industrial archaeology – Page 7 – Industrial Heritage Networks

Festival of Archaeology 2025

May 28, 2025mikenevell

The Festival of Archaeology is back this summer (19th July to the 3rd August 2025), and the Council for British Archaeology (CBA) want you to be part of it! Whether you’re a local society, heritage organisation, youth group, community project, or passionate individual, your event can help open up archaeology to new audiences. This year’s Festival theme is Archaeology and Wellbeing.

Archaeology is a wonderful way to make a positive impact on people’s well-being. During this year’s Festival, CBA will be incorporating the five ways to wellbeing into the events and activities, creating opportunities for people to give, be active, learn, take notice and connect. The Festival of Archaeology brings history to life, inspiring curiosity, learning, and engagement with the past. Each year, CBA connect thousands of people across the UK with archaeology through events, activities, and digital content.

Access to the organiser materials now requires an individual to log in to have access and permission to use the Festival of Archaeology branding materials and ulitise the amazing FREE guidance and training CBA provide to help you with your events. To submit your event follow this link:

https://www.archaeologyuk.org/festival/organiser-area.html

Discover some of the 2025 Festival events already planned here: https://www.archaeologyuk.org/festival/festival-event-listing.html

Industrial Heritage Network Meetings for 2025: West Midlands Date Released

May 27, 2025May 27, 2025mikenevell

2025’s in-person Industrial Heritage Network (IHN) meetings will be taking place over the summer and autumn. Established in 2018, these regional meetings are designed to bring together those industrial heritage sites open to the public in each region, and local groups and individuals working or volunteering on industrial archaeology and heritage subjects and sites in the area. The format is a round-table discussion in the morning, with a tour of the site in the afternoon.

The first meeting for 2025 will be for the West Midlands IHN, which will be held at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust in the Glass Classroom on the Coalbrookdale site on 25th June. After a general meeting in the morning, there will be an afternoon tour of current conservation works at Blists Hill.

All IHN members are very welcome to attend. A booking link via Eventbrite can be found here. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/west-midlands-industrial-heritage-network-meeting-tickets-1377368599559?aff=oddtdtcreator

These meetings are part of the Industrial Heritage Support project for England, run by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust and funded by Historic England and the Association for Industrial Archaeology.

*Colliery headgear and canal at Blists Hill, Coalbrookdale, Ironbridge. Image copyright Dr Michael Nevell.*

Historic England Launch Local Heritage Hub Webpages

May 21, 2025mikenevell

Coinciding with this year’s Local History Month, Historic England has launched a new Local Heritage Hub. With nearly 400 locations, every county, city, district, major town, and national park in England now has a dedicated digital page that uncovers its rich and layered history.

Offering a wide range of content, from fascinating aerial photographs showing towns and villages through time, to curated selections of listed buildings, videos, blogs, and podcasts, the Local Heritage Hub invites members of the public to discover their local area through a new lens.

According to Savanta polling for Historic England in August 2024, 71% of those polled wanted to see more recognition of heritage in their area. Further Savanta polling for Historic England in February 2025 showed that 58% of those responding agreed that local heritage enhances their daily lives. The new platform will reflect what people are looking for in their local areas, and it’s designed not only to inform, but also to also encourage people to see familiar places in unfamiliar ways.

The new service – which will continue to expand with new places, information, and sections added over time – will make local heritage and histories more relevant, relatable, and engaging to more people’s everyday lives, inspiring conversations, unlocking memories, and sparking new interests.

To explore your local area on the Historic England website follow this link: https://historicengland.org.uk/local

*Connor Hat Factory, Bute Street, Luton. Image courtesy of Historic England*

Summer Solstice 2025 at Bennerley Viaduct

May 14, 2025June 3, 2025mikenevell

Join the Friends of Bennerley Viaduct to see the sun rise on the longest day of the year, 21st June, on the Iron Griant and mark the arrival of astronomical summer when the northern hemisphere tilts towards the sun. If you thought you were an early bird for the dawn chorus, try this 03:00 start!

The event is quickly filling up, so Hadley Trueman urges you to book your place. “Although our events are always free, please consider making a suggested donation of £3 per person,” says Hadley. “Due to the early start time of this event we ask you to find your own way up onto the viaduct from the Cotmanhay/Ilkeston, Derbyshire side. The FoBV team will be there to greet you.”

