Neville & Carole Lee on Field Walking in Norfolk

• The Lecture given by Carole and Neville Lee is based on their experience of setting up and running a fieldwalking project in Southrepps from 2010 – 2023.
• The report based on the project was written during the Covid years and was compiled from the records maticulously kept while PART 1 of the project was ongoing.
• After Covid, our findings inspired us to fieldwalk three more fields and gave us a PART 2 to our original report.
• In all, thirty two fields were surveyed, covering a total of approx.800 acres and we named the report, “Scratching the Surface, A Fieldwalking Project in Southrepps,

We were living in Trunch at the time and saw an advertisement in a shop window in Southrepps, advertising a “Summer Evening Walk” with a group from Southrepps Society. During that event we learned members had published a pictorial book on the village spanning the 19^th and 20^th century. We also learned of the interest aroused by the amount of pottery sherds found by villagers while walking the footpaths. When asked if we would set up a ‘fieldwalking project’ we agreed. I had just completed a degree in English  Landscape History and Archaeology at UEA and was wondering what to do next and my husband who is a Maths teacher, enjoyed history. Did we qualify for the job? We had both experienced fieldwalking when I was at UEA but I am not sure we realised the length and breath of the deep learning curve which lay before us. That apart, we had lots of lovely volunteers who joined us on Sunday mornings and shared the beautiful Southrepps scenery and wildlife and the added bonus of tea and biscuits and lively ‘finds’ chatter.

The layers of processing and identifying the finds, map making and report writing were revealing and finally enabled us to fulfill our Mission Statement which was ‘an investigation into the evolution, and settlement patterns within the landscape of Southrepps. This was achieved without invasive digging or metal detecting and with much support from professionals.

Note £5 charge to all!

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