January 2011

The Festival of British Archaeology runs each July and 2010 was the second year that the Society has participated by organising four events across the country, including in Saddleworth.

Surprisingly, in spite of gloomy lowering grey skies and heavy storms, the meeting in Saddleworth, part of the old West Riding of Yorkshire, attracted 26 people to a talk in Uppermill Museum, followed by a walk to view the real thing. It was organised in conjunction with the Saddleworth Historical Society and the Museum curator, who both generated plenty of publicity; five Society members were there, including one from Shropshire. Jan Scrine gave a presentation on Pennine Ways and Waymarkers, then we strolled along the roadside where Jan did a practical demonstration by cutting away a hedge to reveal a very old milestone from Blind Jack of Knaresborough’s days.

We debated about the role of the tollhouse that Chris Marcus had said caught the station traffic and pondered the question raised by Margaret Hill about the relative placing of the destination names on the flat plates made by Brayshaw and Booth. People wondered why the Saddleworth mileposts had suddenly been painted white and we subsequently learned from local councillor Mike Buckley that he had persuaded the local authority to grant £3,000 to repaint the surviving 26 mileposts (out of 27!). A very entertaining and worthwhile event to raise public awareness.

John Armstrong, Hon Auditor

A sunny morning in the Dales, with curlews warbling and lambs frisking, saw thirty Milestoners occupy the Village Institute at Hebden. Terry Witham gave us a light hearted introduction with her research on the history of the village and its roads and tracks, followed by our guest speaker Dr Geoffrey Boswell who amused and enlightened us with his anecdotes about Causeways, Guide Posts and Crosses around Todmorden.

The quality of the displays was outstanding this year (our 7th meeting in Hebden) and they were eagerly discussed over lunch, while munching Terry’s delicious chocolate cake. Richard Heywood then introduced us to his discoveries on Chapelry boundary stones, followed by Christine Minto who took us on a tour of Cumbria and Scotland, well illustrating the vast variety of waymakers that exist. Finally the Dynamic Duo Jeremy and Dave updated the meeting with news of their restoration projects.

The speakers are already lined up for another varied programme next April, see you there !

The West Yorkshire Archives Service Conservators and Kirklees Museums staff put on a really informative event for us at Tolson Museum, Huddersfield.

We had an excellent response: 30 attendees of whom 14 were Milestoners and the remainder were from other local history groups. Christine and Frank Minto, our Yorkshire Recorders, brought the Diamond collection albums for conservation advice, too.

The content worked out well, with something for everyone, theory and practical – document storage, book repair, a case study of community archives, electronic storage problems and a demonstration of textile wrapping. Staff from the Heritage Lottery Fund also attended and at least nine people went to them to discuss projects!

We learned about some useful prompts and web templates that are available, with the need for a ‘Collections Policy’ – just because we CAN store something doesn’t mean that we should. We also need to devise an appropriate system for cataloguing our collections so that material can be accessed easily – watch this space…

A discussion about Japanese papers