archaeology, community and identity
DESCRIPTION
This paper looks at the role of heritage in shaping identity in Telford, an English New Town built from the 1960s. Relationships between pre-existing settlements and the new town are considered, along with the renegotiation of identities by different communities. A distinction is made between authentic and inauthentic heritage, and archaeology is suggested as a mechanism for overcoming some of the issues.TRANSCRIPT
© W. S. Maney & Son Ltd 2011 DOI 10.1179/175675011X12943261434602
the historic environment, Vol. 2 No. 1, June, 2011, 49–67
Archaeology, Community, and Identity in an English New TownPaul BelfordNexus Heritage, UK
It has been widely accepted that elements of the historic environment have been deployed to create an ‘authorized heritage discourse’ which supports the ‘top-down’ reinforcement of particular identities. Archaeology can be a vehicle for the expression of alternative identities. This article looks at the ways in which the historic environment has been used in Telford, an English new town created in the 1960s, both to support the creation of this new place, and in opposition to it. A community archaeology project undertaken by the author in 2010 is described, and forms the basis of a discussion on the role of communities in heritage, the ways in which community identities may shift, and how relationships between communities and the historic environment profession may evolve.
keywords archaeology, community, England, heritage, identity, museum, new town, public engagement, Shropshire, Telford
Introduction
The historic environment is central to the construction of identities. Identity, of the
individual, of groups, of regions, and of nations, may be shaped by many factors,
including heritage, of which the historic environment is the most obvious material
manifestation. Yet heritage and the historic environment are not the same things.
Heritage, as Brian Graham and Peter Howard suggest, ‘has little intrinsic worth’;
rather, it is a situationally determined construct.1 Cornelius Holtorf regards heritage
as a vehicle containing cultural memory — a collective understanding of the past in
a given social and historical context. The past is ‘presenced’ through what Holtorf
calls ‘history culture’, the mechanism by which historical memory guides and aug-
ments collective identities.2 Historical memory certainly incorporates the historic
environment, and what we now call ‘historic environment resources’ have long been
deployed to reinforce particular identities. Åsa Boholm has described how non-
Christian sites and landmarks in medieval Rome were appropriated and manipulated
to enhance Papal authority.3 Similarly, in early modern England, the new owners of
former monastic estates legitimized their usurpation of the hegemonic order through
50 PAUL BELFORD
the historic environment features they came to possess.4 More recently, earlier
pasts have been used to construct national identities. For example the megalithic
monuments of southern England were used to establish a ‘British’ identity in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.5 Twentieth-century totalitarian societies went
further. Andrzej Boguszewski has recently reminded us how the uncontrolled past is
‘always one of the biggest enemies of any totalitarian ideology’; Heinrich Himmler
sought to ‘project into the dim and distant past the picture of our nation as we
envisage it for the future’.6
Heritage, therefore, selectively deploys elements of the historic environment to
provide what Gregory Ashworth describes as ‘contemporary creations for contempo-
rary processes’;7 meanings, as Stuart Hall reminds us, ‘will always change’ between
different cultures and periods.8 This, to most readers of this journal, is self-evident.
The Faro Convention describes heritage as a medium through which society’s ‘con-
stantly evolving values, beliefs, knowledge and traditions’ are reflected and expressed.9
However, implicit in the theorization of heritage and identity is the notion that the
physical fabric of the historic environment may incorporate certain objective truths.
The evidence of earlier human activity — which can equally be buried in the ground
as ‘archaeology’, encapsulated within the remains of standing buildings, or evident as
marks on the palimpsest of landscape — bears witness to earlier human activities and
their cultural meaning at the time of their creation. This evidence may be in contrast
to official documentary records, as archaeologists are well aware. Examples are so
numerous that it is easy to find one by flicking though the pages of the previous issue
of this journal: Lilia Basílio and Miguel Almeida describe how the Rua Nova (‘New
Street’) in Coimbra was ‘not documented before the fifteenth century’, yet the
archaeological evidence of the standing buildings clearly revealed the earlier existence
of a vibrant and wealthy medieval Jewish community. This was physically suppressed
in the mid 1500s; forgetting was officially encouraged by the act of renaming the very
ancient street at the heart of the Jewish social and cultural world ‘New Street’.10
Laurajane Smith has used the term ‘authorized heritage discourse’ to describe the
ways in which heritage is deployed by the dominant social, religious, political or
ethnic groups in any given society to reinforce their position.11 In apparent contrast
to such hegemonic heritage (often, but not always, sponsored by the state) is the idea
of resistant, or perhaps ‘unauthorized’, heritage. Tensions between authorized and
unauthorized heritage (both in the past and in the present) have often been expressed
in simple binary terms: colonizer versus colonized, indigenous versus outsider, élite
versus underclass, professional versus amateur. However these relationships are
rarely straightforward dichotomies of domination and resistance. The historic envi-
ronment provides tangible evidence through which multiple alternative political and
cultural identities may be articulated. Thus the discovery of the African Burial Ground
in New York prompted significant debate which recast the ways in which the long
and complex history of African Americans was interpreted and understood.12
In Western Australia, development on the Burrup Penninsula threatened significant
indigenous heritage: a public campaign against the government’s ‘dominant develop-
ment ideology’ characterized heritage as both an entitlement and a place of engaged
citizenship.13 Indeed the Faro Convention regards heritage as a universal human right:
‘everyone, alone or collectively, has the right to benefit from the cultural heritage and
to contribute towards its enrichment’.14
51ARCHAEOLOGY IN AN ENGLISH NEW TOWN
Archaeology is a uniquely accessible process through which communities can
engage directly with the historic environment, and, through that engagement, articu-
late identities that may run counter to that of the ‘authorized heritage discourse’.
Archaeology looks at expressions of identity and power relations; it tries to under-
stand relationships between groups of material culture and the cultural identity of
groups. Archaeologists also recognize that heritage can be multi-vocal, and in par-
ticular that subaltern heritage is valid, valuable, and vibrant. However, recognition
is one thing; delivery is quite another.
