News - Pits reveal signs of Roman past (Bingham)

Archaeologists believe they may have found the remains of a Roman settlement in the centre of Bingham.


Mr Rowan Bird, 59, of Abbey Road, Bingham, looks for artefacts in Cherry Street as part of the Roots of Bingham project.Part of a timber frame was found by volunteers helping the Bingham Heritage Trails Association’s Roots of Bingham project between Cherry Lane and Fosters Lane.

About 25 volunteers have helped to dig more than 40 test pits in gardens since April. The digging will finish next year. The volunteers hope to dig 60 pits in total.

The project has unearthed pottery and artefacts dating from Roman and Medieval periods, as well as more recent finds.

Mr Peter Allen, of the association, said the timber frame was significant as Bingham was previously believed to have Anglo Saxon origins.

“We are getting a nice story about the origins of Bingham. There’s a Roman origin to the town we hadn’t anticipated,” Mr Allen said.

Mr Geoff Ashton, also a member of the association, said most of the Roman artefacts dated from the 1st Century. He said there was evidence of a bottle-making industry and ironwork in the town centre.

The association expects to find about 15,000 artefacts by the time the project ends. About four to five thousand have already been found.

Association members can usually identify if artefacts are Roman, Medieval or later but large, significant finds will be analysed by experts to get a more precise date and to gather as much information as possible before results are published.

Full results are due in 2015.
  From: http://www.newarkadvertiser.co.uk/articles/news/Pits-reveal-signs-of-Roman-past

Excavation - Digging for windmill evidence (Bingham)

A heritage group has been given permission to dig an archaeological pit near the site of a former mill in Bingham as it bids to uncover the town’s historic origins.


Bingham Heritage Trails Association is being allowed to dig a one metre square pit on land owned by Bingham Town Council at the top of Mill Hill.

It will search for evidence of a windmill dating from the late 18th or early 19th Century as the group continues its efforts to piece together the history of Bingham.

It has already dug 29 test pits and has so far uncovered Medieval and Roman rubbish pits, and evidence of Roman and 15th Century houses.

The group’s chairman, Mr Peter Allen, said: “We want to look for further evidence of a windmill at the top of Mill Hill.

“We will get an idea of what was going on in the yard and near the mill in the late 18th or early 19th Century.”

He said pits dug so far had proved very productive, with only two not turning up any evidence.

“We don’t know where Bingham originally was and so our purpose is to look for Anglo-Saxon origins,” he said.

“It is quite amazing what we have found. We find bits of pottery and work out the story from there.

“We have found evidence of a Roman house in the rectory garden so there could even have been pre-Anglo-Saxon habitation in Bingham.”

He said samples were sent off to experts who could date them and give an indication of their significance.

The pits typically take two or three days to dig and are then filled in.

The project is being paid for through a £32,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Mr Allen said all the information would be put on the association website and some funding had been put aside for a publication, possibly a book.

From: http://www.newarkadvertiser.co.uk/articles/news/Digging-for-windmill-evidence

Excavation - £31,900 grant kickstarts Bingham archaeology project

HISTORY experts are to dig up parts of Bingham to find answers about its past, following a £31,900 grant from the Lottery Heritage Fund.

School grounds, a pub's beer garden and even the vicar's back garden are to be visited by a team of amateur archaeologists.

The work is being masterminded by community group the Bingham Heritage Trails Association, and its chairman 71-year-old Peter Allen, of Grantham Road.

He said sections of land at both Robert Miles Junior and Infant schools could be dug up to see whether any clues to the town's Roman and Anglo-Saxon past can be unlocked.

The beer garden of the Chesterfield pub and the Reverend David Harper's garden at The Rectory, in East Street, will also be examined.

Several gardens of residents' homes will also be investigated.

Mr Allen said: "I'm excited about the project. I'm very pleased we have been awarded the money which has made all this possible."

Test digs are expected to take place through January and February, while the main digs have been pencilled in for March and April – and could last for several months.

"We haven't put a time limit on ourselves," Mr Allen said. "If it takes months then so be it, we want to do a proper job."

A similar project was undertaken by a community group in the village of Kibworth in Leicestershire and their efforts ended up being made into a television documentary which was aired on BBC Four.

"We had this idea way before the Kibworth lot made a TV documentary," said Mr Allen who has been chairman of his group since 2000. "It looks as though we're following them, but we're not we've wanted to do this for years."

The team will unearth the top five centimetres of soil in each location and use sieves to search historic relics.

Mr Allen said: "We hope to find evidence of any Iron Age, Roman and Anglo-Saxon farms or settlements that may have existed there as well as to investigate how Bingham developed in the middle ages."