To find out more, or to book your place, follow the link:

https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/guided-walks-of-the-iron-giant-882859?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=creatorshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=odclsxcollection&utm-source=cp&aff=escb

If eventbrite says SOLD OUT, we can often book you in by email, as we sometimes have no-shows or cancellations: community@bennerleyviaduct.org.uk

EERIAC 2025 Conference Now Booking

May 13, 2025May 12, 2025mikenevell

The 2025 East of England Regional Industrial Archaeology Conference (EERIAC) will take place on Saturday 7th June at the Prickwillow Engine Museum, Ely, Cambridgeshire. This year’s conference is being organised by the Cambridge Industrial Archaeology Group.

The Outline Programme is as follows:

10.00 Free Tea, Coffee, and Biscuits on arrival.
10:30 to 12.30 Lectures on waterways transport in Cambridgeshire and on rescuing the Black Prince, a Fenland lighter.
12.45 to 13.30 Buffet Lunch.
13.30 to 17.00 A tour of the Prickwillow Engine Museum, and a visit to the Stretham Old Pumping Engine, Green End, Stretham.

Costs: £15 (no lunch) and £23 with lunch. Drop-ins on the day are welcome but booking in advice is advised. The booking form is below.

EERIAC booking form 2025 Download

A History of Stoke-on-Trent in 8 Places: New Historic England Blog

May 9, 2025May 8, 2025mikenevell

The latest Historic England blog, under their ‘Heritage Calling’ banner, looks at the historic and industrial heritage of Stoke-on-Trent.

The Potteries encompassed the towns of Burslem, Fenton, Hanley, Longton, Stoke, and Tunstall. Together, these towns created the world’s leading centre for ceramics production, with famous names such as Wedgwood, Royal Doulton and Spode centring their work there.

Eight site shave been chosen to highlight this industrial history. These are: Middleport Pottery; Chatterley Whitfield Pottery; Bethesda Methodist Chapel; the Former Wedewood Institute; Trentham Mausoleum; Hanley Park; Stoke-on-Trent townhall; and Price and Kensington Teapot Works.

The full blog can be found here:

https://heritagecalling.com/2025/05/02/a-history-of-stoke-on-trent-in-8-places/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=brand&fbclid=IwY2xjawKJZa1leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHuIOlYHFQLuCVzlN5Is74h22tI-cCFn5H-TC1A_9qsFVoil3riZG12xL_qcM_aem_IyEcaG7deiYUiV6TrbcWKA

The interior of the pattern store at Middleport Pottery, Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. © Historic England Archive. View image DP157658. View List entry 1297939.

*Chatterley Whitfield Colliery, Whitfield, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. © Historic England Archive. View image DP059964. View List entry 1015947.*

Building Resilience: Sustaining Macclesfield’s Silk Heritage to Protect, Share, and Enjoy Stories of Working Lives

May 3, 2025May 2, 2025mikenevell

Silk macinery in operation, Paradsie Mill. Image *courtesy of Paradise Mill.*

This spring, the National Lottery Heritage Fund awarded £227,000 to The Silk Heritage Trust to develop Paradise Mill and the Silk Museum in Macclesfield into a vibrant campus of economic activity, skills development, and heritage participation. This grant will help keep alive the stories of Macclesfield as the centre of the nation’s silk heritage.

The three year project ‘A Stronger Future: Developing the Silk Heritage Trust’s vision for culture and heritage in Macclesfield’ aims to improve the training of the museum’s staff and volunteers. It also intends to help preserve endangered collections, the museum’s silk weaving skills, and extend the museum’s audience reach.

*Paradise Mill, Macclesfield. Image copyright Dr Michael Nevell*

8th East-Workshop on Industrial Archaeology: Heavy Metal, 10th May

April 28, 2025mikenevell

The East-West Workshops on Industrial Archaeology aim to exchange ideas and knowledge among Western and Eastern colleagues to build a more international and diverse industrial archaeology. The workshops are organised jointly by the Institute for Cultural Heritage and History of Science and Technology (USTB, China), and the UK Association for Industrial Archaeology (AIA). The 8th Workshop on 10 May will look at Heavy Metals.

