tend to lose interest when metals came in,” he quipped with that trademark toothy grin.

Phil gained his life-long love of flint-knapping and flint artefacts from Mark Newcomer, an American lecturer who was “a seriously good knapper”, at the Institute of Archaeology in London. Phil soon became a skilled knapper himself and is now an acknowledged expert on the prehistoric skill.

Phil was educated at Marlborough Grammar School, where he was disappointed to find that the school’s loose-leaf

From the mid-1970s, he worked on excavations in Berkshire, Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire and the Isle of Wight for the Department of the Environment. In 1979, the archaeological section of the DoE for the region became Wessex Archaeology, a non-profit organisation which is now one of the biggest archaeological consultancies in the country, and Phil, now 74, still works for it as a fieldwork archaeologist.

But Phil is best known for his appearances on Channel 4’s long-running and popular archaeology series, Time Team. It all began in 1991, when he took part in the Time Signs series, which was produced by Tim Taylor who went on to create Time Team.

Phil, with his battered hat, short shorts and wild hair, became one of the core group of archaeologists on Time Team from the first series in 1994 until its cancellation in 2013. One of the Time Team digs that he particularly remembers was at Carsington Pastures in 2003. His report on the previously undiscovered Bronze Age barrow, complete with an intact cremation urn and a pair of “Wessex” bone tweezers, later featured in the Derbyshire Archaeological Journal. “I remember it was particularly difficult to distinguish between what was one of the many lead-mining

spoil tips and the prehistoric barrow. But it was nice to find some tweezers which took their name from my home country,” he joked.

Phil has been a member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists since 1985, and in 2006 was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. In 2008 Phil was proud to be awarded an honorary Doctorate from the University of Southampton “for outstanding personal achievement in the field of archaeology”. He also received the Henry Stopes Memorial Medal from the Geologists’ Association in 2012 – a medal awarded once every three years for exceptional work on the ‘Prehistory of Man’. And Phil was voted Archaeologist of the Year in March 2013 by readers of Current Archaeology magazine.

As a qualified scuba diver, he is also the president of the Nautical Archaeology Society, a Portsmouth-based charity formed to further interest in nautical cultural heritage.

Phil is Honorary President of the Defence Archaeology Group, founded in 2012 to help rehabilitate injured service personnel through archaeology, and since 2015, he has been an archaeological supervisor for the veteran support charity Waterloo Uncovered, which conducts archaeology on the battlefield of Waterloo using veterans and serving personnel.

Outside of that he is a Deputy Lieutenant for the County of Wiltshire, representing the monarch at ceremonies when he is requested to do so.

So what’s he up to now? “I spend much of my time these days writing, using my brain rather than my body, which is not so fresh as it once was,” he admits. “But the passion is still there and I can share that working with injured soldiers and with the Young Archaeologists’ Club, as well as with many other charities.

“But with the flintknapping, my aim is to help keep this skill alive for future generations and to pass on to them my passion and love for archaeology in the process.”

Phil (left) knapping a flint using a hammer made from a deer antler Phil (far right of right photo) with Time Team pals (L to R), Helen Geake, Tony Robinson and Mick Aston in 2006

Phil on one of his first digs as a schoolboy

2024 | ACID 19

PAS Find of the year

Late Roman/ Early Medieval Phase Late Roman/ Early Medieval Fence lines

In memory of Sir Thomas

Previous Roman phase

New light on a Dark Age

Derbyshire’s Finds Liaison Officer MEGHAN KING describes a gold late 17th-century mourning ring found at Walton on Trent

A

highlight from the finds in Derbyshire recorded on the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) database in the past year was this gold finger ring, found by a metal detectorist at Walton on Trent, South Derbyshire.

The ring is a post-medieval memento mori ring dating to exactly AD 1699. The complete PAS record can be found here: DENO-65670C (https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/ record/id/1028031).

Memento mori is a Latin phrase which means ‘remember you must die’, and it is used to describe a style of mourning ring which was popular in the post-medieval period. As in this case, the rings were often made to commemorate the death of an individual.

This ring has an inscribed skull on the exterior of the band, which is common for memento mori rings, and the interior inscription reads: ‘Sir Tho: Gresly obyt 5 June 99’ followed by a small shield containing the letters ‘S/T//P’, which is usually the maker’s mark.

The interior inscription probably commemorates Sir Thomas Gresley, 2nd Baronet of Drakelow Hall, (1629-1699) who was the Sheriff of Derbyshire in 1663. Drakelow Hall was on the site of the former Drakelow Power Station, which was itself demolished in 2006.

Sir Thomas’s will states ‘...and I doe alsoe devise that all the gentlemen that shall come to my ffunerall shall have mourning Rings sent them as soon as the same cann be provided...’

This gives a proven historical context for the creation of the ring as a funerary gift and verifies that the inscribed ‘99’ refers to 1699. This also confirms that the ring qualifies as Treasure under the Treasure Act 1996, as it is an object made of more than 10 per cent precious metal and is over 300 years old.

Through the Treasure process, Derby Museums hope to acquire the ring for its collection.

From 30 July 2023, the definition of Treasure was amended to also include metal objects of ‘significance’. An

CAITLIN HALTON and MILENA GRZYBOWSKA provide an update on excavations at Oxcroft Lane, Bolsover

A

object will satisfy this significance criteria if it provides an exceptional insight into an aspect of national or regional history, archaeology or culture, based on one or more of the following factors:

The ring has an inscribed skull on the exterior common for memento mori rings

The memento mori mourning ring from Walton on Trent. All images: Derby Museums Trust

20 ACID | 2024

• it is a rare example of its type • the location in which it was found is significant, or • it has a connection with a particular person or event.

The Treasure Act Code of Practice was also updated to provide clearer guidance on the process for all parties; therefore if you would like more information on the Treasure process and the definition of Treasure please visit: https:// finds.org.uk/treasure.

If you have any objects which you think may class as Treasure, you can also clarify this with me on 01332 641903 or at meghan@derbymuseums.org. For areas outside Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, a list of contacts can be found at: https://finds.org.uk/contacts.

If you would like to find out more about the Portable Antiquities Scheme or have found any items that you would like recorded, please contact me at the above number or email address.

s a result of the involvement of DCC’s archaeological team, Archaeological Research Services has previously reported in ACID on the excavations at Oxcroft Lane, Bolsover, undertaken for Jones Homes Ltd in 2019. Analysis of the records and finds from the excavations commenced in earnest in late 2022 and is now on the cusp of being completed.