As well as carrying out a series of digs the group also hope to examine the town's 18th and 19th-century buildings, some of which the group believe have never been correctly dated.

Earlier this year the group helped reconstruct a roman well found close to the A46.

Anyone interested in becoming a volunteer to take part in this project should contact Mr Allen on 01949 831575.

From: http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/pound-31-900-grant-kickstarts-Bingham-archaeology/story-14114367-detail/story.html

News - £32,000 to dig up evidence of the past (Bingham)

A project to unearth Bingham’s past has received £32,000.

Bingham Heritage Trails Association received the money from the Heritage Lottery Fund for its three-year project, The Roots And Development Of Bingham Town.

As part of the project, the group is hoping to dig about 50 one-metre square pits at various sites, including residents’ gardens.

Mr Peter Allen, the association’s chairman, said the project was designed to look for evidence of the original Anglo-Saxon core village and to show how the village grew and changed, right up to the 20th Century.

“We are delighted to have been awarded the funding,” he said.

“We have been preparing for this project for many months and we have encountered a great deal of enthusiasm for it.

“The idea seems to have caught the imagination and many people have already offered to let us dig pits in their gardens and have offered their houses for detailed surveys.

“To our knowledge there has never before been a study like this carried out in Nottinghamshire.”

The town’s three primary and infants’ schools have agreed to let the association dig trial pits in their grounds and pupils, staff and parents will be involved.

Students from Toot Hill School will also take part.

Mr Allen said: “This project follows on naturally from the previous project funded with a lottery grant, The History Of Settlement In Bingham Parish, in which we carried out an archaeological field walking survey of all the arable farmland in the parish and studied the old maps that were available for the parish.

“The built-up area of Bingham now covers about 1,000 acres, one-third of the parish, and, apart from these early maps, we have very little information about this area.”

The name Bingham is thought to be Anglo-Saxon in origin, being a contraction of Bynnaingham derived from the place (ham) of the people (ing) of Bynna.

A similar project in Kibworth, Leicestershire, was made into a television programme called The Story Of England, hosted by Michael Wood, and shown on BBC 4 last year.

Over the next few weeks, the association plans to work closely with archaeologists and a buildings historian to draw up a detailed plan of action.

Studies of buildings can start in the winter, but the first pits are not likely to be dug until summer.

Anyone who would like to volunteer to take part in the project contact Mr Allen on 01949 831575.

 

from: http://www.newarkadvertiser.co.uk/articles/news/32000-to-dig-up-evidence-of-the-past

Event- Seeking to unearth town's past (Bingham)

Residents in Bingham are being invited to take part in a project that could help unearth more about the town’s historic past.

Mr Peter Allen prepares his garden for the dig.

Bingham Heritage Trails Association is hoping to dig about 50 one-metre square pits at various sites, including in residents’ gardens.

The association chairman, Mr Peter Allen, said although the group had completed field walks on farmland, a third of the parish was covered in houses meaning there was potentially more to discover about Bingham.

“There are lots of puzzles about the history of Bingham,” he said.

“We do not know where the original Anglo-Saxon village was, nor where the church was before St Mary and All Saints’ was built in 1225AD.

“Then there are the matters related to the whereabouts of the medieval St Helen’s Chapel and the windmill near School Lane.”

The group has drawn up a list of 42 sites where they would like to dig pits and have started obtaining permission from landowners.

“So far 16 landowners have given permission for 20 pits,” Mr Allen said.

“We also need to find able-bodied volunteers who would like to take part in the project as the trails association has a membership of mainly retired people, many of whom would have difficulty doing the sort of manual work required in this project.

“We will take out the soil and subsoil in 10cm layers. Each layer will be put through a riddle to separate out anything of archaeological interest. The finds will be bagged and taken to be washed and identified.”

Once the group has permission to dig 30 sites, they will put in a bid for Heritage Lottery funding.

Members will be working closely with archaeologists from Trent and Peak Archaeology at the University of Nottingham. Each pit is expected to take a day to examine and gardens will be left as they were found.

Two schools, Carnarvon Primary School and Robert Miles Junior School, are also due to take part in the project, which it is hoped will start in September.

In addition to the dig, the trails association plans to research more of the old buildings in the town, particularly ones that have wooden beams.

The vice-chairman, Mr Geoff Ashton, said: “We have a couple of permissions already but we would very much like to hear from people who live in old houses and who are prepared to let us in to sample the beams and tell them how old the building is.”

For more information or to take part email bhta@binghamheritage.org.uk

From http://www.newarkadvertiser.co.uk/articles/news/Seeking-to-unearth-towns-past