Spring 2010
Newsletter No 8
This Newsletter is distrubuted to the Timeline York Plus groups and to the libraries in the Greater York area.
SOCIETY & GROUP ACTIVITIES
All Saints Long Marston Parish History Group
On Saturday 10th April we started our 2010 season of exhibitions in All Saints’ Church, Long Marston. A lot of information has been added to our archive and record collections including the 1911 census. Our themed exhibitions for 2010 will be ‘The Armed Services & Their Links with the Parish’, ‘The Battle of Marston Moor – 2nd July 1644’ and ‘The Wesleyan Chapel’.
For full details of all the dates please telephone 01904 738456 or visit our website:
Bilbrough History Group
The Group was formed in early March 2008. Our most recent work followed on from Jon Kenny’s landscape survey (autumn 2009) with a follow-up at our mysterious White Hall moated site. Our research is concentrating on a work-in-progress of Bilbrough century by century, collecting information and adding this in chronological order. We have a core group and a lot of interest plus on-going contact with descendants of residents who left in the 1800s. On the weekend of 16th, 17th and 18th July 2010 we will be part of a Patronal Feast centred on Bilbrough Church with a display in the Church. On Saturday 8th May we will hold our first drop-in session at our Church between 2 and 4pm.
Contact : Fiona Pearson fcpearson@hotmail.com and Roger Wetherill 01937 830204.
Bishopthorpe Local History GroupContact: Diana Forrester on 01904 705396 or the website at www.bishopthorpe.net/mt/historyOur archive room in the village hall is now finished and the process of transferring archives is underway. Our next open meeting is on Tuesday 25th May at 7.30pm in the Methodist Church Hall. Our speaker will be Marjorie Harrison and her talk will chart the history of further education in York from 1824 to the present day. The title is ‘From Mechanics’ Institute to York College’. Our village gala is on 19th June at the Palace and we will have a stall there. We welcome everyone to these events.
Cawood Castle Garth Group
We have now come to the end of our Local Heritage Initiative funded project. We have spent the last two years preparing 5 interpretation boards which will represent the culmination of the research we have done on our site. These boards will update and replace the old ones on the Garth. Three boards will show the history and be positioned at the three entrances and the other two boards will show the wildlife. We hope to install them shortly. To accompany the boards we have designed a new History Guide to the Garth which will be available for sale in the village. This will include all the information that couldn't go on the boards.
Contact Margaret Brearley at cawoodcgg@googlemail.com or on 01757 268666.
Visit our web page http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/cawoodcastlegarth
The Claxton & Sand Hutton Local Heritage Group
The Group continues to plan a series of events for this year. In January, we hosted a fascinating illustrated talk on Howsham Mill. This is to be followed on Saturday 15th May by an Annual Heritage Day; this will provide another opportunity for local residents and guests to walk the Heritage Trail, with an accompanying audio-visual presentation in the village hall. The group feels strongly that every opportunity should be taken to increase local knowledge through the reminiscences of long-time residents. To this end, Brian and Dot Mills, Alan Kerridge and Jenny Bullivant have been invited to share their memories with us at a gathering in the village hall on Wednesday 14th July. In the autumn, it is hoped to stage a film evening using material from the Yorkshire Film Archive.
For further information on the Group and its activities, please contact Anne White 01904 468550
Derwent Archaeology Group
Our main interest continues to be the deserted village of Scoreby, and we hope to get back there to do more resistivity and gradiometry measurements when we are allowed access. In the meantime, we have been developing our ability to use the gradiometer by looking at a possible water mill site near Dunnington and also working with the equipment on the village green.
Contact Kay Wheater: 01904 489407 for more information.
Dringhouses Local History GroupOur Group goes from strength to strength. We now have over 140 members and an attendance of between 60 and 70 at our monthly meetings. The article by Stephen Lewis in “The Press” on 5th October 2009 brought a good response, with significant information being gathered. Our Archives continue to expand; we now have two members who are cataloguing them but we still have the problem of where to house them in the medium and long term. Our AGM will be held on 20th May; everyone is welcome at this, as at all our meetings.
For more information, please phone York 703970
Holgate Windmill Preservation SocietyThe rebuilt cap was successfully lifted onto the mill at the end of November 2009. We now await the return of the millwright to fit the fantail and associated gearing to turn the cap into the wind. The construction of the 200 sail shutters by a small group of Society members is well underway. Shutter painting parties are being held in the Spring.
The mill open days are Special pre-season for first time visitors: Sunday 25th April, 11am to 4pm. Then Monday 26 April, 6pm to 8pm. Saturday and Sunday 8th and 9th May, 11am to 4pm and from 11am to 4pm on the first weekend of each month from June to October. Admission is £3.00. An illustrated talk on Holgate Owners and Millers from 1770 will be given on Thursday 22 July at 7pm as part of the CBA 20th year celebrations.
