Albion Archaeology: archive transfer

English Heritage summaries. 2002/2003

EH Project Number:	3376MAIN
Funded Unit:	Bedfordshire County Council (Albion Archaeology)

Project Aims

A Survey of Archaeological Archives in England (Swain 1998) has highlighted the increasing problem of archaeological archives and the quantities of archives still in the care of excavating units.

Albion Archaeology (formerly BCAS), in consultation with the County Archaeological Officer Martin Oake and the local museums, took the decision to embark on an archiving and accessioning programme, the aims being:

to ensure these projects were, if not analysed, at least in the public domain;
to contribute to the long-term preservation of the material archive by transferring it to the care of the local MGC approved museums.
These aims are in keeping with the recommendations contained within the report A Survey of Archaeological Archives in England prepared for English Heritage and the Museums and Galleries Commission (Swain 1998, 10-11).

The objective of this programme was to prepare each project archive currently in the care of Albion Archaeology (formerly BCAS) to a standard acceptable by Bedfordshire Museums and to accession that material.

1.2 Project Background

In 1999 English Heritage was approached and agreed to fund an archive review of 16 Bedfordshire projects which had received grant aid from English Heritage or its predecessor. The aim was to establish the current status of the archives, including:

identification of work outstanding, and associated costs, to achieve MAP II Appendix 3 standards for each of the site archives under review;
compilation of a full summary on each project with a status report outlining progress on analysis to date and its research potential in relation to local, regional and national research frameworks.
This archive review was submitted in November 1999 accompanied by a costed work programme (BCAS report no.1999/70).

Due to constraints on availability of funds, English Heritage was unable to provide funding to progress the analysis and publication of the majority of projects submitted. English Heritage determined, however, that it would support a programme of archiving for projects where English Heritage, or its preceding central public bodies, was responsible for:

initiating the fieldwork and;
where other financial arrangements have not been made for the dissemination of the work.

Twelve projects listed in Table 1.1 met the above criteria.

 

Project name
 Recipient Museum
 Accession nos.
 
Bedford Southern Orbital Sewer 1977
 Bedford
 1977/61
 
Bury Farm Goldington
 Bedford
 1987/10
 
Bushmead Priory
 Bedford
 1978/99
 
Chicksands Priory
 Friends of Chicksands Priory
  
Dunstable Friary
 Luton
 1988/68
 
Newnham Marina
 Bedford
 1975/70
 
Pear Tree Farm, Elstow
 Bedford
 1976/4
 
Roxton
 Bedford
 1992/36
 
Sandy Cemetery
 Bedford
 1988/33
 
Thurleigh Castle
 Bedford
 1976/3
 
Warden Abbey
 Bedford
 1974/46
 
Warren Villas, Sandy
 Bedford
 1989/1003
 

* 'The Friends of Chicksands Priory' desired to retain the material archive

Table 1.1 Projects and recipient museums

The aim of this project (English Heritage Project 2602ARCV) was to ensure the twelve investigations under consideration were, if not fully analysed, at least in the public domain and to contribute to the long-term preservation of their material archives. These aims were to be achieved by;

Ensuring microfilm copies of the documentary archives are lodged with the National Monument Record and
Making available to the local Sites and Monuments Record (Historic Environment Record in Bedfordshire) copies of the compiled archive review reports for each project.
Depositing the extant project archives (including both Site Archives and any secondary records, reports and documentation generated by work on the project) with an appropriate museum.

To achieve the above objectives a series of tasks were identified (Table 1.2).

Task code
 Description
 
Documentary archive
  
D1
 Preliminary checking (compilation of registers, cross-referencing, etc.)
 
D2
 Compilation of stratigraphic matrix
 
D3
 Context summary account
 
D4
 Summary of artefact record
 
D5
 Summary of environmental record
 
D6
 Ordering and indexing
 
D7
 Microfilming
 
D8
 Title of transfer of material archive
 
Material archive
  
M1
 Preliminary processing & checking
 
M2
 X-radiography
 
M3
 Ordering & indexing
 
Transfer of Archive
  
T1
 Transfer to Museums
 

Table 1.2 Archiving tasks

 

In 2000-2001 BCAS (now Albion Archaeology) completed all the Documentary and Material archive tasks for the above projects. Unfortunately at the point of completion of these tasks, neither Bedford nor Luton Museums had the space to accept any of the archives.

The situation remains unchanged at Luton Museum. In 2002 Bedford Museum determined it was able to accept a limited number of project archives. A project design was submitted to English Heritage on 5th September 2002 to transfer the completed archives to Bedford Museum. Funding was granted and the programme of archive transfers to Bedford Museum (Table 1.3) was completed by February 2003.

Schedule (2002-03)
 Project
 
End of September
 Bedford SOS 1977
 
End of September
 Bushmead Priory
 
End of September
 Peartree Farm 1976
 
End of September
 Roxton Quarry
 
End of September
 Thurleigh Castle
 
End of October
 Newnham Marina
 
End of October
 Warden Abbey
 
End of December
 Goldington, Bury Farm
 
End of February
 Sandy Cemetery
 
End of February
 Warren Villas
 

Table 1.3 Transfer programme

This page was published on 22/12/2003