The UK has a long history of multi-vocal engagement with the historic environ-
ment by people who are not historic environment professionals. The amateur
archaeological society has proved an enduring element since the nineteenth century,
and many continue to make significant contributions.15 Archaeology’s popular appeal
further developed in the mid twentieth century by those who, in Bruce Fry’s phrase,
had a ‘determination to make archaeology interesting and accessible to a wide
audience’, such as Sir Mortimer Wheeler.16 A strong extra-mural teaching tradition
in British universities peaked during the post-war period,17 and early ‘rescue’ excava-
tions during urban redevelopment in the 1960s and 1970s were often reliant on ama-
teur expertise. Increased awareness of the historic environment, and its inclusion in
the wider planning process from 1990, led to the professionalization of archaeology,
leaving some amateurs isolated. After the first decade of the twenty-first century two
main strands of community archaeology are evident in the UK. The first is effec-
tively a continuation of the local society tradition, often involving long-term projects
with dedicated participants (usually white, middle class) and sometimes quite inde-
pendent of the profession. Indeed in many cases, these groups may not see themselves
as doing archaeology at all. In the Vale of York, for example, Jon Kenny has gently
encouraged ‘historical’ groups who look at documents to develop archaeological
directions through landscape approaches such as mapping earthworks, field bounda-
ries, and deserted villages.18 A recent study of community archaeology by the
Council for British Archaeology acknowledged this by including ‘in its remit any
groups that have conducted research into the physical remains of the past’.19 The
second strand of community archaeology takes the form of outreach by professional
archaeologists and others. Such projects are usually formally constructed, developed,
and managed by professional archaeologists and are guided by academic research
frameworks; they occur both in the public sector (that is, directly through local
authorities and universities) and in the private sector (either subcontracted to public
sector bodies or done as part of developer-funded projects).20
There are of course difficulties with both strands. Over forty years ago Sherry
Arnstein devised a ‘ladder of citizen participation’, containing eight rungs represent-
ing three levels: non-participation, tokenism, and citizen power. The bottom rung
is ‘manipulation’; ‘citizen control’ is at the top.21 Many community archaeology
projects aspire to be near the top of this ladder. However, as Carol McDavid has
pointed out, otherwise well-intentioned community engagement may be compromised
when it is designed by heritage professionals who make no allowance for their own
cultural background.22 At worst, projects run the risk of becoming what Gabriel
Moshenska has characterized as a ‘bureaucratic pantomime’.23 Pat Reid has argued
52 PAUL BELFORD
for community archaeology to be ‘a living process, embedded in a local community’.24
Rachael Kiddey and John Schofield go further in advocating archaeology as a
vehicle for social change and personal empowerment.25 On the extreme margins,
archaeology may well be a place to begin re-engagement with the disenfranchised.
Yet where a democratic ‘archaeology from below’ is attempted, its fragile structures
may be fatally compromised by a ‘struggle for political power’ amongst archaeolo-
gists which may serve only to alienate sections of the community, as events at
Sedgeford have shown.26 The reality, as Mike Nevell has recently acknowledged, is
that most community archaeology tends to hover around the ‘tokenistic middle’ of
Arnstein’s ladder.27 Does this really matter? Does community archaeology have to
be ‘bottom-up’ to make it worthwhile, or can useful social outcomes result from
‘top-down’ approaches?
Telford new town: authorized and authentic heritage
Archaeology and community have interacted in various ways in Telford. Telford
did not exist fifty years ago; it was the result of centralized government planning.
However, Telford was not built on terra nullis, although to many of its designers,
who regarded themselves as pioneers at the cutting edge of new society, it may have
seemed that way. Before Telford there was the East Shropshire coalfield, an area
of largely Carboniferous geology containing economically important minerals such
as coal, iron, limestone, and clay. Early medieval settlement and monastic estates
resulted in an agricultural landscape and economy. This was supplemented by coal
mining from the later middle ages, leading to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century iron-
working; eighteenth-century developments in the use of mineral fuel for iron smelting
ended the iron industry’s reliance on renewable resources (wood and water), and
enabled massive economic growth through the use of fossil fuels and steam power.28
The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries also saw the development of other industries
in the East Shropshire coalfield, such as brick and tile manufacture. By the end of the
nineteenth century it was an interconnected industrial landscape containing mines,
furnaces, kilns, and settlements linked by roads, canals, and railways.29 Exhaustion
of mineral resources, together with development of industrial centres elsewhere,
resulted in economic decline in the mid twentieth century. With high unemployment,
ruined buildings, and a polluted landscape, the perception of East Shropshire indus-
trial communities was, as Roger White and Harriet Devlin have suggested, that they
were ‘dying on their feet’.30
Regeneration was identified as the solution, although the primary role of
new towns was never intended to be regeneration. The idea had developed from the
‘garden cities’ that were built in England during the first part of the twentieth cen-
tury, themselves influenced by late-nineteenth-century company housing.31 A Royal
Commission reported in 1940 that ad hoc development created economic and social
imbalances: these ‘constitute[d] serious . . . dangers to the nation’s life’ and could only
be corrected by strategic development, decentralizing, and dispersing industry and
population.32 This and other reports33 informed the New Towns Act of 1946, which
created development corporations with sweeping powers.34 The first phase of eleven
new towns, largely London overspill, were built from 1946 to 1960; the following
decade saw a second phase of nine further new towns. Designated in 1963, Dawley
53ARCHAEOLOGY IN AN ENGLISH NEW TOWN
New Town (as it was then called) was one of these; it was to draw its initial popula-
tion of c. 50,000 from Birmingham. Within two years further enlargement was
already being considered, to ‘accommodate overspill from the West Midlands conur-
bation’.35 The extended area included the towns of Wellington and Oakengates to the
north of Dawley, as well as Madeley to the south-east and the Ironbridge Gorge
to the south (Figure 1).36 The decision to proceed with the enlarged plan (with an
intended population of 225,000 by 1991) was made in 1967.37 The population in 2009
was estimated at 162,000.38
The creation of Telford radically altered physical landscapes, and required large
adjustments in people’s mental landscapes, as they struggled with this new, centrally
imposed post-industrial space. Heritage was deployed from the outset to create a
unified identity which would assist the transformation from an ‘assemblage of indus-
trial hamlets’ into a ‘contiguous urban mass’.39 The symbolic first act was rebranding:
in choosing an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century engineer with local associations,
Telford became the only English new town not to take its name from pre-existing
settlements.40 This ensured that no individual pre-existing settlement had a pre-
eminent position: all were equally included or excluded, from prosperous middle-
class Wellington in the north to semi-derelict and geologically unstable Ironbridge
in the south. The Telford Development Corporation (TDC) was fully aware of the
fi gure 1 Location of Telford and of the sites mentioned in the text.Source: author
54 PAUL BELFORD
