Mike Hartwell's blog

Well now that we are firmly into the New Year we have barely a moment to catch our breath. The pre-Christmas snows delayed many sites and we are now rushing to cover them all at once. With staff from Goole to Gloucester we are covering a large area ensuring sure that all of our projects are staffed so we can satisfy all our clients.

With the New Year comes a new starter, we have Grace Corbett working in the office now as a consultancy Project Officer helping to manage our sites and our busy archaeology consultancy department.

The team are very excited at the prospect of excavation starting in Leicestershire in the near future. An evaluation on a Deserted Medieval Village in the summer uncovered a series of features which corroborated with promising geophysical survey data and we are now going back for a closer look. With pottery dating from the 9^th-11^th centuries and bone objects including a comb and a pin we are hopeful of some interesting discoveries which we will update you on in due course.

Wessex Archaeology has now been in Sheffield for a full year, so it seemed like an appropriate time to start up a blog to let the world know what we get up to in the frozen north. Sheffield is an industrial city and our team specialise in industrial excavations and recording industrial buildings. With that in mind our offices are perfect for us; we are located in the former C.T. Skelton and Co Shovel and Spade Works. Built in the mid 19th century it is now converted into modern offices.

Wessex Archaeology Sheffield

Many our team have worked together for a good few years in and around Sheffield. However, recently we have begun to expand, and have new faces to work with, most recently in the form of Hanna Steyne who is part of our Coastal and Marine Archaeology team.

Vulcan Works, Langley Mill, DerbyshireLast week Sheffield had over 30cm of snowfall which was something I’ve not seen since I’ve lived in Sheffield. Despite the city seemingly shutting down, Wessex Archaeology Sheffield stayed open! Some of us were walking over three miles through snow drifts and blizzards to make it in for work. It was quite something seeing pedestrians reclaim the roads and walk down the middle of the roads because the cars all stayed at home.

Over the last year we have been busy and our archaeologists have uncovered a large brick working site in Hull on Hawthorn Avenue, and completed a number of other interesting projects including excavations at the former Vulcan Works in Derbyshire and the Tinsley Wire Mills in the centre of Sheffield. We have also been working with the University of Sheffield undertaking excavations at Manor Lodge, a medieval hunting lodge on the outskirts of the city, helping to run their training excavations. Our standing buildings team have been busy recording sites around the north such as Nostell Priory, Rotherham Grain Warehouse and Huddersfield Railway Station to name a few.

Over the coming months we hope to use this blog to keep you updated with the work we are doing around the north and let you know of exciting discoveries as and when they happen.