Writing Our History and Digging Our Past: Enhancing and Expanding Community History and Archaeology Through Academic Engagement

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This programme aims to sustain longer-standing collaborations between UoN researchers with non-academic historians and archaeologists, build on recently-launched projects, and foster the emergence of new community groups researching their own heritage. The distinctive features of the qualities of the programme include the cross-fertilization between community archaeology and community history; the long run of expertise offered by academics involved from Roman times to the present; the combination of a regional focus with wider connections beyond the region; and the depth of experience working with community groups offered by senior and early career researchers in the team.The programme will benefit from strong institutional support from the UoN including the Centre for Advanced Studies, the University Museum and the Community Partnerships team. It will also draw on the UoN's non-HEI partners including Nottingham City Museums and Galleries, Nottinghamshire Archives, Durban House (Broxtowe Borough Council), National Trust, Norfolk Museum Service, Derbyshire VCH Trust, Southwell Town Council, and York Archaeological Trust/Trent & Peak Archaeology.The proposed programme will be delivered by a team of academics involved in a portfolio of flagship projects involving community-based research in local history and archaeology. These include: 1. Caistor Roman Town project, running since 2008 (Bowden): volunteer groups undertake large sections of the project's archaeological field work and finds processing.2. Southwell archaeology project: established in 2011 (King, Bowden and others), co-designed with Southwell Community Archaeology Group; distinctive for its use of the town and environs as a laboratory for examining settlement in the context of the written record.3. Southwell Workhouse (Badcock, Carter, Newman) collaboration between UoN and National Trust established 2011: current project includes work with volunteers in Southwell Workhouse Research Group collating data on Poor Law history from 19c newspapers.4. Victoria County History Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire (Riden): local groups (three in Derbyshire, one in Notts) work with guidance and support of tutor on source material for their chosen parish and co-draft text suitable for publication on the VCH website.5. Coalmining heritage (Amos): new project with Bilsthorpe heritage society and other ex-miners' groups seeks to document the 'end of an industry' and its impact on mining communities.6. Raleigh and Player's projects (Gaunt, Harvey): ongoing projects involving former workforces of Nottingham manufacturers that have shut down or drastically cut production.Building on these projects, the content of the activities taking place between February and November 2012 will entail:i) Project team liaison with HLF representative and NCCPEii) Launch events targeting UoN academics, raising profile of existing projects and demonstrating benefits of community research partnershipsiii) Incentivizing additional activities through the Challenge Fund as a resource for UoN academics to pitch ideas for projects involving existing community groups that could extend existing research and co-design HLF grants: up to £500 per projectiv) Roadshow events on 'Writing Our History' and 'Digging Our Past' including workshop, training and taster sessions to enable volunteers to present work and acquire new skills, attract new recruits, and broker new links between academics and volunteersv) Showcase and Project development day where Challenge Fund pilot projects presented and HLF bids mentoredvi) Follow-up workshops for HLF-funded and unfunded projects looking to future plans.The benefits of the programme will be the enhancement of existing community-based research, the fostering of new community groups and the co-design of research bids for HLF funding. In the longer term, the programme will build new capacity for academic engagement with volunteer researchers.