The View From Above

 Landscape research 1600 to 1970

End of year review .

The volunteers have begun to tackle several different strands of archival research, all currently focused on the century 1750-1850 and the parishes of Cannock, Rugeley and Colwich. Much of what we are looking at comes from the archive of the Paget family, who owned the Chase. A group looking at miscellaneous estate memoranda have found a number of interesting documents that illustrate the management of the Chase, such as lists of sheep herds and the marks used to identify them, and notes about colltages built on the edges of the Chase. The correspondence of estate agents forms a similar kind of resource, shedding light on a number of different management issues, in particular poaching. A more formulaic source is provided by estate rentals: here, a group are transcribing selected rentals in order to build up a picture of landholding around and on the Chase; we hope to compare these with the earliest maps of the Chase (notably the tithe) in order to locate holdings and the place-names that go with them, with the ultimate aim of building a picture of the social geography of the area.

 

Another group is looking at parish records, creating spreadsheets of baptisms, burials and marriages that will enable us to run a number of statistical calculations on the local population. This will tell us how the area compared to the national average, and should shed light on issues such as migration. A group looking at census returns is tackling similar issues, particularly migration (from records of place of birth) and the kinds of occupations practiced by the local inhabitants. We hope to use trade directories for similar purposes.

 

Finally, we have a student looking at quarter sessions and magistrates records, pulling out records of crimes committed on the Chase; again, this is often poaching, but also includes activities such as illegal heath burning and fern cutting.

We have enough material to keep us busy for the next few months, but are planning to hold a special session to take stock of our current progress in mid-January.

Best wishes,

Andrew Sargent

Volunteers Training and Workshops

Landscape survey , LiDAR, field work training and workshops.

 

                       Registered volunteers are invited to attend the first introductory training session on the Landscape survey, the use of LiDAR , aerial mapping and how we plan to record newly discovered features across the Chase.

The workshops, led by the team from Historic England will introduce you to the technology and methods used to map from above and how we plan to map on the ground for fieldwork.

 This workshop is in two parts, and we can only accept participants for part two (field survey) if you have attended the part one the day before.

(however if you can only attend part one that’s fine as there will be plenty of other field work days!)

 

Introductory Training Workshop (part one)

Field Work and ground survey (part two)

Sorry these workshops are now fully booked for this months training.


Please check back for dates of a repeat of the workshop.

Registered Volunteers please BOOK A PLACE by a confirmation email to receive further details of these workshops – it helps us plan the refreshments !

 

We look forward to meeting soon,

Regards,

Gary

Gary Ball

Project Coordinator

The Chase Through Time

Snapshot of the LiDAR revealing the Brocton Great War training camps (Historic England, TCTTP)

Training and skills workshop resources

It is useful for volunteers to have access to any of the slides from presentations that we use for training and workshops.
There will be an opportunity to view these slides online via SlideShare


Following on from the first of the Archives Research Workshop , the slides that accompanied the presentation are available on this LINK.


The maps are useful to establish the extent of the area we intend to research and how it relates to the modern boundaries of the Cannock Chase AONB.

Archives and Records Office - workshop dates for the diary.

Hello, and welcome to the Chase Through Time project! Thank you for showing an interest in the project and volunteering your time to help undertake the research. I am editor-in-training on the Staffordshire Victoria County History and a lecturer in medieval history at Keele University, and I will be supervising the project's archival research strand.

I'd like to invite you all to an introductory session at the Staffordshire Record Office in Stafford on the 26th October, 10-12 noon. The session will provide an introduction to the project, its aims ,and goals, and to the documents that you can study over the coming months. We'll also undertake a short workshop so that each of you can have a go at analysing a source and producing a record for the project's archive.

Don't worry if you can't make this session. Afterwards, we hope to meet each week on Wednesday, 10-12, and there will be ample opportunity to show any newcomers the ropes at these sessions.

A map showing the location of the record office can be found here:

https://preview.staffordshire.gov.uk/leisure/archives/contact/sro/home.aspx

I'd be grateful if you could let me know if you intend to come to the session on the 26th, so that we have an idea of numbers. I look forward to meeting you all and to working with you on this exciting project!

Best wishes,

Andrew Sargent