We have taken the opportunity to provide an update on some unexpected discoveries from our analysis that help to throw some light on an area of history in Derbyshire for which we are largely in the dark.

The late 4th century AD was a precarious and insecure time for the Roman empire in Britain. Literary sources portray Britain as seemingly subject to raids and incursions by the Picts in the north and the Angles and Saxons from the other side of the North Sea. So precarious did the situation become that when Britain appealed to the Roman Emperor Honorious in AD 410 for help to repel these raids, rather than commit fresh troops the Roman military withdrew from Britain and advised its citizens to look to their own devices.

Gildas, probably writing in the 6th century AD, recounts that the citizens of Britain were advised by Rome to “stand on their own two feet, to get accustomed to bearing arms...”.

Thus the Romans left Britain, but what happened next?

Evidence from Oxcroft Lane in Bolsover has demonstrated that following the disuse of previous buildings and enclosures dating to the Roman period, occupation continued, unbroken, on the site throughout the late 4th century, into the 5th century and beyond, probably into the mid-7th century.

It appears that, following the levelling of an earlier Roman enclosure, a new post-built structure was constructed on a different alignment. This building appears to have looked onto a fenced-off area, immediately to the north, which was also respected by other post-built structures to the north.

Within the enclosure itself, we excavated four adult human skeletons, each within their own grave, dated by radiocarbon to around AD 380, with a final individual buried

0m

5m

10m

at latest c. AD 426, a date traditionally falling within the early medieval period, previously known as the Dark Ages.

Of interest is that the individuals were laid face down, otherwise referred to as prone, with one displaying irrefutable evidence of decapitation with their head positioned directly on their lower legs. Parts of the spine were also missing, which prevents us from identifying whether decapitation was the cause of death or if it was an act performed after death.

Though more frequently discovered in recent years, these types of burial practices are considered to be uncommon across Britain. Their significance is widely disputed with proposed explanations varying from aiding the souls of those prematurely departed to enter the afterlife, punitive or ritual actions, armed confrontation, injury, ritual action and the lower status of the individuals.

Stable isotopie analysis was undertaken to gain insight into the climatic conditions and geographic area in which these individuals grew up, and into their diets. By looking at the chemical variations of the bone the analysis concluded that the oxygen isotope values of three individuals ‘are not entirely inconsistent with the site but are rather low for people who grew up in Britain and may indicate origins in a more northerly, colder, higher altitude or more continental location’. The remaining possible female grew up in a colder climate consistent with Scandinavian or Alpine regions.

We hope to gain more insight into the provenance and relationship of these people to each other through ancient DNA analysis which is currently on going.

40m

The decapitated body (left), head at its feet A plan of the site (above) showing the late Roman to early medieval phases

An aerial view of the late Roman post-built structures

2024 | ACID 21

Peeling back and digging deeper in the Upper Dove

Volunteers taking the core sample from the bog

IAN PARKER HEATH of Enrichment Through Archaeology reveals some exciting news from the Upper Dove Valley Heritage volunteer and volunteer ranger Margaret Black (above) gets down to painting a milepost Monitoring the Folly Platform Cairn (right) with Steve Groves of Breedon’s Hope Cement Works (pictured left), ranger Jess Coatesworth and cultural heritage volunteers

A drone shot of the outline of Roystone Grange’s medieval grange

22 ACID | 2024

New heritage volunteers CATHERINE PARKER HEATH, Community and Conservation Archaeologist for the National Park, introduces a new volunteering force

F

ollowing the success of the National Lottery-funded South West Peak Landscape Partnership Scheme (SWPLPS), which ran from 2017-2022, there were a number of enthusiastic and skilled volunteers who wanted to carry on recording, protecting and promoting interest in the archaeology and cultural heritage of the National Park.

As a result, over the past year, I have been developing a new cultural heritage volunteering role for the Peak District National Park to complement existing volunteering roles, such as volunteer rangers.

These ‘new’ volunteers have been trained in scheduled monument monitoring, which means that they can check on the condition of monuments such as Folly Platform Cairn and Navio Roman Fort in the Hope Valley. They are adding much needed capacity to the volunteer ranger team that has been carrying out this task for many years.

While many are now going out and about in their own time (See Day in the Life... on p12), we have also had a number of days where we have gone out as a team to offer each other support and company. As well as doing valuable work, volunteering can be a great way to socialise and meet new people.

One of these days saw 12 volunteers (both volunteer rangers and cultural heritage volunteers), along with National Park area ranger Julia Gow and me, monitor 10 scheduled monuments at and around Roystone Grange – all in one day!

However, scheduled monument monitoring is just one activity in which these volunteers are involved. Other jobs have included small archaeological fieldwork projects, such as photographic recording

of historic graffiti and what could be described as ‘enhanced condition surveys’ of sites, such as a suspected RomanoBritish settlement near Grindon and at Pilsbury Castle in the Upper Dove.

Other work they have done has supported Farming in Protected Landscapes projects such as a measured survey of some of Winster’s paved paths and the clearing and recording of Alsop Moor pye kiln before it was consolidated by the Derbyshire Drystone Walling Association (see article on p15). Volunteers are now building on the earlier research of J. T. Leach (1995) and carrying out further research on this particular form of limekiln and the existing examples in the National Park, which will hopefully be published in the near future.

Together we have also carried out historic building recording on a number of barns at Pump Farm in Warslow, repainted milestones, and have delivered a number of digital interpretation initiatives. These have taken the form of ArcGIS Story Maps, one complementing the existing Warslow Barns Trail and another the Errwood Hall Revealed augmented reality app in the Goyt Valley (see ACID 2023), both of which were part of the SWPLPS. Other ArcGIS Story Maps focus on the heritage around Grindleford and Cultural Heritage Highlights, the latter originally researched and written by work placement University of Sheffield students Ellie Bowles and Elin Price.

We have also put in an application to BBC TV’s The Repair Shop, in the hope the show will want to repair a horse-drawn sledge found abandoned in a Warslow Moors field barn. The team of volunteers who worked on the application carried out some great research into this forgotten mode of agricultural transport, once much relied on in the Staffordshire Moorlands.

The work doesn’t stop there. There are more and more things being added to the list of things to do, both in terms of recording ‘new’ archaeology or helping to protect and promote that already known. The cultural heritage of the National Park is very special and the volunteers that are helping to record, protect and promote interest in it are too, and have proved to be a valuable addition to the National Park’s volunteer family.

