New details about the history of Harlaxton’s old manor houses was been revealed on Saturday 7 February following a community archaeology event to clean finds from a dig undertaken last year.
More than 20 volunteers from across Lincolnshire gathered at Harlaxton Village Hall to clean, analyse and preserve more than 200 finds including pottery, bone and metal objects like buckles dug up during the excavation of the old manorial site in the village last September.
Harlaxton History Society began its community archaeology project in the village to find the “The Lost manors of Harlaxton” in 2024 with archival research which, in turn, led to a month-long excavation of the site on Rectory Lane through September last year.
In the course of this dig hundreds of small pieces of pottery, pieces of metal and shards of glass were uncovered which have allowed experts to date the site back to around the time of the Norman Conquest. The earliest shard of pottery has been dated to 9th – 11th Century, taking the history of the site far further back than the historical records had previously suggested.
The dig and this latest cleaning event were both supported by a grant of £12,100 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund which has helped introduce people with no previous experience of archaeology to get hands on involvement.
One of the Project Leads, Douglas Brown said: “The finds are revealing new insights into our village history and as such help give the community a sense of heritage and identity, but just as important is that we are opening up archaeology to more people. This community cleaning event in particular put a brush and shard of pottery into the hands of people who watch Time Team or Digging For Britain but never imagined they too could help uncover history.”
The Harlaxton History Society is creating a report on the findings which it will publish later in the year on the Harlaxton History Society web site www.harlaxtonhistory.co.uk.
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