‘valued historical associations’ of the Ironbridge Gorge, so incorporation of this
area (helpfully located in a peripheral, difficult-to-develop, and subsidence-prone part
of Telford) provided reflected historical light in which the new town could bask.41
In 1967 TDC established the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust as a mechanism for
the ‘preservation, restoration, improvement [and] enhancement’ of ‘features and
objects of historical and industrial interest’ in the wider East Shropshire area.42
In 1968 work began to transform a former industrial site at Blists Hill into an open-
air museum, where historic environment assets affected by the creation of Telford
could be relocated. The first exhibit was a pair of steam-powered blowing engines
from the Lilleshall Company’s Priorslee works. Meanwhile the former company
offices at Priorslee Hall were adopted as the TDC headquarters — a classic appro-
priation of prominent heritage assets to provide legitimacy of antiquity. Over time
Blists Hill’s focus changed from relocation of buildings to the creation of a ‘Victorian
Town’; this required entirely new buildings which replicated existing or imagined
ones — an approach which the first director acknowledged would ‘always be
regarded critically from a conservation point of view’.43 The question of authenticity
in a World Heritage Site is an important one, as the debate over the status of
the reconstructed Mostar Bridge has shown. In that context Christina Cameron has
remarked how ‘authenticity refers to the truthfulness of a cultural place and is defined
through physical attributes found in various historical layers’.44 In this sense Blists
Hill, however faithfully executed, does not constitute an authentic heritage of the East
Shropshire coalfield. Moreover, as Stephen Mills has pointed out, even the relocation
of buildings results in a loss of context, which blurs ‘the distinction between museum
exhibit and heritage site’.45 Such historical re-creation also subdues the most
important aspect of historical enquiry: debate and discussion.
Ironically, less than a kilometre from TDC’s preparations for a repository of
‘authorized’ but inauthentic heritage at Blists Hill, the same organization was busy
reshaping the authentic but ‘unauthorized’ historic identity of Madeley. Here, the
centre of the town was comprehensively remodelled. Opposition was most fiercely
articulated at Robert Moore’s bakery on the High Street, which had been established
by his grandfather at the turn of the century. Unfortunately, this socially and eco-
nomically viable historic business stood in the way of a proposed roundabout. Moore
refused to move, despite a compulsory purchase order, and continued to trade as a
roundabout was built around him. He was eventually evicted on 22 April 1968 amidst
the protests of Madeley housewives buying the last loaves from the independent
family-run bakery (Figure 2).46 A TDC spokesman acknowledged the locals’ dissatis-
faction, but argued that ‘we will get a different attitude from the people’ once they
had learned to appreciate ‘the tremendous advantages they will gain’.47 TDC’s desire
to impose unity of identity through heritage was also manifested through their crea-
tion of the Telford Archaeological and Historical Society in the 1970s, and, later, their
funding of a Victoria County History volume on Telford.48 The only volume in the
century-old series not to observe ancient and historically coherent units of study, its
publication represented ‘the readiness of Telford to establish its historical identity’
over and above that of existing communities.49
Since the winding up of TDC in 1990, ‘improvement and enhancement’ of the
historic environment in Telford has tended to be less dramatically divisive. Telford
55ARCHAEOLOGY IN AN ENGLISH NEW TOWN
and Wrekin Council is more open to multi-vocal interpretations of the past. The
emphasis of the ‘authorized heritage discourse’ continues to be on the monumental
achievements of great men. However, several community initiatives have developed
in recent years which have sought to rebalance the distribution of heritage away from
this narrative and into more interesting trajectories. Certainly many of these have
sprung from an initial opposition to ‘authorized’ heritage, but the subtleties and
complexities of the subject matter itself as well as the act of engaging with it have,
in Graham Fairclough’s phrase, ‘taken heritage out of its separate box’ and made it
part of wider debates.50
Vanished voices: the archaeology of Hinkshay
This is not to say that there are not still tensions between ‘authorized’ and ‘authentic’
heritage. These were clearly articulated during a recent community archaeology
project, which took place in the Telford Town Park. This is an area of approxi-
mately 170 hectares to the south and west of Telford town centre. Both the Town
Park and the town centre occupied parts of Dawley and Stirchley parishes, character-
ized during the development of Telford as a ‘derelict mining area’;51 their creation
fi gure 2 Authentic but unauthorized heritage? A low-resolution contemporary image of the eviction of Robert Moore from his bakery at the bottom of Madeley High Street on 22 April 1968; the long-established business stood in the way of a roundabout which linked the new town to Blists Hill, the repository of authorized but inauthentic heritage.Photograph © Alan Eaton
56 PAUL BELFORD
effectively removed the settlements of Malinslee, Old Park, Dark Lane, and Hink-
shay. Parts of the Town Park close to the town centre were landscaped with varying
degrees of formality; features include playgrounds, a sensory garden, a cherry orchard
(donated in the early 1980s by a Japanese manufacturer) and a children’s fairy-tale
‘Wonderland’. However most of the park consists of informal woodland and agricul-
tural land, with pools and paths which reuse industrial features. The Town Park’s
potential was never fully realized, and in 2009 Telford and Wrekin Council was suc-
cessful in a ‘development phase’ bid to the ‘Parks for People’ project, a joint initiative
between the Heritage Lottery Fund and BIG Lottery Fund. The project described here
was funded under that phase; a second bid in autumn 2010 was also successful and
further work is intended in 2011 and 2012.52
The project included a community archaeology element, which was undertaken by
the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust and Nexus Heritage; the former supplied links
with the ‘authorized’ heritage and educational expertise and fieldwork, and the latter
undertook research, fieldwork, and outreach.53 The first stage, undertaken by Nexus
Heritage, comprised a desk-based assessment and walkover survey of the whole of
the Town Park ‘to determine . . . which areas are suitable for a community archaeo-
logical excavation programme’.54 This revealed thirty-one archaeological sites in the
Town Park, dating from the medieval period to the twentieth century; this was the
first indication that both ‘authorized’ and ‘unauthorized’ versions of the Telford
story had misrepresented aspects of the new town’s development. Of these, six were
shortlisted as potential excavation sites, and the site of an industrial hamlet emerged
as the strongest candidate. This was because it had an interesting and well-
documented history, it contained remains in a good state of preservation likely to
generate a wide range of artefacts, it was accessible with minimum intervention to
ensure the health and safety of participants, and it offered the greatest potential
for community engagement. The excavation took place over six days in April 2010,
and had three main aims. These were, in order of priority: to provide experience of
archaeological fieldwork and post-excavation processing for volunteers and commu-
nity groups (especially encouraging non-traditional audiences); to engage with local
communities and to encourage closer links between existing groups; and to undertake
archaeological research.55 It was at this stage that discussions began with community
groups. Accordingly this was clearly a top-down project and, before the beginning
of the excavation, still in the ‘tokenism’ area of Arnstein’s ladder. Despite this its
primary objectives were not archaeological ones.