B

ack in 2016 I was invited to take part in Peeling Back the Layers, a community heritage project developed by the Tudor Farming Interpretation Group (TFIG). The project was exploring the history and archaeology of a small farmstead called Under Whitle in the Upper Dove Valley, as featured in ACID 2017.

The highlights of that project included the contribution made by many local schoolchildren, some very exciting geophysical survey results and a radiocarbon date of AD 1350 from a platform we thought had been the site of a medieval house. Well, since then there has been more work undertaken and the results have been even more exciting.

Getting back on site was delayed by the Covid lockdowns, but in 2021 the TFIG team and a fresh group of volunteers got back in the trenches. The aim was the same – to find evidence of medieval activity on the farm, including finding the house which had escaped our 2016 investigations.

This time we had also planned to explore more of the past environment of the farm. To this end, we planned to take soil samples from the platform we were working on to examine any remains from crop processing that might have taken place, and to look in detail at the wetland areas on the farm to see if they may be able to shed more light on the past environment.

The disappointing news was that we were still unable to find any firm evidence of a house on the platform, even though we recovered more medieval pottery from the 13th15th centuries. Similarly disappointing were the results from the soil samples, with almost no plant remains discovered apart from a couple of grains of oat.

However, the story from the wetlands was very different.

Our freelance palynology (spores and pollen grains)

Members of the Peak District Mosaic group who visited the project. Elspeth Walker of the TFIG is third from the right

specialist, Dr Tudur Davies, assessed three areas of potential, two of which proved to be of interest. The first was the palaeochannel (ancient channel) of the River Dove. This was thought to hold some of the earliest material from the postglacial period but was beyond the scope of the project. The second was a peat bog on the valley side immediately to the south of a well-preserved field system characterised by the remains of ridge and furrow cultivation.

The bog appeared unremarkable, and the survey showed it to be approximately 1.5m deep and just 15m x 30m across.

Nevertheless, a core sample was taken by volunteers under the supervision of Dr Davies. The sample was rich in organic material and colluvium (rock fragments) and was taken by Dr Davies for further analysis and radiocarbon dating.

The results of this work were to prove exceptional. The core contained a sequence stretching from the establishment of the bog around 1100 BC (late Bronze Age) onwards, and the core suggests either a change in accumulation rate or truncation of the core in the late 9th century AD. The results of this dating analysis were used to guide the selection of samples for pollen analysis, ensuring that they were contemporary with archaeological remains identified by the Digging Deeper Project.

The preliminary pollen analysis examined deposits covering roughly 800 years from the late 9th to late 15th centuries. This indicated that the area surrounding the Under Whitle bog was open for the majority of the period investigated, with exceptionally high levels of arable indicators and lower percentages of pastoral indicators. The cereal-type pollen identified in the samples are higher than any other pollen study of medieval deposits identified in the Peak District and Midlands. As if this wasn’t enough, the sample showed that at the lowest level of the sample there was rye pollen.

The group are now in the process of securing funding to allow a more detailed analysis of the sample which will add an incredibly detailed record of the environment and agricultural history of this part of the Peak District. Watch this space!

2024 | ACID 23

News

News Ken Smith, new chair of the National Park

‘The Gideons’ return at last

I

Ken ‘bags’ new role K

en Smith, former head of Cultural Heritage at the Peak District National Park, was elected as the new chair of the authority following its Annual General Meeting last July.

Ken, a Secretary of State-appointed member since 2018, is well known to ACID readers as a member of the editorial committee and regular contributor.

He joined both the National Park Authority and Derbyshire County Council as a shared post in 1982 and continued in that role until full-time posts were created in 1987, when he came to the National Park full-time. Ken has also undertaken national roles across archaeological and heritage management, with a focus on the benefits of the nation’s historic environment.

Ken has held advisory positions at the National Trust and Historic England and is chair of trustees at the Council for British Archaeology and a member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists, the Council for British Archaeology and the Hillfort Study Group. He has also had national roles in the development of the last three agri-environment schemes, as an advisor to the National Trust on historic environment issues, and he served for six years on the statutory Historic England Advisory Committee.

Locally, Ken is Honorary Vice-President of the Derbyshire Archaeological Society and chair of both the Bakewell and District Historical Society and the Hunter Archaeological Society.

Ken was born in West Bromwich and he is a life-long West Bromwich Albion FC (‘Baggies’) fan. He lives in Sheffield with his partner, Dr Cathy Coutts, project manager with Archaeology Warwickshire. Their daughter Rosa, is 18 and completed her A levels last year.

Ken commented: “Our National Parks have a multiplicity of local, regional and national issues which impact on them, and this is no more evident than here in the Peak District. It is a constant balancing act between the needs of the visitor, those who live, work and do business here, and the duties placed on us as an authority to safeguard landscapes and our natural and cultural heritage in the face of global issues such as climate change.

“These responsibilities and pressures have been stressed close to their limits in recent years through an unprecedented pandemic and the need for continued delivery within budgets that have significantly reduced.

“It is the mark of any organisation, its colleagues and partnerships, how these turbulent periods are navigated.”

Museum closed due to dry rot

B

uxton Museum and Art Gallery was temporarily closed in early June last year following the discovery of dry rot in structural timbers and floor joists. This needed investigation which could not be carried out with the building open.

No timescale was put on investigation and remedial work, but it was likely to take some time to complete, and alternative ways to deliver the service were explored while the work was carried out.

Council Leader Coun. Barry Lewis said that although temporarily closing the building, which is part of the Peak Buildings complex in Terrace Road, was very disappointing, he was determined the museum and its collections would be supported and was working with officers to ensure the future of the service in the longer term would be secured.

He said: “Closing the museum and art gallery was a great

24 ACID | 2024

disappointment but necessary so that this vital investigation work can be carried out. Until this was done we did not know the extent of the issues and what we were facing with regards to the building.

“However, there is an absolute commitment to supporting the museum and securing the long-term future of its collections. This will not be easy, but we will do all we can to protect this valuable asset which has so many benefits to the local community, residents of Derbyshire and much further afield.”

While the museum is closed people are encouraged to go online and visit the collections, virtual exhibitions and a regular blog (https://buxtonmuseumandartgallery.wordpress. com/blog/).

t’s taken nearly a quarter of a century, but the National Trust has at last completed its £1.7 million project to conserve 13 late-Renaissance tapestry masterpieces in the Long Gallery at Hardwick Hall.

Each monumental tapestry took over two years to clean and conserve in the Trust’s longest running conservation project. Conservation stitching, lining and reconstruction of the final tapestry alone took 5,470 hours.

