Library Volunteer Group

Historic England have over 400,000 digitised photos taken from their aerial photo collections now available to search online.

Click on this link to access their website - https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/archive/collections/aerial-photos/

On Thursday the 7th April there will be a mini conference to host the launch of a monograph summarising the excavations at Eccles (1962-76) and assessing the significance of the central and lower Medway valley during the 1st millennium AD.

Steve Cosh (the Roman villa) and Nick Stoodley (the Anglo-Saxon cemetery) present an overview and discussion of the more significant results to emerge from this work.

Nathalie Cohen, National Trust Archaeologist, will talk about the exciting recent excavations at Smallhythe in Kent:

"Perhaps best known today as the former home of Victorian actress Ellen Terry and her daughter Edy Craig, during the medieval period, Smallhythe was a location for royal shipbuilding and, as we found in summer 2021, it was also a hive of activity some 2,000 years ago."

For more details on how to attend click here...

The National Library of Scotland (a fabulous source for on-line mapping)

Please note that the Library will close from the 19th December 2021 until the 9th February 2022. Unfortunatley the Museum is closed during this period so we will be unable to access the Library.

If you have any enquiries please still send them along as some of our volunteers have good reference collections at home and may be able to help. We may also be able to access some material at our storeroom. 

Merry Christmas. Stay safe.

The KAS Library and Archives team.

Here is a transcripton from one of the items in our collection. This document is the account of a cobbler, John Hall, who lived in Snargate in 1748. The account was rendered to the Overseer of the Poor Law. The document can be found in the Gordon Ward archive ref: Snargate 014.

The Transcription Interest Group has transcribed a Kentish related document held at the Kent History & Library Centre (with permission of South Staffordshire County Council). Doc.ref: D593/S/4/6/7a.  The document is an instruction to the High Sheriff of the County of Kent to investigate a riot at Northfleet, c.1586.

Our Transcription Interest Group has been working on papers in the Gordon Ward collection. This document relates to the sale of lands in Mereworth in 1627. The two persons involved are George Cotton and Lawrance Evernden.

Our associated organisation in Buckinghamshire have alerted the KAS Library to a new project. There is currently a government led Local Heritage Listing initiative to record local sites, buildings, and monuments that are of community and heritage importance, but have either not met the strict statutory listing requirement, or have simply slipped through the net. Buckinghamshire Council has received funding for this project and we need to get people involved to nominate sites. We are also looking for volunteers to assist with the site surveys and data input.

One of our associated groups has informed the library of an upcoming, free lecture, held by the Flag Fen Archaeology Park.  The talk will be by Dr Tom Booth of the Crick Institute in London. He specialises in analysing ancient DNA from human remains. 

The Royal Holloway, University of London are holding a virtual conference which may be of interest. It is titled "Until Death Do Us Part: Historical Perspectives on Death and those Left Behind".

Our associates in the Bucks Archaeological Society have told me about an online talk that might be of interest. Here are some details and if you'd like to attend then please go to the registration link given below.

Secret Buckinghamshire Virtual talk series: No. 1
Bletchley Park: British Intelligence and the Second World War
Date: Wednesday 7 April 2021             Time: 1900hrs           Free Online Event
with speaker Professor John Ferris (Professor of History at the University of Calgary)

During Lockdown the Library has been busy adding previously digitised material to its collection. In 2019 we were given archival material from Graeme Horner's 1960's excavations at Lullingstone Park and this is now available to view via the library catalogue.

The Manorial Documents Register (MDR) is the official index to English and Welsh manorial records and provides brief descriptions of documents and details of their locations in public and private hands. 

The National Archives at Kew now provide online access to this resource.

Manorial documents include court rolls, surveys, maps, terriers, documents and books of every description relating to the boundaries, franchises, wastes, customs or courts of a manor. Title deeds are not included in the MDR. 

For a look at the history of Randall Manor, once home to the de Cobhams of Randall go to this video: 

Thu 28th January 2021 from 18:30 to 20:00

Enjoy an illustrated, online talk by Sophie Adams about the massive Late Bronze Age hoard from Boughton Malherbe; an international story in a local setting.

Sophie will describe the history of this 64kg of metal objects; the present day work on cleaning and researching the objects; and future plans for the display and preservation of the hoard. 

The hoard will feature in a special exhibition at the museum in the future.

Kentish archaeologist Dr. Sophie Adams as put together an advent for the Boughton Malherbe bronze age hoard project. Find it here - https://calendar.myadvent.net/?id=59835fb6e6bc74462a17be9760db2b13.

If you have an interest in bronze age hoards and metalwork you may also be interested in Dr. Adams website - https://bronzeagehoards.com/

The Library is currently involved in a project to digitise the estate plans held within the Gordon Ward archives. 

British History Online provides online access to "The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent", volumes 1 to 12, by Edward Hasted and originally published in 1797. These volumes include a general account of the history, topography and natural history of the ancient county. It also details the parishes of the two hundreds of Blackheath and Bromley and Beckenham, including several parishes which now form part of metropolitan London. These include Charlton, Deptford, Greenwich, Lewisham and Woolwich.