Hinkshay was built in the 1820s by local entrepreneurs Thomas and William
Botfield to house workers in their nearby ironworks and mines. In 1790 the Botfields
had established the Old Park ironworks; this developed rapidly, and by 1806 it was
the largest ironworks in Shropshire and the second largest in the country.56 In c. 1826
the Botfields expanded production with two pairs of blast furnaces at Hinkshay and
Dark Lane.57 Workers’ housing was constructed at both sites. Originally a row of
forty-eight back-to-back cottages (‘Double Row’) and a row of twenty-one blind-back
houses (‘Single Row’), Hinkshay was later enlarged with the addition of ten double-
fronted blind-back cottages, called ‘New Row’ or ‘Ladies’ Row’ (Figure 3). Commu-
nal wash-houses, each shared by several houses, were incorporated into the rows.58
The houses had land attached, and residents rented further plots to create extensive
57ARCHAEOLOGY IN AN ENGLISH NEW TOWN
areas of garden allotments incorporating pigsties and other outbuildings. There were
playing fields to the south, and a rubbish tip at the eastern end of the site. By the
1870s the three rows of houses had been joined by nine other buildings, including an
Anglican Mission church and school. The northern end of Double Row was trun-
cated between 1882 and 1903, and further demolition of parts of the rows took place
in the twentieth century. Census returns suggest that skilled workers such as iron
puddlers lived in Ladies’ Row; unskilled ironworkers and miners, and later agricul-
tural labourers, brickmakers, and chemical workers, lived in Single Row and Double
Row. Job prospects improved in 1953 with the construction of the ‘Ever Ready’
battery factory on the former playing fields. In the 1960s the factory extended further
north, demolishing Single Row and the Mission to create a car parking area. Double
Row was demolished in c. 1969 by the TDC as part of its slum clearance programme;
the residents were relocated, and the gardens, pigsties, roads, and tip all became
overgrown and forgotten. The Ever Ready factory closed in the early 1990s and was
itself demolished in 1994, although the gates and railings are still extant.
The excavation took place at the western end of Double Row, with the intention
of excavating a group of adjoining houses (Figure 4). Demolition debris overlying
the site contained a range of twentieth-century material including pottery, glass,
fi gure 3 Hinkshay. A photograph of the settlement taken in c. 1965. The still-extant Stirch-ley chimney is visible on the left-hand side of the photograph, with the Ever Ready factory on the right. The building in the foreground is the Anglican Mission Chapel. Double Row (left) and Single Row (right) run down the hill away from the photographer; the back of Ladies’ Row is visible to the rear of the Ever Ready factory.Photograph courtesy of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust
58 PAUL BELFORD
fi gure 4 An archaeological perspective. Clockwise from top left: view of one of the back-to-back houses, with the concrete fl oor of the wash-house in the background; the concrete ‘fold’ and adjacent rubble path (note the depression in the ‘fold’ left by a stone doorstep); assorted artefacts recovered from the communal tip; electrical fuse box from demolition rubble; assorted artefacts from garden soil.Source: author
59ARCHAEOLOGY IN AN ENGLISH NEW TOWN
architectural furniture, and electrical fittings. The foundations emerged beneath this.
Outside the houses, space was similarly arranged on both sides of the row: originally
a compacted cinder road separated the houses from the gardens, and the garden walls
were dry-built using reclaimed rubble. Later, a roughly laid path of reused bricks and
stone was created adjacent to each house. Later still, strips of concrete had been laid
abutting the outer walls and over the earlier paved surface. This feature, known
locally as a ‘fold’, provided protection from rainwater. On the south side the ‘fold’
had been cut through by the later insertion of a gas pipe; its northern counterpart
retained the depression left by a stone doorstep. Numerous sherds of pottery, glass,
clay pipe, and other artefacts were recovered from both garden soil and roadway
— in the latter case comprising extremely small fragments of exclusively nineteenth-
century date. Inside Double Row, excavation revealed four rooms. Two of these were
clearly back-to-back houses; they measured approximately 3.8 m by 4 m in plan and
their fireplaces shared a common chimney in the central wall. The brick and quarry-
tile floors had been heavily robbed during demolition, but enough survived to surmise
the original locations of entrances and stairs. A third room was noticeably narrower;
this had a concrete floor which overlay two earlier (tiled) floor surfaces, and appeared
to be contemporary with the creation of the exterior ‘fold’. This room was one of the
communal wash-houses. The fourth room was larger than all of the others, the result
of a poorly executed modification which created a double-fronted house with two
rooms on each floor. It would also have permitted greater privacy within the house
through the insertion of partitions.
Archaeologically unremarkable, the Hinkshay houses represent a common type,
albeit an example which was particularly badly built and incorporated certain ver-
nacular peculiarities. Direct comparisons can be made with other local examples.59 In
terms of the project’s first aim — providing archaeological experience for volunteers,
especially from non-traditional audiences — the project was moderately successful.60
Twenty-nine people actively participated in the excavation, of whom a quarter were
children (Figure 5). Of these there were about half a dozen committed regulars, all
white and middle class. Most were happy to join in at the level which best suited
them and responses to the project were overwhelmingly positive. However non-
traditional audience participation was harder to achieve. That is not to say that
non-traditional audiences were not encountered during the project; rather, connection
failed. Evidence of unconventional use of the park, for example, was recorded during
the walkover survey; we came across two makeshift shelters, one on the Hinkshay
site. The soft ground of the former Hinkshay tip was ideal for rabbits, and poachers
with dogs and traps walked through the site on three occasions whilst we were there.