Liz Waring, Property Curator for the Trust at Hardwick, said: “We were delighted when the thirteenth and final tapestry was returned, taking its rightful place alongside the others, and reuniting the set for the first time in over two decades. Visitors are now able to enjoy the tapestries just as Bess of Hardwick intended.”

Hardwick Hall is renowned for its textiles, including its extensive collection of tapestries. The Gideon tapestries are the largest surviving set in the UK and were bought by Bess of Hardwick in 1592. At nearly six metres high and over 70 metres in length (20ft x 230ft) this is one of the most ambitious tapestry sets of its time.

The tapestries tell the story of Gideon, one of the 12 Judges to appear in the Old Testament Book of Judges, who leads an army to save his people from the Midianites. The last to be conserved depicts Gideon entering the Midianite camp as a spy.

They were woven around 1578 in the Flemish region of Oudenaarde for the Lord Chancellor Sir Christopher Hatton, for the Long Gallery at Holdenby House in Northamptonshire. After Hatton’s death, the tapestries were sold to Bess of Hardwick for the then huge sum of £326 15s 9d (worth about £60,000 today). They were the largest and most expensive single purchase she made for the house.

The conservation of each Gideon tapestry has taken over two years to complete. Like the 12 tapestries before it, the thirteenth was thoroughly vacuum cleaned to remove loose fibres, soiling, dust and soot and then documented in detail before being sent to Belgium for specialist wet cleaning.

Lottery support for Cromford

T

he National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Duke of Devonshire Charitable Trust have both made substantial grants which will assist the Arkwright Society as it continues to conserve and regenerate Cromford Mills and to develop the site as a major visitor attraction.

A £249,599 grant from the Heritage Fund, made possible thanks to the National Lottery, will support staff in activities to engage more widely with people through learning and education about the site and ambitions for its development.

Sustainability is also a key theme for the Society, highlighted by the forthcoming installation of a turbine powered water wheel in one of the historic wheel pits at Cromford Mills.

Critical to the long term sustainability of the site is

Elaine Owers, the Textile Conservator who worked on all five tapestries that cover the main wall of the Long Gallery, said: “It’s been such an amazing experience to work on the Gideon project. I started working on the project as a Tapestry Conservation Intern in 2008, progressing to project manage some of the larger tapestries.

“It is the largest tapestry conservation project ever undertaken by the National Trust and everyone at the studio has been involved at some point. There is a real sense of pride as we see the final tapestry hung in position.”

Emma Slocombe, the National Trust’s Senior Curator, concluded: “This has been an enormous piece of work. Since I began with the Trust 15 years ago, they’ve been a constant in the Textile Studio, and we talk about ‘the Gideons’ like they’re our friends! So the end of the project feels like the end of an era.”

The project was made possible over many years through generous funding from The David Webster Charitable Trust, the Wolfson Foundation, the Royal Oak Foundation, National Lottery Heritage Fund and other charitable trusts and foundations and individual donors.

Conservators at work on the tapestries

the next phase of regeneration at Cromford Mills, which will focus on the repair and repurposing of the remaining buildings on the site, in particular the iconic first mill built by Sir Richard Arkwright in 1771.

With £20,000 match funding from the Duke of Devonshire Charitable Trust, a new masterplan will be commissioned for a clear roadmap for the continuing regeneration of the Mills and a business plan for their future use.

Eilis Scott, Chief Executive Officer, said: “This funding will help make the Society more resilient and deliver a bright and innovative future. Cromford Mills is a very special place within the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site and we want to continue sharing and celebrating the mills and their stories with all our visitors and local businesses.”

Cromford Mills were built in the 1770s and 1780s by Sir Richard Arkwright and the Arkwright Society has gone from strength to strength since the Society purchased the industrial heritage site in 1979.

2024 | ACID 25

Squirrels are nuts about archaeology Morgause introduces Squirrels to archaeology

Over 1,000 Scouts from all over Britain now hold the Derbyshire Scouts Archaeology Badge, as MORGAUSE LOMAS reports

I

Last year’s Spring Bank Holiday archaeology event was held at Drum Hill Scout Camp

26 ACID | 2024

t’s an honour for this to be the third consecutive year I have written an update regarding the success of the Derbyshire Scout Archaeology Badge. In our first year we were thrilled to have awarded over 80 badges, hence it blows me away to say in just over three years we’ve managed to award 1,000 Derbyshire Scout Archaeology Badges – a number I didn’t think we would get in just three years.

We’re also starting to spread outside the county borders, with badges being awarded to Scouts in Wales, Leicestershire, and Oxfordshire to name just a few. We continue to grow and inspire young people to engage in archaeology, finding new ways to make it exciting and engaging.

The Derbyshire Scout Archaeology Badge is available to all UK Scouts from the age of four to 24. The requirements ask Scouts to get involved with a multitude of activities, from defining archaeology, to creating Stone Age tools and taking part in excavations. The badge is facilitated by the Derbyshire Scout Assocation Team, which runs all the ‘Intro to Archaeology’ sessions, as well as creating lots of exciting resources, activity ideas and running large-scale projects.

Our third year also saw the introduction of another badge to our collection: the Derbyshire Squirrel Scout Archaeology Badge, introducing four to six years olds to the amazing world of archaeology. The badge was carefully created in co-ordination with early years experts and Squirrel leaders, before being trialled on some Squirrel Dreys (groups). It launched with great success and we have now awarded over 50 Squirrel badges.

In our third year we were able to host another successful DSA youth committee at the Peak District Mining Museum, where the Scouts were able to learn about the history of mining in Derbyshire, and they even got to explore the Devonshire mine at Matlock Bath. The youth committee also discussed what they would like to see from last year’s first official archaeology activity and excavation weekend held at the local primary school in Ripley, as well as designing a badge for the event.

Cubs and Scouts were able to come along for a day and take part in an archaeological excavation, as well as surveying methods such as geophysics, and finds processing. Thanks to Archaeological Research Services of Bakewell, Scouts were also able to handle finds from a multitude of locations and time periods, comparing them to what they had excavated themselves. We are also always on the lookout for excavation projects, so if you have anything of interest please do get in touch via: archaeology@derbyshirescouts.org We are always on the lookout for more members to join our team. The great thing is you don’t have to be a Scout or have any Scouting experience, and if you’re a Scout, you don’t need any archaeological experience. We’re just looking for enthusiastic people who want to inspire young people to engage with Derbyshire’s archaeology.

