Volunteers and the Kent Historic Environment Record
The Kent Historic Environment Record (HER) is maintained by the Kent County Council Heritage Conservation Team. It is the database and mapping of all archaeological finds, sites, historic buildings and wrecks known in the county, with more than 62,000 such entries. It is primarily used as part of the planning system and to make available the findings of development related archaeological work carried out by commercial units. It is also used by researchers, students and members of the public. It is accessible via our website www.kent.gov.uk/her and can be searched by period, location, find type or via a map.
Over the past five years volunteers have been working in the Maidstone office of the HER. Members of the Faversham Society Archaeological Research Group, the Maidstone Area Archaeological Group and the Lenham Archaeology Society have each checked their respective areas, updating records on the HER and adding their own findings. Students and individual volunteers have also been working on the HER. They have undertaken a wide range of tasks, tackling everything from earliest prehistory right up to the present day. These volunteers checked every listed building on the HER, tidying up duplicated records, noting cases where the building was long gone (a variety of fires, motorways and railways being responsible for the losses), moving map points on to the right building and generally improving the national dataset to the extent that colleagues from English Heritage have recently described the Kent listed building data as probably the most accurate in the country (in terms of mapping accuracy at least). Volunteers have also added prehistoric trackways, Roman roads, canals and railways to the HER, making the transport networks clearly visible crossing the county. They have updated all of the Scheduled Monument records, added information on historic parks and gardens recorded by the Kent Gardens Trust and worked on Portable Antiquity Scheme records with the county Finds Liaison Officer. They have also worked to add historic pillar boxes (thanks to another site). David then explained the reasons for the migration from Winchelsea to Rye. He described some of the inventive ways in which Rye inhabitants made the most of the limited space in the town until its decline in the 17th century.
The first talk after lunch was given by Brendan Chester-Kadwell of Oakakre Associates, entitled ‘Rolvenden Historic Settlement Survey: How the Community can Use the Past to Inform the Future’. He reported on a community research project recently carried out as a contribution to Rolvenden Parish Plan. The aim was to gain a better understanding of the evolution of the rural settlement, with a view to helping the community determine future development policy. Brendan was accompanied Sue Saggers of Rolvenden Farmers’ Line, who had managed the project and was available to answer questions. The results of this project appear on pages ? - ? of this Newsletter.
Next, Peter Draper, member of the Historic Buildings Committee, spoke on ‘The Rise of Suburbia – The Inter-war Years’. He focussed on a period of house building when, he commented, planning regulations had been negligible but building regulations strict. