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March 2020

Ok, so March took a bit of an unexpected turn.

We hope you are all well and managing to adjust to these unusual and challenging times. As you know from the last COVID-19 Update we sent out (18.03.20), the WallCAP team are all now working from home and of course, as of last week, operating under lockdown. It will come as no surprise that we have no fieldwork or events planned until after 31st May and we will review this at the end of April.

So, while we're all adjusting to the new 'normal', we have been beavering away working on ideas for keeping you involved in the project, albeit, not digging in a trench, measuring stonework or manouvering survey equipment around! We'll be in touch again very soon with our GIS research project which we mentioned in the last update email.

We hope you find this newsletter both useful and informative!

Stay home, stay safe.

The WallCAP Team

What's New

Hadrian's Wall MOOC
Not 'new' but might be new to some of you!
The Hadrian's Wall MOOC (Massive Online Open Course) which Newcastle University staff Ian Haynes and Rob Collins (WallCAP Project Manager) produced some years ago for the FutureLearn platform, is available for FREE to anyone, anywhere. Many of you may have already completed it, but for those who haven't and are missing your 'fix' of Hadrian's Wall............

Click here to sign up for the FREE Hadrian's Wall MOOC

Social Media - no social distancing required!
As we’re all at home and in need of a bit of a boost, we’re taking inspiration from Northumberland National Park, Hadrian’s Wall Path National Trail and Visit Hadrian’s Wall, who are spreading a bit of joy through their social media platforms - whilst encouraging everyone to stay home - by bringing the outdoors INDOORS and sharing some wonderful views of the Wall!

So, every week we’re going to introduce a new theme across all WallCAP social media platforms (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook) and we’d love it if all of our followers got involved and shared one of your own gorgeous images. Please don't forget to tag us in your posts!

This is the really important bit: Please only upload photographs which you already have at home in your photo archives. We don't want anyone to be going out especially to capture images for this.

We will then 'Share' your posts throughout the week and hopefully flood our social media with a bit of much needed joy, in the hopes of bringing people together and encouraging everyone to feel more connected to each other and to the outside world, whilst remaining safely indoors(!).

If you’d like to get involved, keep your eyes peeled on our platforms, then share an image of yours and don't forget to tag us!

Twitter: @WallCAP
Instagram: wall_cap
Facebook: 'Hadrian's Wall Community'

To kick off, we're introducing this week's theme as 'Your favourite view of the Wall'. By the end of today we will have posted onto each of the above platforms to start you all off! We will announce the new theme on a Monday morning!

Happy Posting!

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Statement from Hadrian's Wall Management Plan Co-ordinator
So, with the Wall's attractions, businesses and communities operating under lockdown, John Scott, the Management Plan Co-ordinator for Hadrian's Wall has issued this statement on the Hadrian's Wall Country website to everyone who loves and misses visiting the Wall. To read the statement, please click here and scroll towards the bottom of the web page.

Heritage at Risk (HAR) Activity

Free Mapping!
WallCAP is gathering a lot of information that is used to create the maps we need to get appropriate permissions to carry out our HAR fieldwork, as well as to put in our reports on completion of fieldwork. But we also want to make that mapping information available to anyone that works with GIS and other mapping programs. So, we have placed data on Newcastle University's open-source data (https://data.ncl.ac.uk) server, so that our maps and data can be used by all (with appropriate credit, of course)!

For those who are interested, the links below are for the three collections, in which the individual files are located:

Stanegate

https://doi.org/10.25405/data.ncl.c.4893759.v1

Coastal system

https://doi.org/10.25405/data.ncl.c.4893735

Hadrian’s Wall Frontier

https://doi.org/10.25405/data.ncl.c.4893762.v1

Stone Sourcing and Dispersal (SSD)

In mid March, Ian, our Community Geologist was invited to work with the KS2 year groups at All Saints Primary School in Morpeth, Northumberland to explore 'Rocks' and the 'Romans'. Here at WallCAP we thought this was a great opportunity to introduce a younger audience to the Stone Sourcing and Dispersal element of the WallCAP project.

Across the sessions, three broad subjects were covered each linking with each other. These were volcanoes, Pompeii and Hadrian’s Wall, with each workshop offering a mixture of presentation, question-times and activities.

The aims of this session were:

To introduce the Stone Sourcing and Dispersal project
To give a sense of the scale of the Wall
To explore the choices of material for building the Wall
To understand the work involved in building the Wall

By all accounts, the children, teachers and Ian (!) all had a great day.

We'll get the case study up on the WallCAP website soon.

Mystery Rock Competition!
Ian has set us all a little geology quiz! This photo was taken somewhere along the Hadrian's Wall corridor......

Clue: Go West

Where is it?

What kind of rock is it?

How has it been formed?

Answers in next month's Newsletter!

Meet the Team

In this section we usually take the opportunity to get to know each other a bit better! As Paul left the project in March, we wanted to give him an opportunity to say a few words. We wish Paul well in his next venture. It's been a pleasure to work with him and especially to hear his interesting theories on the purpose of the Vallum!

Paul Frodsham
This is just a quick note to say thanks very much for helping to make my time with WallCAP so rewarding and enjoyable, and to advise you that despite my great fondness for the project (which germinated from an initial idea that Kerry and I had several years ago) the time has now come for me to move on and concentrate on other things.

The most important element in the project’s success is of course you – the volunteers. I have been hugely impressed by the commitment you have all shown, whether in the very muddy mud at Corbridge or the very windy wind at Portgate, to get work done. I know from what several of you have told me that you have found the work rewarding, partly because of things you have learnt but also because you know you are contributing to a project with laudable aims to enhance the World Heritage Site. I hope this continues to be the case for the remainder of the project.

That said, things are obviously in limbo for the time being. I hope you all manage to stay safe through these uncertain times. As you know I have always stressed the importance of our risk assessments every time we have done anything; there isn’t one for the current situation, but if there was it would say please, if you can, STAY AT HOME!

It has genuinely been a pleasure working with you and I wish you the best of luck for the rest of the project and beyond.

Best wishes,
Paul

And Finally.....

All that remains to be said is, stay safe, stay at home and stay connected.

We are missing you all!

The WallCAP Team

Click here to visit the WallCAP Website

February 2020 Newsletter

The Hadrian's Wall Community Archaeology Project (WallCAP) is very kindly funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund between 2019 and 2021

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Hadrian's Wall Community Archaeology Project (WallCAP) · Newcastle University · Armstrong Building · Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 7RU · United Kingdom