More information about the badge and team can be found at: www.derbyshirescouts.org/activity/Archaeology We can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, just search Derbyshire Scout Archaeology.

Industrial heritage on a country estate IAN MITCHELL of the Derbyshire Archaeological Society describes how the society revived the regional industrial archaeology heritage event

P

re-Covid the East Midlands Industrial Archaeology Conference (EMIAC) was a regular twice-yearly industrial heritage day organised in turn by societies across the region. Over 50 years the industry topics and the venues have ranged from water supply in Hadfield to leather in Northampton and tourism in Skegness.

As with many aspects of daily life, there was a threeyear hiatus during the pandemic, but the Derbyshire Archaeological Society (DAS) took the initiative to revive the event in 2023. Fortunately, we had an ideal topic that also provided the venue – the 1875 estate gasworks building in the village of Sudbury in the Dove Valley, recently rescued and restored by the Sudbury Gasworks Restoration Trust.

The event followed the traditional format for EMIAC of morning lectures, followed by lunch and an outdoor activity in the afternoon. We had three excellent speakers: Ian West, independent researcher: Dazzling the Guests?

Country house owners’ investment in artificial lighting The new technology of gaslight migrated from factories to domestic applications, with small estate gasworks supplying not just the ‘big house’ but other estate buildings. Improved lighting allowed owners to show off their sumptuous decorations, but the downside of gaslight was smoke damage.

This in turn led to some country houses being at the forefront of electric lighting when this came along at the end of the 19th century.

Cherry Ann Knott, independent researcher: Devey at Sudbury – architecture for a developing Victorian estate The eminent architect George Devey designed a wide range

of buildings for the Sudbury estate, from a major extension to Sudbury Hall itself to kennels for the Meynell Hunt and, of course, the gasworks. Many of these feature distinctive multicoloured brickwork and are now listed buildings.

Lucy Godfrey, Sudbury Gasworks Restoration Trust: Saving a unique building and finding it a future role The gasworks building lay empty and increasingly derelict for many years until local people came together to form a building preservation trust with the aim of transforming it into a valuable community asset.

The ingenious solution was to construct a new circular meeting room on the footprint of the former gasholder, with a glass link to the restored retort house. This allowed provision of a flexible meeting space with all modern facilities, and minimal intervention to the historic structure.

This was demonstrated at EMIAC where we held the lectures in the new meeting room and a buffet lunch was laid out in the old retort house. In the afternoon, local guides led the participants on a walking tour through the village to see a wide range of estate buildings, many of them designed by Devey, to which gas was distributed.

The gasworks restoration was not quite finished by the conference. After the gasworks closed, the original iron retort in which gas was manufactured was scrapped, and the final stage of the restoration was the manufacture and installation of a replica. This was undertaken by local employer JCB as a project for their apprentices and installed a couple of weeks after the conference.

As well as one-off events such as EMIAC, the DAS organises a programme of regular evening lectures and outings – most of our lectures are held in Derby, but wherever possible these are hybrid events that can be watched online via Zoom. We also publish the annual Derbyshire Archaeological Journal and the local history magazine Derbyshire Miscellany.

Visit our website: www.derbyshireas.org.uk for details of all our events and how to join the society.

Replica gas retort (left} recreated

by JCB apprentices.

Picture: Ian West Exterior view of the restored retort house (right) with new meeting room to the left.

Picture: Ian Mitchell

2024 | ACID 27

A nummus for your thoughts Reverse and obverse (back and front) of three coins from the Parwich hoard. Left to right: a nummus showing Emperor Constantine I from the mint of Aquileia; another Constantine I coin, from the Trier mint (AD 330-335); the third coin (right) was too degraded to identify the emperor or mint

View across Parwich

28 ACID | 2024

ROS WESTWOOD of Buxton Museum & Art Gallery describes the find of a major hoard of Roman coins at Parwich

T

here is a sense of excitement opening Thomas Bateman’s Ten Years’ Diggings (1861) again, like being hand-inhand with the barrow diggers of the past and joining Bateman’s journey of discovery into Derbyshire’s story.

On August 9, 1849, after a fruitless investigation nearby, Bateman’s team climbed to the summit of a hill near Parwich.

This may once have been a tumulus mound, but now destroyed by stone harvesting to build stone walls. Here they found “about 80 small brass coins of the later Roman Emperors” in deeply disturbed ground, plus two human teeth and some rat bones.

Scroll forward to March 2018: two metal detectorists obtained permission to revisit the site. They found lots more of these small coins – about 250 – on two separate occasions.

The coins were in a localised area about 2.5m square and at depths to 0.7m. Reporting their finds led to a modest excavation by the Peak District National Park Authority in early 2019, which found three fragments of Roman pottery from the 2nd/3rd century unrelated to the coins, and a further 13 coins. These were sent for cleaning and X-raying by York Archaeological Trust Conservation Team.

Under the terms of the Treasure Act, the coins from the hoard were processed through the Coroner’s Court. Buxton Museum expressed an interest and has acquired the hoard.

Dr Eleanor Ghey, Curator of Iron Age and Roman Coin Hoards at the British Museum, examined the entire collection. They were mostly nummi, low value copper coins dating from the 330s to the 340s AD, in use in the reigns of Constantine I and Constantine II. Representing such a tight age range, Eleanor concluded they had been placed as a hoard or votive deposit.

The very latest coins dated from AD 364–378, the time of the House of Valentian. So realistically, could the last coins

have been deposited within 10 years after that? There was also a ‘lucky’ denarius, completely out of sequence, from AD 194, the reign of Septimius Severus, silver-plated and described as a contemporary forgery, and one errant lead token.

We can imagine that this barrow was a noticeable landmark in Roman times, despite its later near erasure. In 2018, the primary context in which the coins were found had silty clay immediately above bedrock, and anecdotally, the detectorists described finding the coins in little stacks or clusters.

At the museum, we thought that wear analysis might help determine whether the coins had been historically scattered or had been deposited in containers. Patrick Sutton, a volunteer at the museum familiar with this period of currency, looked at two condition indicators. The wear of the coins at the time of deposit might establish how long the coins might have been in circulation, and could any evidence from their condition now, after nearly 1,800 years underground, tell us anything more?

The present condition of the uncleaned coins varied from light brown/green patination to heavy verdigris (a greenish pigment resulting from the oxidisation of copper caused by exposure to air). A few coins had clearly remained in a dry place since they were deposited and showed no deterioration.

Some coins exhibited verdigris on one face and lighter patination to the other, suggesting the individual coins had been moved and changed their deposition conditions, either after the original placement or from the later disturbance.