The poachers followed the same paths they always had, walking alongside the edge
of the excavated area, avoiding eye contact, and effectively refusing to acknowledge
the existence of the excavation.
The Hinkshay project was most successful in its aim of engagement with local
communities and encouraging closer links between existing groups. Over 200 people
came to the site during the four open days. These included members of local history
groups who had formerly been shy of, and in some cases hostile to, the ‘authorized’
heritage represented by the Museum and the Council. These are what the Faro
Convention calls ‘heritage communities’, consisting of ‘people who value specific
60 PAUL BELFORD
aspects of cultural heritage’.61 For these groups, Kate Page-Smith provided a way in;
cheerful and enthusiastic, crucially she was not a representative of the ‘authorized’
heritage.62 A typical response was: ‘it is good to see interest in our history outside the
Gorge’.63 Despite overt identity-building by TDC, many of these local groups remain
small and mutually wary; one very positive outcome of the project was to provide
common ground for dialogue between them. Two public open days developed an
enthusiastic momentum that led, ad hoc, to a third.
Nineteen former residents and their families, together over seventy people, visited
the excavations (Figure 6). Memories of people, places, and events were retold;
a community which had been dispersed over forty years ago was briefly brought
together again. Relationships between place and identity were strong; relationships
between place and memory, however, were more tenuous. Not all of the memories
were consistent with the physical evidence; indeed many memories were inconsistent
with one another. This is perhaps not surprising as all of the former residents had
been children or teenagers when they lived at Hinkshay. Memories revolved around
childhood activities such as fetching water on washing day (‘we always had wet feet
on Mondays’, recalled Alan Harper who had lived at 8 Single Row); other recollec-
tions incorporated the playing fields, the tip, private ceremonies of remembrance and
acts of childhood rebellion. Interestingly, the excavation only acted as a springboard
for remembrance. Although all of the former residents did spend time considering
fi gure 5 Participatory excavation in action: a particularly busy moment during excavation and recording.Source: author
61ARCHAEOLOGY IN AN ENGLISH NEW TOWN
fi gure 6 A formerly local community. Top: meeting old faces and recalling old memories; Kate Page-Smith (Nexus Heritage) facilitating a discussion amongst former residents, who are focused on documents and photographs and have their backs to the excavation. Bottom: members of the Poole, Corbett, Tonks, Ellis, and Morgan families reunited at Hinkshay forty years after its demolition.Source: author
62 PAUL BELFORD
their relationship to the physical remains (indeed about half initially declared that this
was their old house), only one person was genuinely able to establish a direct relation-
ship between her own life and the excavated remains: Barbara Whitney (née Corbett),
a former resident of 11 Double Row who recalled using the wash-house (Figure 7).
As discussion of the old community gathered momentum there was actually much
more interest in the photographs, electoral rolls, maps, plans, and drawings than in
the archaeology. None of the former residents wanted to excavate the site. Neverthe-
less, through an emotionally powerful combination of the physical and remembered
past, the project arrived at a very reasonable re-creation of the social layout of the
Hinkshay rows: who lived where and how they got on with whom.
Conclusion: archaeology and community
As already noted, this particular community archaeology project was ‘top-down’. It
could not be described in Pat Reid’s terms as a community-embedded living process,64
not least because there is no extant local community who can identify as stakeholders.
All former residents now live elsewhere, and the site is isolated and unpopulated
(except by transient poachers). Thus it was not possible to develop what Shelley
Greer and others have called an ‘interactive approach’ using ‘contemporary com-
munity identity’ to inform research agendas and methodologies.65 So who are the
community, as Faye Simpson and Howard Williams have asked, and what do ‘they
want from and value in these community archaeology projects’?66 Leaving aside for
the moment the notion that historic environment professionals themselves form a
community (as explicity noted by the Faro Convention), at Hinkshay there were two
mutually exclusive communities. The first, and most emotionally involved, were the
former residents. However, the interest of the former residents focused on the reunion
which took place at the excavations; their encounter with archaeology has not then
encouraged further engagement for them with established ‘heritage communities’. For
them, engagement with memory was much more important than direct engagement
with historic environment professionals or the archaeological process. The experience
of memory at Hinkshay supports John Boardman’s assertion that people are
‘motivated by faith and imagination more readily than historical “facts” of the type
we think we can glean from texts and from the ground’.67
The second community, and perhaps the most important for the future, were the
numerous ‘heritage communities’ of Telford. The distinction made at the beginning
of this article between ‘the historic environment’ and ‘heritage’ is important, since the
former may exist objectively but is only understandable through the latter which is
culturally constructed. Peter Groote and Tialda Haartsen see heritage as a communi-
cative practice which ‘brings the socially constructed and contested nature of heritage
to the forefront’. They argue that professional heritage managers (in their words,
‘agents in the policy discourse’) are more concerned with the material remains of the
past, whereas non-professionals (‘agents in the lay and popular discourses’) appear to
be better equipped to engage with the socially constructed, pluralist, and narrative
understandings of heritage.68 This view is echoed by Laurajane Smith and Emma
Waterton, who note the dysfunctions and frustrations caused by the ‘compartmen-
talization’ of experts from communities.69 However, this was not the experience of
the Hinkshay project. This is not to say that the project was not extremely open to
63ARCHAEOLOGY IN AN ENGLISH NEW TOWN
fi gure 7 Different communities. Barbara Whitney (née Corbett), a former resident of 11 Double Row, revisits the wash-house she used as a child. In the background, Brian Savage of the Telford Historical and Archaeological Society is recording the remains.Source: author
64 PAUL BELFORD
non-professional critique of methodology and research objectives: quite the opposite.
The admittedly rather loose ‘archaeological’ aims expressed in the original project
design were readily changed as the project went along to incorporate ideas and initia-
tives from the enthusiastically engaged representatives of those groups. Understand-
ing was enhanced by wide-ranging discussions with participants and visitors, bringing
extensive life experience to bear on all aspects — from the interpretation of individ-
ual artefacts to the complex evolution of the landscape. However, the communities
involved in the Hinkshay project weren’t actually seeking ‘citizen control’; rather,
they valued the input of experts who validated the archaeological process and pro-
vided formal approval. In a way they were seeking to become part of the ‘authorized
heritage discourse’, not necessarily to challenge it.
