Timeline York Plus Newsletter no 11


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Newsletter No 11 Autumn 2011

 

Timeline York Plus is an informal association of historical and archaeological societies in the area of Greater York, providing a forum for the exchange of news and views.

in the area of Greater York, providing a forum for the exchange of news and views.

 

 

 

This Newsletter is distributed to the Timeline York Plus groups and to libraries in the Greater York area.

 

 

Acomb Local History Group

We continued to attend West Bank Park Fair and York District Family History Fair but withdrew from the Friends of Acomb Green Fair this year as we felt that the damp weather would affect our exhibits. Our presence at these fairs generates interest with local people and, in some cases, we acquire new members. The present committee is growing older with some members in their 80s and there is a reluctance to serve on the committee and play an active part in running the group. We wonder how long the group will continue. However, our monthly meetings are well attended, averaging around 100 and we have a total membership of 158.

Contact: John Terry 01904 798956

 

All Saints’ Long Marston Parish History Group

During 2011 we have hosted eleven Open Days in the Church. Our three special exhibitions have been well received by our visitors, as have the extensive Church and Parish Archive and Records. Our stand at The City of York Family History Society Fair was busy and we will be in attendance at that event again in 2012.

In the 2012 season, which will be our sixth year, we will again have three special exhibitions together with our Archive and Records, which will be added to during the winter months.

Please visit our website www.longmarstonhistory.org.uk where, by January 2012, you will be able to see when our special exhibitions will be, together with the dates of the Open Days. Alternatively you can telephone 01904 738456.

 

Bilbrough History & Archaeology Group

We held three Open Days in Bilbrough Church in mid-June, July and September, and these proved to be small but interesting. Connections to descendants of previous Bilbrough residents continue. We are researching stagecoach journeys, mid-1900s Bilbrough house deeds, and also continue our connections with Long Marston and a newly formed Bilton group. We would be very interested to hear from groups with census information on the surname of Bilbrough. We were also at the Guildhall on 15th October.

Contact: Roger Weatherill 01937 830204 or Fiona Pearson 01904 289728.

 

Bishopthorpe Local History Society

We continue to catalogue our archive collection and have produced another free leaflet “A second walk through time in Bishopthorpe”. Our main events have been in conjunction with York Explore and “The Big City Read”. We had just two weeks to prepare a presentation on Edwardian Bishopthorpe as described in the book, and we led walks around the village. Linda Haywood gave two talks entitled “Archbishops, Suffragettes and Mole Catchers” which gave a snapshot of Edwardian life. Together these raised approximately £100 for the group funds.

Contact: Diana Forrester on 01904 705396. Website is www.bishopthorpe.net/mt/history

 

 

 

 

The Claxton & Sand Hutton Local Heritage Group

Early in 2011, the Group invited community archaeologist Jon Kenny to talk about projects being undertaken by other local history groups. He gave us some valuable ideas on how we might develop our interests, such as planning a field-walking session with villagers. Discussions are being held on how we might begin to use the extensive research material acquired from local historical maps, census surveys and trade directories. Using this information, the group hopes to be able to compile a development plan of the villages back to the 19th century.

A “Coffee, Chat and Copy” morning was held on 10 September to encourage villagers to bring in plans, photographs of their houses and gardens before and after renovation and artefacts of historical interest.

The Group continues to prepare an archive of oral histories through an on-going programme of interviewing present and former residents of the villages.

A second “Down Memory Lane” evening was held in the Sand Hutton Village Hall in October.

Contact: Anne White 468550, and view the Claxton and Sand Hutton Parish website.

 

Derwent Archaeology Group

Investigation into the lost village of Lanulfestorp, which was mentioned as waste in the Domesday Book, has concluded that it was handed over to the Archbishop by the Percy family with other land in 1175. According to Domesday, the Archbishop held 32 bovates; Percy held 46 bovates, together with 16 of Lanulfestorp. In 1847 the Archbishop held 515 acres and what became the Dunnington Prebend held 1554 acres, the ratio having changed dramatically. We are now researching further with study of aerial photographs of the common.