On some of the coins that were lightly patinated and where the verdigris was patchy, it was possible to determine the wear on the original struck surface of the coin. Most exhibited little wear, indicating that the coins spent little time in regular circulation. Nummi were such small change that someone could easily forego their value.

Given the number of coins (this is one of the larger coin hoard deposits found in Britain) and the relatively tight 40year date span, it looks like these coins were deposited not in containers, but more likely one at a time and over time. Most likely, they were slotted into crevices between the rocks with no intention to recover them.

Maybe for one or two generations, were people posting coins between the stones as votive offerings, making a wish, and sealing a prayer with money? The coins in good condition were found a safe dry hole. Others tumbled into spaces, where rain and water had degraded one or both faces.

And if you had continually deposited coins in your favourite space, would they have stacked up into little mounds? Or how else did the coins stack up for the detectorists to find them?

On track at Wingfield Station LUCY GODFREY tells us the exciting story of the rescue and restoration of the unique Wingfield Station

T

he Grade II* Wingfield Station near Alfreton is one of the world’s rarest rural railway stations. It is unique in being the only original station on the Derby-Leeds line to survive.

Now Derbyshire Historic Buildings Trust (DHBT) has rescued Wingfield Station from dereliction, with the support of the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Historic England and other funders, sponsors and supporters.

Following the completion of urgent repair works in 2022, Ackroyd Construction commenced Phase Two of the capital works in February 2023. The station will now be let as office space early this year.

John Abbott, a keen supporter of the project, will be renting the adjacent goods shed to display a model of Wingfield Station as it was in around 1947. The model railway will be accessible to the public at least once a month and the station will open for certain days each year, including Heritage Open Days, so people can appreciate the work undertaken to preserve this significant 1840 building.

The commitment to the original Francis Thompson decorative scheme is exemplified by our historic wallpaper reproduction. Printed wallpaper which had originally been applied to the plaster walls in the ladies’ waiting room was revealed when one of the later rails was removed.

A conservator carefully removed the fragmentary layers of the various wallpapers so they could be analysed. Then Bruce Fine Papers of Lincolnshire recreated the original 1840 wallpaper, so it could be hung in this space once again.

South Wingfield Local History Group and volunteers have researched and documented the history of the site and parish for heritage interpretation, which is intended to orientate and inspire visitors.

In June 2023, DHBT teamed up with horticulture students from Derby College to design and build a show garden for BBC TV’s Gardeners’ World Live. The design was based on the theme of restoration and shows part of the station house derelict, and the remainder restored. The team were awarded a Silver Merit for their wonderful creation.

DHBT members (left) on a visit to the newly-restored Sudbury Gas Works Wingfield Station show garden (above) at BBC Gardeners’ World Live

VISITS & EVENTS

DHBT continue to run a varied programme of walks and visits to places of interest. Recent highlights include the newly-restored c.1874 Sudbury Gasworks, a tour of the John Smedley Lea Mills complex, Cromford Canal with Aqueduct Cottage and a heritage walk around the Ashover area in conjunction with the Peak District Mining Museum.

FIND OUT MORE

If you’d like to find out more about DHBT or support our project at Wingfield Station, please visit our website: www.derbyshirehistoricbuildingstrust.org.uk

The restored wallpaper for the ladies’ waiting room

2024 | ACID 29

News from the Societies A picture of Haddon Hall taken from the same elevation and at about the same time as the mural

Bakewell’s missing mural STEPHEN COATES of the Bakewell & District Historical Society unearths a long-forgotten mural which once graced Bakewell Town Hall Debra Shipley at her Bowls in a Fragile World exhibition A mannequin of Christopher Plant (right), tithe collector and inhabitant of the earliest part of the house, in the Tudor Parlour at the Old House Museum

Bakewell Historical Society: Seventy not out Museum manager MARK COPLEY celebrates a notable anniversary in Bakewell

B

akewell and District Historical Society (BDHS) turns 70 this year. It was set up to save and preserve the Old House (also known as Cunningham Place) in Bakewell – the oldest surviving domestic building of its kind in the town.

BDHS was also tasked with creating and running a museum in the building. Some five years after the foundation of the Society, the museum was opened to the public – all through the hard work of lots of volunteers.

Looking back at 2023, a case study published by Museum Development East Midlands (MDEM) featured aspects of

Stephen Coates and his wife Mandy in costume for a Christmas event at the museum

30 ACID | 2024

the institutional strengthening and capacity building projects BDHS has undertaken over the past six years or so.

While the current cost of living crisis will undoubtedly impact our operating environment over the coming period, we are confident that the foundations laid (much with MDEM support) will enable us to meet the challenges and further improve performance going forward.

The main exhibition in the museum last year was an installation by Debra Shipley, Bowls in a Fragile World, which consisted of delicate, paper bowls fashioned from junk mail.

Over 100 pieces were included, including photographs and other media. It was very well received, with the Peak District National Park and the museum providing junk mail for Debra to create one of her bowls.

This year we will explore the stories around our collection of quilts from the Victorian era onwards. It will highlight the techniques as well as the people’s stories.

As well as museum visits, we provide guided tours of Bakewell for groups of all ages. These cover Anglo-Saxon, Tudor, Medieval, and Victorian Bakewell, and are perfect for group and society trips. And all this is on top of our weekly Secrets and Legends tour on Thursdays and some Tuesdays.

We ran a recruitment drive for volunteers last year, and really need local people to help run the museum (we are still only able to open five days a week instead of the pre-Covid seven days). The museum provides an active and friendly environment, so if you’re looking for some volunteering opportunities, there’s something for everyone.

Contact Mark Copley (Email: markc@bakewellhistory. com; Tel: 01629 813642) or see our website (www. oldhousemuseum.org.uk) for information on the various volunteer roles and details on how to join the Society.

B

rowsing the contents of the Old House Museum’s filing cabinet, my attention was captured by a poor quality newspaper photograph, which I recognised as being the interior east wall of the Assembly Room in Bakewell Town Hall.

Reading the caption, I realised that the photograph depicted a mural of part of Haddon Hall, where I had been a guide and steward for some years before becoming actively involved with the Bakewell & District Historical Society. The mural depicted part of the south exterior of Haddon Hall, specifically part of the 16th-century Long Gallery. With the photograph were several cuttings from local newspapers recounting aspects of the origin and sad demise of this mural.

During the Second World War, several Units of the Royal Corps of Signals (RCS) and the Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) were billeted in Bakewell, mainly at Burton Closes.