Contact: Jen Hay on 01904 792638
Poppleton History Society
We are in process of completing a full landscape survey on the Scheduled Ancient Monument site in Nether Poppleton, under the control of Jon Kenny. This should be completed later in the year.
The History Society continues with its varied monthly presentations between October and May each year. Presentations start at 7.30pm, at the Poppleton Centre in Upper Poppleton, on the first Wednesday of each month. For further details contact 01904 338610.
We have a History Society website as a subsection of the www.poppleton.net website.
North Duffield Conservation and Local History SocietyThe highlight of our winter programme was a presentation by Yvonne Boutwood, Principal Officer for the Vale of York Mapping Project, on aerial photography and the interpretation of crop marks (highly recommended). We walked two fields last year as part of our involvement with the YAT and the land survey. The first contained Victorian scatter from manuring but the second yielded a considerable amount of Roman and Medieval pottery. Sufficient to suggest the presence of a Roman farm nearby. We took many bags of finds to the local school and the children helped with the finds washing both in the school day and in the evening.
We started a geophysical survey of the village green and a clear circular feature about 18 meters in diameter has shown up. More investigation is required. We have finally been give permission to place a cupboard in a store room in the village hall to store our archives.
We took part in the Archaeology and History Fair at the Guildhall and were involved in the North Duffield Great Charity Weekend at Easter. We shall also be conducting walks around the village (the real one) with photos of how it used to look
Contact: Tony Stevens 01757 288941
Stillingfleet Chroniclers
We are continuing our housing survey and collecting everything we can find for each house in the parish, including details of who lived there. For the first time in our five years of existence we will not be holding an event this year. However, in the spring, the National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts (NADFS) will be surveying our church and we hope to assist them in any way we can.
Contact: Jocelyn Appleyard 01904 728484 or yvonne.clarke@lineone.net
Tang Hall Local History GroupLast year we celebrated our tenth anniversary with an Open Day. It proved very successful with lots of visitors showing an interest in the group and its archive. A spin-off from this is that the group has gained new members and has had many donations of photographs.
In October 2010 we will be having our usual display of photographs and throughout the year we are looking for photographs or information on the people who moved into the new Tang Hall Estate from the slum clearances of Walmgate and Hungate.
Our group continues to thrive and to date we have almost 60 members.
Jane Burrows - Tel: 01904 345942; Wendy Simmons - Tel: 01904 410982For further information please contact:
York Young Archaeologists’ Group
We meet at the Yorkshire Museum, or out at a particular site nearby, on the second Saturday of the month.
Jon Kenny: jkenny@yorkarchaeology.co.ukContact: Helen: helen@bachelor5884.freeserve.co.uk or
Other Groups’ Contact Details
Acomb Local History Group Contact: John Terry 01904 798956
Bishop Wilton Local History Group Contact: M & K Pratt pr@bdub.co.uk
Dunnington Through the Ages Contact: Marilyn Jones on 01904 488433 and drmarilynjones@aol.com
Friends of Hob Moor Web site: http://www.friendsofhobmoor.org.uk/Events
Friends of Hagg Wood Contact: Linda on 01904 489127
Friends of Skipwith Common Contact: Brian Elsey on 01757 288939
Haxby Local History Group Contact: Ian Mason, Secretary: ian@ianrmason.wanadoo.co.uk
Hungate Excavation (Hungate Community Archaeology Group) Contact: Liddy Dalesman on 01904 332784
Naburn Local History Group Contact: Christine Hirst at christine.hirst@talktalk.net
Pocklington and District History Society Contact: Andrew Sefton: asefton@gmail.com
Skelton Local History Group Contact: Nancy Spratt 01904 470507
South Ainsty Archaeological and History Society Contact: 01904 744263 or 705478.
Stockton and Hopgrove Local History Group Contact: Terry Briggs 01904 400013 or Steve Burton 01904 400066
Strensall Local History Group Contact: 01904 794540 or 01904 490413
Please note: contact detail for Cath Neal (Heslington University Site Archaeology Officer) is cn123@york.gov.uk
MEETINGS SCHEDULE
Timeline York Plus holds regular meetings hosted each time by one of the member groups.
The next meeting is scheduled for 2.00 pm on Saturday 11th September 2010. The meeting will be at Nether Poppleton – Tithe Barn. More details will be circulated nearer the date.
THE COMMUNITY ARCHAEOLOGIST
Dr. Jon Kenny is the Greater York Community Archaeologist. His e-mail is: jkenny@yorkarchaeology.co.uk. Also make contact via the York Archaeological Trust at 47 Aldwark, York: Tel. 01904 663035.
Jon maintains a WIKI website (http://yorkcommunityarchaeology.pbwiki.com) on behalf of Timeline York Plus, giving details of archaeological activities in the Greater York area. It also includes more news of the Groups in this Newsletter.
This newsletter has been edited by Elizabeth Smith and Ted Kendall. Comments and enquiries may be sent to the various Groups’ contacts where given, or to Ted Kendall at: gande.kendall@sky.com or telephone 01904 338610.