This has important implications for the way archaeologists engage with communi-
ties in the future. By developing approaches that seek inclusiveness, archaeologists
have encouraged multi-vocal, bottom-up, and decentralized interpretations — argu-
ably an agenda which the ‘big society’ (if taken at face value) is itself articulating.
This is reflected in the language of the Faro Convention and its notion of ‘heritage
communities’, which place the aspirations of groups possibly unconnected in con-
ventional ways by time or space on a more or less equal footing with professional
expertise. Noel Fojut has described this as a ‘shift in the balance of power’ between
expert and public.70 Graham Fairclough further notes that many elements of the his-
toric environment have a social and economic value which is independent of their
expert-defined status: ‘not all heritage needs public subsidy, and not all heritage needs
designation’.71 Indeed developers argue that ‘they are willing to pay the extra money
to ensure their developments are not jeopardized by a skills shortage’.72 This is a
long-term shift, nothing to do with recent changes in UK government. Seven years
ago Roger Thomas argued that the authoritative state ‘expert’ was rapidly evolving
into more of a ‘guide and facilitator’ — a trend also reflected in Malcolm Cooper’s
article in the previous issue of this journal.73 Some professionals see the multi-
vocality resulting from decentralization of authority as an erosion of their expert
status, and therefore a threat. Although this is precisely the outcome that many of the
more radical community archaeologies have been attempting to create, it is not a
threat. The sort of community approach represented by the Hinkshay project has
been criticized for reinforcing a ‘top-down’ approach which excludes marginalized
groups. In fact this project, and others like it, only exclude those groups which choose
to be excluded (like the poachers); a wide range of participants experience positive
social outcomes. Could there be a danger of going too far, and alienating the main-
stream? The archaeological profession has been articulating a desire to see itself as a
socially relevant and positive force for social change. Perhaps it already is.
Acknowledgements
The Hinkshay project was realized thanks to the unwavering enthusiasm of Joanne
Ridgeway of Telford and Wrekin Council, and her colleagues Nicola Allen and Becky
Eade; it was only possible thanks to all of those who participated. The author
is extremely grateful to Roger White, the anonymous referee, and Nexus Heritage
colleagues Gerry Wait, Anthony Martin, and Kate Page-Smith for their comments on
earlier drafts of this article.
65ARCHAEOLOGY IN AN ENGLISH NEW TOWN
Notes1 Brian Graham and Peter Howard, ‘Introduction:
Heritage and Identity’, in The Ashgate Research
Companion to Heritage and Identity, ed. by Brian
Graham and Peter Howard (Aldershot: Ashgate,
2008), pp. 181–94.2 Cornelius Holtorf, Monumental Past: The Life-
Histories of Megalithic Monuments in
Mecklenburg–Vorpommern (Germany), electronic
monograph, University of Toronto: Centre for
Instructional Technology Development (2000–2008),
http://hdl.handle.net/1807/245 [accessed 20 Septem-
ber 2010].3 Åsa Boholm, ‘Reinvented Histories: Medieval Rome
as Memorial Landscape’, Ecumene, 4, 3 (1997),
247–72.4 Paul Belford, ‘English Industrial Landscapes: Diver-
gence, Convergence and Perceptions of Identity’, in
Crossing Paths, Sharing Tracks: Future Directions
for Post-Medieval Archaeology in Britain and Ire-
land, ed. by Audrey Horning and Marilyn Palmer,
Society for Post-medieval Archaeology Monograph
5 (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2009),
pp. 179–94.5 Mark Gillings and Joshua Pollard, ‘Breaking Mega-
liths’, in Written on Stone: The Cultural History of
British Prehistoric Monuments, ed. by Joanne Park-
er (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing,
2009), pp. 36–48; David Harvey, ‘“National” Identi-
ties and the Politics of Ancient Heritage: Continuity
and Change at Ancient Monuments in Britain and
Ireland, c. 1675–1850’, Transactions of the Institute
of British Geographers, 28, 4 (2003), 473–87.6 Andrzej Boguszewski, ‘The Massive Corruption
of Clever Minds’, paper delivered in the session
Archaeology under Communism: Political Dimen-
sions of Archaeology at TAG (University of Bristol,
17 December 2010); Himmler cited in Bettina
Arnold, ‘The Past as Propaganda’, Archaeology,
July–August (1992), 33.7 Gregory Ashworth, ‘In Search of the Place-Identity
Dividend: Using Heritage Landscapes to Create
Place-Identity’, in Sense of Place, Health and Qual-
ity of Life, ed. by John Eyles and Allison Williams
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), pp. 185–99 (p. 187).8 Stuart Hall (ed.), Representation: Cultural Repre-
sentations and Signifying Practices (London: Sage/
Open University, 1997), p. 61.9 Council of Europe, Framework Convention on
the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society (Faro:
Council of Europe Treaty Series no. 199, 27 October
2005), Article 2a.10 Lilia Basílio and Miguel Almeida, ‘The Baixinha de
Coimbra Project (Coimbra, Portugal) in the Context
of Portuguese Buildings Archaeology’, The Historic
Environment: Policy and Practice, 1, 2 (2010),
185–202.11 Laurajane Smith, Uses of Heritage (Oxford:
Routledge, 2006).