Troops began to arrive in September 1939 and, in addition to Burton Closes, some were quartered at Haddon House Farm. Thousands of troops spent time in the town during this period.

The troops were well received, well-behaved and integrated well with locals. At the end of the War, as a token of gratitude to the people of Bakewell, a member of one of the final contingent asked that he might be allowed to paint a mural – a sort of memorial to those who served but were not known to have died. That man was Driver Jack Blake of Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire.

With the special permission of the Duke of Rutland, it was agreed that the mural would portray Haddon Hall viewed from the south and feature the exterior of the Long Gallery.

The artist first painted a sample which was shown to the 10th Duke, who gave his approval. The finished mural was about 30 feet wide by 16 feet high and flanked by two further panels each 12 feet wide and 16 feet high. These lateral panels depicted imaginary garden effects and extended the mural onto the north and south walls of the Assembly Room, a total area of 864 square feet.

The work was undertaken by Driver Blake during his spare time and over a period of five weeks, taking a total of

146 hours. He used distemper and poster paints, and it was finished with a preserving coat of clear varnish. When the painting was completed, an inscription was added by local resident Mr G B Baker. It read: “Haddon Hall, painted by Driver J. Blake, R.A.S.C. presented as a Victory Gift in token of their gratitude to the Townsfolk of Bakewell, from all ranks of the C and D Coys., No. 5 Trng. Batt. (Drivers) R.A.S.C. V.J. Day, 1945.”

At the time the work was created, the Town Hall was the property of the Bakewell Town Hall Company, but in late 1945, shortly after the end of the World War II, it was purchased by the Bakewell Urban District Council.

In January or February 1958, the UDC decided, apparently without consulting the public or local organisations, to obliterate the mural. Mr R A Harvey, Chairman of the Committee, was reported to have said: “When things like this are bequeathed to us, we don’t have to keep them for ever.” When the Council’s decision became public knowledge, representations began and controversy followed.

On February 1, 1958, Mr V C Holland, Hon. Secretary of the Historical Society, wrote to the Town Clerk and Chief Financial Officer, Charles A Orsler to convey the grave concern with which the Society viewed the Council’s recent decision. He added that the mural was almost the only remaining visible and tangible evidence of the part played by the town of Bakewell in the Second World War. As the mural was said to have been covered with a coat of clear varnish, it is possible that it may have been preserved.

If anyone can add to the story with memories, photographs or any other information I would be very interested to hear from you at: stephencoates1@btinternet.com

A newspaper cutting of the mural of Haddon Hall in Bakewell Town Hall

2024 | ACID 31

Bookshelf: reviews by Roly Smith

Footmarks: A Journey into our Restless Past

Aerial Atlas of Ancient Britain

Jim Leary Icon Books, £18.99 (hb)

David Abram Thames & Hudson, £30 (hb)

In this engaging and highly personal book, University of York archaeologist and passionate walker Jim Leary takes the reader on a fascinating journey into what he calls “the archaeology of movement” over 3.5 million years.

Archaeologists have always found evidence for humanity’s irrepressible restlessness and Leary lucidly explains how the latest developments in science and archaeology are transforming this evidence and overturning how we understand the past movement of humankind.

He follows the footprints of early hunter-gatherers preserved in mud and treads ancient trackways hollowed out by passing drovers, wayfarers and pilgrims over the centuries.

He has an interesting take on the Mass Trespass on Kinder Scout here in the Peak District in 1932, saying it ultimately led to the Right to Roam legislation in 2000 – although he’s wrong to say that it directly led to the formation of national parks in the UK.

He compares it to Mahatma Ghandi’s 1930 cross-country march to gather salt in India.

“Ghandi’s Salt March and the Mass Trespass at Kinder Scout show that there’s something primal about mass movement,” he claims.

“When feelings are high, people all over the world would take to the streets, sometimes in their millions. As you know if you’ve ever seen it up close, there is brute power in walking together.”

Leary is well qualified to lead you on this fascinating journey. A Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, he has directed major excavations across Britain, including Silbury Hill in Wiltshire, but remains a walking archaeologist at heart.

The Hinterland of Hadrian’s Wall and Derbyshire Corpus of Sculpture of the Roman World, Vol 1, Fascicule 11

32 ACID | 2024

the Bronze Age burial mound on its southeastern bank, and states that opinion was still divided over whether the 50-odd stones in the circle ever stood upright, when it is now generally accepted that they did.

And at Creswell Crags there’s no mention of the recently discovered, largest British collection of apotropaic or witches’ marks, also inscribed in the walls and ceilings of the caves to ward off evil spirits.

But as the author concludes in his introduction, his mammoth prehistoric aerial odyssey around Britain not only provided insights into the past but changed the way he thought and felt about these wonders “hidden in plain sight.”

Homo Sapiens Rediscovered Paul Pettitt Thames & Hudson, £25 (hb)

Lindsay Allason-Jones Oxford University Press, £105 (hb) This weighty and expensive volume is the last of the corpus of sculptures from the Roman world commissioned by the British Academy, covering the northern counties south of Hadrian’s Wall as far as Derbyshire.

Of the 500 Roman stone sculptures featured, 19 are from Derbyshire, most notably from the well-known Roman sites of Navio at Brough-on-Noe in the Hope Valley and Melandra, near Glossop. They mainly consist of altars and tombstones, but during the project, several new pieces of Romano-British sculpture were discovered, and some longlost ones were re-found.

So from Navio, we have the circular-wreathed carved altar to the goddess Arnomecta, which was found in 1903 in the headquarters building and is now in Buxton Museum. The name of the goddess is probably linked to the Roman name for Buxton, recorded as Arnemeze.

Now lost is the stylish tombstone of a woman, crossing her hands on her breast and wearing a large, peaked bonnet, which was found “in ploughing a field” near Navio in the 18th century. Another head of a woman, showing bulbous

This lavishly-produced aerial survey of some of the most fascinating prehistoric sites in Britain was the result of a lockdown project by photographer David Abram. He explains that many of the shots in the book were taken using a drone during the Covid pandemic, meaning that the locations were frequently deserted – “a privilege seldom enjoyed these days.”

The Peak and Derbyshire is represented by a winter shot of the winding gorge of Creswell Crags, home to the earliest art found in Britain, and Arbor Low (see also Picturing the Past feature on p36), which the author describes as “the best preserved and most impressive henge monument in the Pennines.”