Metallurgy is one of the oldest human activities and was one of the first sectors to embrace modern industrialisation. The production of metals and their alloys has strongly influenced the development of most societies throughout history, and played a key role in the construction of the modern world. The latest Workshop on Industrial Archaeology brings together archaeologists and architects to delve into the long history of metal production, its multiple contexts (technological, economic, social, and its heritage.

SPEAKERS

Chenyuan LI (University of Science and Technology Beijing, China): “The Evolution of Mining and Metallurgical Production Technologies in the Northern Frontier Regions of China during the Qin and Han Dynasties: A Perspective from Archaeometallurgy”
Rhys MORGAN (Black Mountains Archaeology, Britain): “Rediscovering Copperopolis: The Hafod Plate Rolling Mill, Swansea”
María Isabel PAYER IBÁÑEZ (Payer Arquitectura / University of Seville, Spain): “Metallurgy as Industrial and Urban Development in Peñarroya-Pueblonuevo, Spain”

DATE & TIME

10 May 2025, Saturday. 10.00-12.00 (London time)

BOOKING

Zoom (online meeting). More info and free registration:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/…/8th-east-west-workshop…

Videos of all the workshops are available on the AIA’s YouTube Channel, including the latest event from November 2024 on ‘Weaving the Industrial Period’. Follow this link to view the workshops: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCILr2TkRAOIfk_NKchshwZQ

Europa Nostra UK : Shrewsbury Flax Mill Free Webinar, 24 April 2025

April 23, 2025April 24, 2025mikenevell

Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings recently won a European Heritage Award/ Europa Nostra Award 2024 for Conservation and Adaptive Reuse. A free webinar has been orginsed with the architects who led the project, Geoff Rich and Tim Greensmith, who will share with the fascinating story of the project.

Established as a Flax mill in 1797, the site of Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings includes the world’s first iron-frame building which has been described as the ‘grandparent of skyscrapers’. Its combination of cast iron beams and columns, brick arches, and cast iron ties made its construction fireproof, while large windows admitted natural light for its numerous employees. A century later, it was converted into a maltings through a second state-of-the-art design, with windows either blocked up or made smaller, boiler houses demolished, a timber hoist and new tower added, and a large kiln built.

The brief for this project called for an exemplar of sustainable refurbishment to support the next 100 years of use for a building with a particularly innovative design heritage. Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios (FCBStudios) have conserved the enduring elements of both uses to provide four floors of flexible working space, while weaving in a contemporary layers to accommodate a visitor centre and café.

The online meeting will end with a Q&A session. Please find more information about the project and the speakers below. To register please follow the link on Eventtbrite (though hurry as the webinar is at 5pm on the 24 April!):

Marsh Awards for 2025 Now Open

April 15, 2025mikenevell

The Council for British Archaeology is partnering with the Marsh Charitable Trust in delivering this year’s Marsh Community Archaeology Awards. The deadline for the Awards is noon on Monday 26 May 2025. The Trust supports organisations and people who make a difference within the charity sector. The Marsh Community Archaeology Awards celebrate the outstanding contributions of these people who are committed to social, cultural, and environmental causes. The Awards have two categories.

• Community Archaeologist of the Year – This award recognises an individual volunteer or professional who is going above and beyond their role to contribute to community archaeology.

• Community Archaeology Project of the Year – This award recognises and promotes the results of research and/or ﬁeldwork led by community groups which have made a substantial contribution to knowledge and wellbeing.

Museum professionals and projects that work with communities are eligible, which of course includes industrial heritage sites. You can ﬁnd out more about the upcoming awards here:

https://www.archaeologyuk.org/our-work/archaeology-awards/the-marsh-community-archaeology-awards.html

The Marsh Charitable Trust was founded in 1981 with the sum of £75,000 by its current Chairman, Mr Brian Marsh OBE. His aim was to create a sustainable way to give something back to society, by supporting the organisations and people who are making a difference, as best he could. From the outset the Trust has aimed to create long-standing relationships with the organisations it supports and partners through both its principal areas of work; the Grants Programme and the Awards Scheme. The Trust supports around 350 charities every year through the Grants Programme and gives around 80 different Awards to individuals and groups from across the charity sector, who make a difference to a cause that they believe in.

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