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Rosemary Collins finds out more about a volunteer archaeology project that uncovered the ancient history of a Yorkshire village
Digging deep in Thornton-le-Street, North Yorkshire
The North Yorkshire village of Thornton-le-Street has an estimated population of just 80 people, but a rich history dating back thousands of years. It is located within the site of the medieval village of Torentun mentioned in the Domesday Book, and the words ‘le-Street’ are often associated with Roman roads.
Following a series of talks run by the late historian John Sheehan, some of the residents set out to investigate the village’s history with archaeologist Jim Brightman from Solstice Heritage. Thornton-le-Street History Group formed Roads to the Past ( thorntonlestreetbigdig.com), a community archaeology and history project that ran between 2017 and 2019 and was funded with a £98,200 grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Over two years, more than 100 volunteers carried out digs. Roads to the Past also held free workshops in archaeological techniques and talks by local historians, as well as excavation days for children from five schools.
Roads to the Past held four ‘Big Digs’, lasting for 31 days in total. Through digging up the layers of Thornton-le-Street’s location, they discovered a history of ordinary people on the site going back many hundreds of years. There is a pocket of land between the current village, the site of a former water mill and the Old Hall which, unusually, has not been ploughed since the 14th or 15th century, making visible the bumps in the ground where buildings and enclosures once stood.
“There was a period of expansion with increased population in the early medieval period, with the construction of crofts and tofts,” Anne Stockdale, one of the project’s organisers, explains. “Our excavations showed us how the people lived, with the house, yard and an area for animals and crops. Pottery finds gave us a feel for the sorts of pots in use at the time; slag indicated some industry on site or nearby. This period was followed by shrinkage of the village for several reasons. The harvests were bad for several consecutive years, and the following plague probably further reduced the population.”
The volunteers even identified a completely new archaeological site a few miles from the village, with fragments of tools made from the sedimentary rocks, flint and chert providing evidence that Mesolithic and Neolithic humans lived there.
Roads to the Past also taught its participants new skills. One volunteer says: “I have loved being part of this project. I went to find out about being on a dig – I had never done one before. I was instructed in digging and washing of finds. Instruction and information have increased my knowledge, and made me look at other projects. The friendship of the local people and the other volunteers made me very welcome.” Other volunteers transcribed documents from the North Yorkshire County Record Office, including tithe apportionments, the documents of the Crompton and Cathcart estate in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and the will of John Talbot the elder, a Thornton-le-Street resident who died in 1549. You can search for the transcriptions in the archive’s online catalogue at archivesunlocked.northyorks.gov.uk, and view some of them on the project’s website.
The project has continued in lockdown, with online webinars and a new book ensuring that the group’s findings about Thornton-le-Street live on.
‘There was a period of expansion in the early medieval period’