Abram readily admits that he is no archaeologist, merely an enthusiastic amateur, “guided by my own relative ignorance.” He explains in his introduction that he set out to discover the ways in which human society changed from the end of the Ice Age to the arrival of the Romans, and how the monuments he photographed exemplified this story.

His account of Arbor Low, for example, omits to mention

Celtic eyes, was found in a Hathersage cottage garden in the 1960s, and is now in Weston Park Museum in Sheffield.

There is a detailed description of the altar to Mars Braciaca, discovered sometime before 1695 in the grounds of Haddon Hall but perhaps originally from Navio. The author states this is the only altar from Britain inscribed to Braciaca, a Celtic deity associated with wheat and malt, possibly linking him to the Roman god Bacchus. It is still kept at Haddon Hall.

Another altar is that rarely inscribed to Hercules Augustus, found near Navio in 1979 and now in Weston Park Museum, and two possible altar tops from Melandra, now both in Buxton Museum. More unusual is the tricephalic stone from Melandra, which shows three Celtic-type faces carved in one sandstone block.

This is a fascinating, though not particularly accessible, study which shows how Roman Britain gradually assimilated Celtic designs and beliefs into their own culture.

The author will be well known to ACID readers as a regular contributor when he was in the Archaeology Department of the University of Sheffield. Now Professor of Palaeolithic Archaeology at Durham University, he takes us back to that time in his prologue.

He vividly recalls his discovery with others in 2016 of the Ice Age art in Church Hole Cave at Creswell Crags which, he says, radically changed what we thought we knew about the origins of art and Ice Age culture.

But it was only when the art was dated using uraniumthorium dating of its stalactite covering, that the find really hit home. It was dated to around 13,000 years ago – towards the end of the Ice Age – and made it the oldest art ever discovered in Britain.

Since then, using the same methods as he explains, even older art has been discovered in the La Pasiega and Maltravieso Caves in Spain, dating back 65,000 years. That is 23,000 years before Homo sapiens arrived in Europe and was therefore probably executed by Neanderthals.

In this fascinating and highly readable new survey, Pettitt

takes a sweeping, world-wide view of the revolutionary new scientific methods which are rewriting our knowledge of our prehistoric past, and indeed of the origins of the human race.

These include palaeogenetics, palaeoclimatic modelling, lithic technology, anthropology and most thoroughly art, such as that Pettitt discovered himself in Church Hole Cave.

One of the most moving passages is when he describes the thrill of holding tiny, worked whelk shell beads in the Blombos Cave in South Africa, which had been perforated to possibly form a necklace or sewn onto clothing. “Someone had dropped or discarded them when the camp was abandoned,” he writes, “and there they lay until they were excavated 75,000 years later.”

2024 | ACID 33

Our year in numbers

Our year in pictures

This is a summary in figures of what the archaeology and heritage teams in Derbyshire County Council and the Peak District National Park Authority been up to over the last year. We provide support and specialist advice to other teams across our organisations, to ensure minimal impact to our heritage in the planning process and other land management schemes. We also help communities and researchers and look after our vital data. Here are some of our key facts and figures for the year 2022/23.

360

Conservation Areas

19

34

Community and research projects supported

6,755

Listed Buildings

Registered Parks and Gardens

26,777

633

Scheduled Monuments

1

29

World Heritage Site Countryside

Historic Monument Records

stewardship advice given

by e monument near Ashbourne, identified A LiDAR image of a probable new heng g. ess of assessin Mick Parker, which we are in the proc

2,090

The National Park is developing a series of sensory trail leaflets which include some heritage sites.

The trails help people to explore the landscape using all their senses – it’s also fun to try and imagine how some of these places may have looked, sounded or smelled in the past. (©PDNPA)

HER records added/enhanced

Number of planning applications for which detailed archaeological/conservation advice was given ■ Number of planning applications monitored and pre-application advice given

747

■ Excavation

67

■ Evaluation

37

■ Monitoring

90

■ Building recording

45

■ DBA/Heritage statement

84

■ Preservation in situ

1

■ Objection

11

■ Changes to schemes to minimise harm

12

■ Other

22

A probable Mesolithic antler axe from Swarkestone South Quarry. (©York Archaeology) A team from Geoterra laser scanning the 30m shaft of the balance cone at Ecton Copper Mine to assess its structural integrity – part of a project to restore this unique feature, funded by the Farming in Protected Landscapes programme. (©PDNPA)

WHO ARE WE? The key staff giving archaeological and built environment advice in our respective organisations are:

PEAK DISTRICT NATIONAL PARK (Cultural Heritage Team) Cultural Heritage Manager: Anna Badcock Senior Conservation Archaeologist: Natalie Ward Community and Conservation Archaeologist: Catherine Parker-Heath Building Conservation Officers: Sue Adam, Chris Curtis and Mark Wilkinson Assistant Conservation & Records Archaeologist: Del Pickup Contact via Customer and Democratic Support: Tel: 01629 816200 Email: customer.service@peakdistrict.gov.uk 34 ACID | 2024

DERBYSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL (Archaeological advisors in the Conservation, Heritage and Design Service) Archaeologist: Steve Baker.

Contact: steve.baker@derbyshire.gov.uk Tel: 01629 539773 Development Control Archaeologist: Reuben Thorpe.

Contact: reuben.thorpe@derbyshire.gov.uk Tel: 01629 539774 Historic Environment Record Officer: Dana Campbell.

Contact: dana.campbell@derbyshire.gov.uk Tel: 01629 533362

In preparation for the Coronation, Ness, a National Park conservation volunteer helps to carve a new ‘CR’ stone (for Charles Rex) to replace a damaged Victorian boundary marker at Arbor Low henge. (©PDNPA)

Another LiDAR image exa mined by Mick Parker of a possible long barrow (top of image) at Pentrich, near Ripley, wh ich on investigation turned out to be mining spo il from ironstone extraction .

2024 | ACID 35

Picturing the past

Arbor Low

in context T

his aerial view looking south from Arbor Low is taken from David Abram’s book, Aerial Atlas of Ancient Britain (Thames & Hudson), reviewed on p33. It shows the Neolithic henge and stone circle in its landscape context, standing at 370m above sea level on the White Peak plateau. The Thomas Bateman-disturbed Bronze Age barrow is prominent on the left hand (eastern) rim of the henge, and the so-called “Avenue” (possibly a later estate boundary) leads up away south towards the Early Neolithic/Bronze Age double barrow of Gib Hill.

Abram describes Arbor Low as “the best preserved and most impressive henge monument in the Pennines.”