12 Warren Perry, Jean Howson and Barbara Bianco
(eds), New York African Burial Ground: Archaeol-
ogy Final Report (Washington: Howard University,
2006); Edna Greene Medford (ed.), New York Afri-
can Burial Ground: History Final Report (Washing-
ton: Howard University, 2004); US National Parks
Service, Draft Management Recommendations
for the African Burial Ground (Philadelphia: US
National Parks Service, 2004), pp. 8–16, 18–21. 13 Andrea Witcomb, ‘The Past in the Present: Towards
a Politics of Care at the National Trust of Australia
(WA)’, in Heritage and Identity: Engagement and
Demission in the Contemporary World, ed. by Elsa
Peralta and Marta Anico (Abingdon: Routledge,
2009), pp. 169–80.14 Council of Europe, Faro Convention, Articles 1a
and 4a.15 To take three examples from three corners of
England which have well-respected academic output
and impressive portfolios of historic properties and
museums: the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle
upon Tyne (established 1813), the Dorset Natural
History and Archaeological Society (established
1846), and the Sussex Archaeological Society
(established 1846).16 Bruce Fry, ‘Reaching out to Bureaucracy and
Beyond: Archaeology at Louisbourg and Parks
Canada’, in Past Meets Present: Archaeologists
Partnering with Museum Curators, Teachers, and
Community Groups, ed. by John H. Jameson Jr
and Sherene Baugher (New York: Springer, 2007),
pp. 19–33 (p. 21).17 Notably at Birmingham with Philip Rahtz, Philip
Barker, and Graham Webster, and at Leicester
under W. G. Hoskins.18 Jon Kenny, ‘Heritage Engagement with Hard-
to-Reach Communities: Hungate and Beyond’,
paper presented at On the Edge: New Approaches
to Community Heritage, one-day seminar supported
by the CBA and Gloucester City Council (Glouces-
ter, 17 September 2010).19 Suzie Thomas, Community Archaeology in the UK:
Recent Findings (York: Council for British Archae-
ology, 2010), http://www.britarch.ac.uk/sites/www.
britarch.ac.uk/fi les/node-fi les/CBA%20Community
%20Report%202010.pdf [accessed 21 September
2010].20 Faye Simpson and Howard Williams, ‘Evaluating
Community Archaeology in the UK’, Public Archae-
ology, 7, 2 (2008), 69–90 (pp. 73–76).21 Sherry Arnstein, ‘A Ladder of Citizen Participation’,
Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 35,
4 (1969), 216–24.22 Carol McDavid, ‘The Death of a Community
Archaeology Project? Ensuring Consultation in
a Non-Mandated Bureaucratic Environment’, in
World Heritage: Global Challenges, Local Solu-
tions, ed. by Roger White and John Carman
(Oxford: Archaeopress, 2007), pp. 107–11.
66 PAUL BELFORD
23 Gabriel Moshenska, ‘Community Archaeo logy:
Against the Odds’, Current Archaeology, 213 (2007),
34.24 Pat Reid, ‘Community Archaeology: From the
Grassroots’, Current Archaeology, 216 (2008), 21.25 Rachael Kiddey and John Schofi eld, ‘Digging for
(Invisible) People’, British Archaeology, 113 (2010),
18–23. I am very grateful to John Schofi eld for sight
of a paper about the Bristol project which he and
Rachael have submitted to Public Archaeology.26 Neil Faulkner, ‘The Sedgeford Crisis’, Public
Archaeology, 8, 1 (2009), 51–61 (p. 53).27 Mike Nevell, ‘Dig Manchester, Youth Offenders
and Heritage Engagement’, paper presented at On
the Edge: New Approaches to Community Heritage,
seminar supported by the CBA and Gloucester City
Council (Gloucester, 17 September 2010).28 Conventionally see H. R. Schubert, History of the
British Iron and Steel Industry from c. 450 BC to AD
1775 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957);
and T. S. Ashton, Iron and Steel in the Industrial
Revolution (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 1924). Many aspects of this process, and
present-day consequences of it, were discussed at a
conference in Coalbrookdale in 2009; the proceed-
ings can be found in Paul Belford, Marilyn Palmer
and Roger White (eds), Footprints of Industry
(Oxford: Archaeopress, 2010).29 For background information see: Judith Alfrey
and Kate Clark, Landscape of Industry: Patterns
of Change in the Ironbridge Gorge (London: Rout-
ledge, 1993); Barrie Trinder, The Making of the
Industrial Landscape, 3rd edn (London: Orion,
1997); Barrie Trinder, The Industrial Revolution in
Shropshire, 3rd edn (Chichester: Phillimore, 2000).30 Roger White and Harriet Devlin, ‘From Basket Case
to Hanging Baskets: Regeneration, Alienation
and Heritage in Ironbridge’, in White and Carman,
pp. 47–51.31 Dugald MacFayden, Sir Ebenezer Howard and the
Town Planning Movement (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1970); Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities
of To-Morrow, edited reprint of 1902 edition
(London: Faber and Faber, 1946), pp. 50–57, 138–
47.32 HMSO, Report of the Royal Commission on
the Distribution of Industrial Population (Barlow
Report), Cmd 6153 (London, 1940).33 HMSO, The Greater London Plan 1944 (Abercrom-
bie Plan), Ministry of Works and Planning (London,
1945); HMSO, Interim Report of the New Towns
Committee, Ministry of Town and Country Plan-
ning, Cmd 6759 (London, 1946); HMSO, Second
Interim Report of the New Towns Committee,
Ministry of Town and Country Planning, Cmd 6794
(London, 1946); HMSO, Report of the New Towns
Committee (Reith Report), Ministry of Town and
Country Planning, Cmd 6876 (London, 1946).
34 New Towns Act 1946. The fact that these enquiries
and their reports were undertaken during the
Second World War, under the shadow of mass
bombing and possible invasion, is itself interesting,
and perhaps explains why the ethos of central
planning was uncritically accepted by the post-war
consensus.35 John Madin and Partners, Dawley, Wellington,
Oakengates: Consultants’ Proposals for Develop-
ment. A Report to the Minister of Housing and
Local Government (London: HMSO, 1966); D. A.
Bull, ‘New Town and Town Expansion Schemes.
