The latest Archaeotea podcast is an edited recording of the discussion session at the end of the castles conference run by the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society at the Grosvenor Museum in October 2022. This event looked at a decade of archaeological and historical research on castles in Lancashire and Cheshire, providing a chance to…
This conference, postponed from 2020 due to the COVID pandemic, will look at a decade of archaeological and historical research on castles in Lancashire and Cheshire, providing a chance to review some familiar and not so familiar castle sites in the region. It is being run by the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society. It will…
Watch Hill Castle is one of the oldest and most important archaeological sites in Trafford, being first protected as a scheduled monument in February 1978. It also has the honour of being the first archaeological site entered on the Greater Manchester Sites and Monuments Record, now the Greater Manchester Historic Environment Record, when this was…
Watch Hill castle is one of the oldest and most important archaeological sites in Trafford, being first protected as a scheduled monument in February 1978. It also has the honour of being the first archaeological site entered on the Greater Manchester Sites and Monuments Record, now the Greater Manchester Historic Environment Record, when this was…
A visit to Bangor University at the end of March to give an industrial archaeology seminar provided a good excuse for some rapid castle exploring. The clear skies and bright sunlight of early Spring were a pleasant surprise, with the northern Welsh mountains providing a crystal clear dramatic back drop. That meant an opportunity to…
Autumn and spring are two times in the year when I find the sharp and contrasting light of the early morning or late evening particularly striking for looking at archaeological landscapes and monuments. As an archaeologist studying the landscape, and the structures within it, is a vital skill in understanding the relationship of ancient communities…
July 2017 saw the Centre for Applied Archaeology at the University of Salford return for a second season of excavations at Halton Castle, courtesy of funding by Norton Priory Museum Trust. The aim of this season was to find out more about the context of the two skeletons found in 2015, and to recover…
With just three days left of the community dig the outer bailey at Halton Castle is finally yielding some of the castle’s secrets. This is the first excavation within the castle since 1987 but there has been no previous investigation of the eastern half of the bailey. This was the main research reason we were…
The ruins of Halton Castle in Cheshire (SJ 537 820) stand on a prominent hill of red sandstone overlooking the estuary of the River Mersey to the north and west. July 2015 sees the first excavations at this medieval site since 1987. During the 1980s my old colleague and friend Robina McNeil led small-scale excavations…
A holiday with the family can be very revealing, not just for family relationships (it’s always interesting watching the children squabbling over whose turn on the trampelene it is or whose fizzy drink that really was) but also being reminded of the child’s viewpoint of heritage. We recently visited three historic sites that demonstrated this…
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