How can members of the public get involved with the Higher Education Field Academy?
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Residents of communities where a Higher Education Field Academy (HEFA) takes place, including members of any local historical and archaeological societies, play a vital role in the Higher Education Field Academy programme. This provides an immensely positive experience for all concerned.
Click here to see one community's view of their test pit excavations
What can HEFA do for local communities?
- HEFA generates new knowledge about the history of the community: new archaeological discoveries from HEFA excavations within local communities are used to piece together how the place developed over hundreds, or even thousands, of years.
- HEFA provides an opportunity for members of the community to help local young people: people hosting test pits or helping out in other ways can get the chance to meet and work with - and potentially to make a real difference to the futures of - young people who will soon be making big decisions about their future education and for whom HEFA may also provide their first experience of engaging with heritage.
- HEFA provides a chance for members of rural communities to enjoy getting together: while promoting the excavations and finding sites to dig, while helping out during the excavations and during lectures about the results afterwards.
- HEFA provides a new stimulus to research into local village history: by finding and interpreting new archaeological discoveries, HEFA excavations can prompt members of the communities to carry out their own follow-up historical or archaeological research.
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- The HEFA excavations and their legacy can also be an excellent stimulus for local historical or archaeological societies, providing the chance to get involved in excavation, recruit new members, extend the scope of society activities, or start new projects.
- HEFA enables local communities to become part of a university research programme: The HEFA test-pitting programme is part of a national programme of academic research into the development of settlement in Britain since the Anglo-Saxon period. Click here to find out more.
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- Individuals and members of local historical and archaeological societies alike can keep in touch with the HEFA excavations and their results via the local coordinator, the ACA project website and through talks explaining the findings.
What can local communities do for HEFA?
- In advance of HEFA events, local community members and residents can help by working with the local coordinator to spread the word about forthcoming excavations and encouraging people to offer their gardens for excavations.
- Residents of communities hosting HEFA can help by offering their gardens or other open spaces as sites for one of the 2-day test pit excavations by a small team of young people.
- Individuals who are knowledgeable about the history of the village can help the HEFA team by providing information, which will help plan the excavations and interpret the results.
- During the 2-day excavation programme, members of the public can help out in many ways - helping with refreshments, showing digging teams to their excavation sites, visiting the excavation teams and showing an interest in their progress and discoveries, managing the village hall or other venue being used as a team base, running errands(!) and in many other ways.
- After HEFA excavations have finished, members of the public can get together themselves to plan and carry out future follow-up activities.
What is the role of a local coordinator?
- Each HEFA event involves one or more volunteer local coordinator(s) who is a local resident or someone else involved with the community. Each local coordinator is a key member of the HEFA team in each village where excavations take place, and the University is immensely grateful to the invaluable role they perform for the HEFA programme.
- The local coordinator is responsible for finding sites where HEFA test pit excavations can take place within their community. Each HEFA usually involves excavation of ten pits on different sites across the village, most of which are in private gardens.
- The local coordinator also identifies and books a venue to be used as a base for the HEFA over the two days – this usually the village hall or similar building. Most public buildings can make a good venue, as long as they have electric power and loos! (Any costs for venue hire will be paid by the University).
- Once a list of sites for excavation is ready but before the day the excavations begin, the local coordinator shows a member of the HEFA team around all the proposed excavation sites (the 'recce'), in order that the exact site for each excavation is agreed, and any constraints identified.
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- The local coordinator is also present for the two days of the excavations, in order to help with venue practicalities, help digging teams find their sites etc – and to enjoy seeing the fruition of all their work helping set up the excavation days, as the young excavators grow in confidence and new discoveries are made in the heart of the community!
- After the excavations have been completed, the local coordinator is sent details of the results, which they can distribute locally to those who they think will be interested, as they wish. These are also posted on the project website.
- Once a year, local coordinators from all HEFA communities are invited to a ‘Thank you’ day in Cambridge, in recognition of the value of the role they carry out for the programme. Here they will be able catch up and chat with the HEFA team members they met during the year, meet HEFA coordinators from other communities and compare experiences(!), hear from Carenza Lewis about the progress of the HEFA project during the preceding year and plans for the forthcoming year, all while enjoying lunch and refreshments in the University.
Hosting a Test Pit:
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- About ten test pits are dug on different sites during each HEFA course, mostly in private gardens.
- Excavation of the test pits is entirely by hand (i.e. no machinery is used) and takes just 2 days.
- Each test pit is exactly 1m square and no more than 1.2m deep, thus creating minimal mess or disruption to the normal use of the garden.
- Test pits can be sited anywhere the occupant of the property wishes, as long as the site is safe (i.e. not near a wall) and there is enough space to dig the pit and locate its spoil heap nearby.
- The digging is carried out by the young people (mostly aged 14-15) enrolled on the HEFA course, although garden/land owners will be welcome to join in by digging their own test pit if they wish to.
- The young people will work in groups of 3 or 4 and will be supervised at all times by an adult (school/college or HEFA staff or student volunteers).
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- Property owners do not need to be present while the pits are being dug, although are very welcome to observe, provide support or get involved if they want to.
- Turf is removed and replaced in neat squares.
- The limited amount of spoil created is deposited onto tarpaulins, preventing any damage to lawns.
- When excavation is completed, test pits are back-filled, with any turf originally present replaced neatly. The site should be almost invisible within a few weeks.
Afterwards:
- Any finds are spot-identified on site by experts present for the duration of the excavations. Thereafter finds are retained by the University while they are analysed more thoroughly. After this, they will normally be retained by the University, although they will be returned to the property owners if they are requested. The only exception is in respect of finds which are covered by the Treasure Law.
- The results of the excavations and analyses will be communicated to residents and property owners via the University website, written reports sent to the local coordinator and/or a follow-up meeting.
Finding out more:
Click here to read an account of the experience of hosting a Field Academy, written by a local resident and historical society member.
Click here to download a poster of information about hosting a Field Academy (364 KB).
For further details and queries, contact your local coordinator in the first instance, or contact the HEFA team administrator.