Part I: An Assessment of Recent Government Plan-
ning Reports’, The Town Planning Review, 38, 2
(1967), 103–14.36 George Baugh (ed.), The Victoria History of Shrop-
shire. Volume XI: Telford (London: Institute for
Historical Research, 1985), pp. 8–10. Ironically,
Ironbridge is now the prosperous middle-class
settlement, and Wellington has suffered economic
decline.37 Maurice De Soissons, Telford: The Making of
Shropshire’s New Town (Shrewsbury: Swan Hill,
1991), pp. 55–65.38 See http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/pyra-
mids/pages/00gf.asp [accessed 17 November 2010].39 Rodney Tolley, ‘Telford New Town: Conception
and Reality in West Midlands Industrial Overspill’,
The Town Planning Review, 43, 4 (1972), 343–360
(p. 343).40 De Soissons, pp. 64–69.41 Emyr Thomas, unpublished MS, cited in White
and Devlin, p. 48; Angus Buchanan, ‘Review’, The
Economic History Review, 39, 3 (1986), 474.42 Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, Memorandum
and Articles of Association (Clause 3), incorporated
18 October 1967, amended 9 October 1990 and 27
July 2005.43 Neil Cossons, ‘Ironbridge: The First Ten Years’,
Industrial Archaeology Review, 3, 2 (1979), 179–86
(pp. 184–85).44 Christina Cameron, ‘From Warsaw to Mostar: The
World Heritage Committee and Authenticity’, APT
Bulletin, 39, 2/3 (2008), 19–24 (p. 20).45 Stephen Mills, ‘Moving Buildings and Changing
History’, in Heritage, Memory and the Politics of
Identity, ed. by Niamh Moore and Yvonne Whelan
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), pp. 109–20 (p. 111).46 Alan Eaton, Madeley through Time (Stroud:
Amberley, 2010), pp. 14–16.47 Dawley Observer, 4 October 1967.48 Brian Savage, personal communication.49 Buchanan, p. 474.50 Graham Fairclough, ‘New Heritage Frontiers’, in
Heritage and Beyond (Strasbourg: Council of
Europe, 2009), pp. 29–42 (p. 40).51 Baugh, plate 32.
67ARCHAEOLOGY IN AN ENGLISH NEW TOWN
52 See http://www.parksforpeople.co.uk/projects/
65#telford [accessed 19 November 2010].53 The present author was at the time Head of Archae-
ology at Ironbridge; work by Nexus Heritage was
undertaken by Kate Page-Smith. Other Ironbridge
Gorge Museum staff, volunteers, and trustees
included: Gillian Whitham, Mel Weatherley, Rob
Crumpton, Vanessa Hold, Paul Smith, John Powell,
Simon Kenyon-Slaney, Neil Clark, and Ken Jones.54 Kate Page-Smith, Telford Town Park, Parks for
People Project, Shropshire: Archaeological and
Historical Desk-Based Assessment, Nexus Heritage
Report no. 3035 (unpublished report for Telford
and Wrekin Council, 2010). All the historical infor-
mation in this section, unless otherwise referenced,
is taken from this report.55 Paul Belford, Archaeological Excavations at Double
Row, Hinkshay, Telford Town Park, Ironbridge
Archaeological Series no. 307 (unpublished report
for Telford and Wrekin Council, 2010). All the
archaeological information in this section, unless
otherwise referenced, is taken from this report.56 Barrie Trinder, Industrial Revolution in Shropshire,
pp. 73–74, 83.57 Shropshire Historic Environment Record: 02885,
03882, 03883, 12907, 21536, ESA2713. 58 In East Shropshire and the Black Country the term
‘brew-house’ (pronounced ‘brew’us’) describes a
room or building used for laundry and also brewing
and other activities. They were usually shared
between several houses, and thus provided a
communal meeting-place for women and children.59 Notably at Langley Fields, Carpenters’ Row at
Coalbrookdale, and the former settlement at Dark
Lane. See Paul Belford and Ronald Ross, ‘Industry
and Domesticity: Exploring Historical Archaeology
in the Ironbridge Gorge’, Post-Medieval Archaeol-
ogy, 38, 2 (2004), 215–25; Dennis Rogers, Dark
Lane: The Forgotten Village of Telford (Wellington:
Wellington News, 2002).60 Paul Belford, Engaging with the Community: Inter-
im Report on the Telford Town Park Community
Archaeology Project, 1004–A (unpublished report
for Telford and Wrekin Council, 2010). All of the
information about engagement, unless otherwise
referenced, is taken from this report.61 Council of Europe, Faro Convention, Article 2b.62 Outsiders, however much they may be ‘profession-
als’, can often fi nd a way of engaging which eludes
local professionals. See Paul Belford, ‘Bridging the
Atlantic: Archaeology and Community in England
and Bermuda’, in White and Carman, pp. 97–106.63 Malcolm Peel, personal communication.64 Reid, p. 21.65 Shelley Greer, Rodney Harrison and Susan
McIntyre-Tamwoy, ‘ Community-Based Archaeol-
ogy in Australia’, World Archaeology, 34, 2 (2002),
pp. 265–87 (p. 268).66 Simpson and Williams, p. 74.67 John Boardman, The Archaeology of Nostalgia
(London: Thames and Hudson, 2002), p. 74.68 Peter Groote and Tialda Haartsen, ‘The Communi-
cation of Heritage: Creating Place Identities’, in
Graham and Howard, pp. 181–94.69 Laurajane Smith and Emma Waterton, Heritage,
Communities and Archaeology. (London: Duckworth,
2009), p. 52.70 Noel Fojut, ‘The Philosophical, Political and
Pragmatic Roots of the Convention’, in Heritage
and Beyond, pp. 13–22.71 Fairclough, p. 38.72 An initial response to Department for Communities
and Local Government, Proposals for Changes to
Planning Application Fees in England: Consultation
(19 November 2010), http://www.communities.gov.
uk/documents/planningandbuilding/pdf/1769286.
pdf [accessed on 22 November 2010], at http://
www2.westminster.gov.uk/press-releases/2010/uk-
heritage-at-risk-as-councils-subsidise-planning/ [ac-
cessed 22 November 2010].73 Roger Thomas, ‘Archaeology and Authority in the
Twenty-First Century’, in Public Archaeology,
ed. by Nick Merriman (London: Routledge, 2004),
pp. 191–202 (p. 197); Malcolm Cooper, ‘Protecting
our Past: Political Philosophy, Regulation, and
Heritage Management in England and Scotland’,
The Historic Environment: Policy and Practice, 1,
2 (2010), 143–59.
Notes on contributor
Paul Belford is an archaeologist with diverse research and professional interests,
including post-medieval industrialization, colonialism and urbanization, and relations
between the different historic environment professions. A Sheffield graduate, Paul has
worked on a wide range of projects in various parts of the world, and for ten years
was the Head of Archaeology at the Ironbridge Gorge. He is now Principal at Nexus
Heritage. Paul is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a Council Member of the
Institute for Archaeologists.
Correspondence to: Paul Belford. Email: [email protected]