Contact:  Kay Wheater at kay.wheater@hotmail.com

 

Dringhouses Local History Group

Our membership is still growing apace and our programme of talks and visits is very well supported. We continue to promote awareness and understanding of our local history at every opportunity. Following the help we gave the City of York Council with the information boards recently installed at Dringhouses Cemetery and Tyburn, we have now suggested something similar for Knavesmire Wood. We have recently staged a display entitled “Dringhouses Delights” in Dringhouses library: it focused on our historic green spaces. At the end of July, we had a stall at the Askham Bar Tesco Community Fair. We were at the History and Archaeology Fair at the Guildhall in October and we have our own “Dringhouses Remembered” morning on 12 November at St Edward’s Church extension when we hope to garner more photos and memories of our village, in addition to presenting a multi-media display of photos, maps and documents.

Contact: 01904 703970 or 708770 Our website is http://dlhg.weebly.com

 

Dunnington Through the Ages

A disc containing old photographs of the village is going on sale. Preparations are being made to produce a booklet from the masses of information in the archives. The East Yorkshire History Society has requested that they visit us to make a tour of the village next year; a date has yet to be arranged.

Contact:  Kay Wheater at kay.wheater@hotmail.com

 

Holgate Windmill Preservation Society

We have had a successful year with open days, group visits and events including an historical talk on the Mill owners and millers and a dinner for 16 as part of the York Food Festival.

 Restoration is nearing completion.  The electrically-driven stone is ready; we are sourcing local farmers who can supply grain in sacks as we have limited storage. Following this will be the exciting time of learning to mill. The 5 sailframes have been made in Lincolnshire and will be fitted when other work has been completed. The mill will be fully working again after 80 years.

Our focus now is to prepare to produce and sell flour – there is still much work to be done so next year will be really exciting.  Do come and buy your flour!

Contact: Jen Hay on 01904 792638

 

Pocklington Local History Group

The Pocklington Women's History Group book called 'Ladies Largely Predominating' was launched in August 2011. It focusses on the history of women in Pocklington and the surrounding area, and it is available at £4.50 from our meetings, from W & C Forth, Waterloo Lane, or from Simply Books, 59, Market Place, or mail order from Simply Books. Contact: queries@simplybookspocklington.co.uk or phone 01759 304444.

Remaining events for 2011/12 are: 17 November: Aerial Photography for Local History Research. - Mike Pratt will show how aerial photography research he has done at Bishop Wilton has helped with local history. 19 January: Pocklington Canal – a talk by Paul Waddington of Pocklington Canal Amenity Society about the history of the canal. 16 February: a workshop about the history of local food - looking at everyday food and special recipes for high days and holidays. Bring memories, old kitchen utensils, recipes and samples if possible! 15 March: Pocklington field-walking finds and coin identification - William MacKay. 19 April: AGM and short talks.

All meetings are held at the Old Courthouse, George Street, Pocklington at 7.30pm unless otherwise specified. Admission £2. Meetings are open to all.

Contact Jo Green (01759 301386) for more information.

 

Poppleton History Society

The Archaeology Section hopes to finalise a detailed landscape survey of the prospective site of a Tudor manor house that was predicted when the Time Team programme visited Poppleton in 2004. Programming has been obliged to harmonise with the monitoring of the drilling of post-holes on the Nether Poppleton Moated Site.

The History Society continues with its varied monthly presentations between September and May each year. Presentations start at 7.30pm, at the Poppleton Centre in Upper Poppleton, on the first Wednesday of each month. The programme this year includes: 2 November - “Putting Flesh on the bones of the past”; 7 December - The Time Team at Nether Poppleton; 1 January 2012 – Looking back at Micklegate and Bishopthorpe; 7 March – The history of York Theatre Royal; 4 March – the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic; 5 May – The history of the Poppleton Community Railway Nursery.

We are members of the OASIS project (University of York) which records the more localised reports on investigations of archaeological sites.