British History Online provides a digitial version of "A history of the County of Kent: volume 2", originally published in 1926. This volume deals with the religious houses of Kent, including accounts of the early history of Canterbury and Rochester cathedrals.

Click here to access the volume:

https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/kent/vol2

Reports from the "Hoo Peninsula Historic Landscape Project"  are currently available to download online, via the Historic England website.

The Hoo Peninsula, looking west from Grain. NMR26477/050 © Damian Grady/Historic England

These two documents (Gordon Ward ref: CHA 006) relate to the extremes that parishes would go to, to ascertain where the charges for the support of a child should be laid under the Poor Law as it stood in 1824.  The child in question, William Winton, was born on board the hulk o

A collection of monograph titles have been opened up in their entirety, free to view, during October.

Click here to browse by subject.

Research using KAS archival material can take many forms. Mr Nicholas Hill, of the Maidstone Area Archaeological Group, has kindly provided us with the Boxley Abbey report he put together using material in the Peter Tester archive.

New titles in the Library include:

"Meanderings in Sturry, Fordwich, Broad Oak, Hersden and Westbere" edited by Heather Stennett and K.H. McIntosh.

The Archaeology of Kent: past, present and future. No.3. (part 1 &2)

From August 2020 it will be possible for members to visit the Library again but due to Covid 19 there are restrictions in place.

We will not be able to have more than 3 people in the library at any one time, so flexibility on visiting dates may be necessary. Maidstone Museum's policy is to manage the numbers of people on site so to visit the library you will need to make an appointment first, either with the Museum or the Librarian.

Every organisation involved in public participation in archaeology has been affected in some way by the Coronavirus crisis. This is your chance to tell us how the CBA can help. 

The CBA has recently secured support from Historic England’s COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund for a project to help rebuild public participation in archaeology as we recover from the effects of the pandemic.

The CBA Festival of Archaeology is back for its 29th year in 2020 offering opportunities to get involved in archaeology across the UK.

In response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, this year's Festival will take place in two parts with a series of digital events in July and on the ground events in October.

Although this article is a couple of months old I only came across it yesterday and thought it may be of interest:

Bones discovered more than a century ago in a Kent church are almost certainly the remains of an early English saint who was the granddaughter of Ethelbert, the first English king to convert to Christianity, experts have concluded.

Don't forget the ADS when researching archaeological topics. 

The ADS is the leading accredited digital repository for heritage data generated by UK-based fieldwork and research. The ADS has a number of resources - monument and event records, archives, journals, books and reports. 

The architecture, history and collections of Rochester Cathedral can now be explored online in 3D. Sections of the Virtual Tour are numbered according to the chapters of the Audio Tour, with the tour narrated by Jools Holland.

For more information please click here to go to the Cathedral website.

I came across this video (slightly dated) on the weekend where the London and Surrey 'Earth Mysteries' groups have a day trip around some of the Kentish prehistoric sites. Particularly of interest to me was the visit to Chestnuts. (I believe that site is currently inaccessible, being on private land.) The video prompted me to take my own little day trip to to find the Chiding Stone..

Click here to view the Coldrum Field Trip video.

Here are a couple of photos of the library room as it was before the fire in 1977.

For a short period of time the Oxford Dictionary of Family Names has made its database available for free.

The Sussex Archaeological Society have announced details for the October 2020 conference on the theme of archaeology and climate change.

A new website had been launched which aims to make available imagery from various LiDAR datasets from across the county, including the recently obtained high resolution data covering over 190 square km along the Darent Valley and area of the Sevenoaks Commons, at the western end of the Kent Downs AONB.

The National Archives are making digital records available on their website free of charge for as long as our Kew site is closed to visitors.

Registered users will be able to order and download up to ten items at a time, to a maximum of 50 items over 30 days. The limits are there to try and help manage the demand for content and ensure the availability of our digital services for everyone.

To access the service and download for free, users will be required to:

In response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the Council for British Archaeology (CBA) has decided to make some changes to the 2020 CBA Festival of Archaeology and it will now be taking place in two parts with a series of digital events in July and on the ground events in October.

To make the best out of the current challenging times, the Nautical Archaeology Society has started a new free online lunchtime talks series. They have lined up a range of speakers on topics related to underwater archaeology, maritime heritage, foreshore archaeology – anything wet and old and interesting! They hope this will provide an opportunity for students, volunteers and avocational archaeologists to practice their presentation skills in a less stressful environment.

The Council for British Archaeology are bringing together free resources to help anyone engaged in archaeology, whether you are an organisation looking for practical help, or are looking for content to keep you or your family entertained at home.

The UK has rainfall records dating back 200 years or so, but the vast majority of these are in handwritten form and can't easily be used to analyse past periods of flooding and drought. The Rainfall Rescue Project is seeking volunteers to transfer all the data into online spreadsheets. You're not required to rummage through old bound volumes as the Met Office has already scanned the necessary documents - all 65,000 sheets.

A selection of news from the Medway Archives.

A time to celebrate Medway's rich heritage