How old is that house? (Buildings Section)

Spring Lecture with Dr James Wright FSA

This online Zoom lecture by award-winning buildings archaeologist James Wright will provide advice and guidance for researching historic houses. James, founder of Triskele Heritage, has two decades professional experience of ferreting around in people’s cellars, hunting through their attics and digging up their gardens.

Historic houses are familiar and popular elements of urban and rural landscapes. However, the vast majority of old properties have never been researched in a meaningful sense. This lack of knowledge extends to both well-known and more obscure buildings. Consequently, there is often a cloudy understanding about the true age of many ancient structures.

The talk will delve into the reasons for such limited understanding and will then offer practical guidance on how to use archaeological techniques to research ancient buildings. We will consider advice on how to track down buildings using archives; the pros and cons of dendrochronology will be outlined, and the techniques of buildings archaeology will be explained.

The Zoom meeting will open at 10:45am

The talk is free to all members of the DA. Members of the Buildings Section will all be provided with a link via email. Other members of the DA will be welcome to attend, but will need to request the link, details for which will be available a few weeks prior to the talk.