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 Society

The society has been awarded the sum of £25,700 by the Heritage Lottery Fund to run a three- year Historic Landscape Project. The first event was our "Big Village Dig" during which 13 pits (2 on the green, 1 in the pub garden and 10 in gardens) were dug by residents, school children, York University Archaeology students and volunteers, all supervised by Jon Kenny and other professionals. Pottery finds included Roman, mostly grey ware (but one piece of Samian), Norman and Medieval as well as 3 glazed stones which may be Stone Age pot-boilers.
A "Big School Dig", not part of the HLF project, was carried out at the local school when pupils in groups of 5 dug 3 pits supervised by society members with Jon Kenny and Hannah Baxter. A similar mix of finds to that in the "BVD" was discovered. Even the reception class were involved. We "seeded" the little sand pit with a number of finds and the children became excited at finding the bits of pot. We had an interesting afternoon operating the model trebuchet with years 5 and 6.
The reception class was taken round the village to look at the pond and village pumps and the green with the sundial and later were shown the model of North Duffield in1839. There were lots of questions during all these events.
In our second year of the project we are to build a full-size 5-metre Round House, with domestic items such as a loom, for children to visit and also to prepare an Information and Activity Pack on the Iron Age for the school as part of the history curriculum. 
Our new website is now up and running; see www.ndchs.org.uk
Contact: Tony Stevens 01757 288941

 

South Ainsty Archaeological Society

SAAS lost one of its founder members on 31 July 2011 with the sad death of Marjorie Harrison. Marjorie was well known amongst local historians in the York area, both for her publications and her Adult Education courses. She will be sadly missed.

Work is continuing at Hornington deserted medieval village with a ridge and furrow survey in late October and, hopefully, test pitting in early November. Copies of our much-praised history book “From Coppenthorpe to Copmanthorpe - Aspects of life in an Ainsty village” are still available, price £12; they make excellent Christmas presents. Available from Copmanthorpe Library or by phone on 01904 705478.

 

Strensall Local History Group

Further geophysical surveys of our Roman road have been carried out over summer. The results have identified not only the road but also possible ridge & furrow features. We expect to commence the survey of the remaining ridge & furrow around Strensall shortly. Our recent meetings have included a presentation on the extraordinary finds from the Gladiator Cemetery; an evening devoted to Yorkshire dialects; and a talk on the lost period property of Yorkshire. We held two outdoor meetings: a tour of the Yorkshire Museum and a ‘hands-on’ experience of surveying and 'geophys' over part of our Roman road. Future meetings will include a talk by Maureen Sutcliffe on experiences farming a smallholding.

Contact: Alan on 01904 491335

 

Tang Hall Local History Group

This has been another successful year for our group. We have a varied programme of speakers and member numbers are on the increase.  The display in October featured our local school.   After an extremely good response from an appeal in the press we gained many photographs and written memories.  We continue to receive new material from various sources.
Our archive can be viewed in Tang Hall Library and is available to visitors.  The group meets on the third Thursday of every month (except August) in St Aelred's Community Centre in Fifth Avenue at 10am.  All welcome

Contact: Jane Burrows - 01904 345942 or tanghallhistory@gmail.com
or Wendy Simmons - 01904 410982

 

MEETINGS SCHEDULE

Timeline York Plus holds regular meetings usually hosted each time by one of the member groups.

The next meeting is scheduled for the afternoon of Saturday 17 March 2012 at York Explore, Library Square, York. The meeting will be hosted by the York Archives and Local History Service. More details will be circulated to groups nearer the date.

 

THE COMMUNITY ARCHAEOLOGIST

Dr. Jon Kenny is the Greater York Community Archaeologist. Jon continues to support many groups, including TYP member-groups, young offenders, those on mandatory work experience and those with learning difficulties. At the moment Hannah Baxter is assisting him and has plans to run a book club (with history and archaeology links). She is also working with homeless people and refugee groups and is supporting the Hungate project. Jon is currently gathering information about the brick and tile industry in the York area. His e-mail is: jkenny@yorkarchaeology.co.uk. 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 and a list of all member Groups.

 

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: gandt.kendall@virginmedia.com or telephone 01904 338610.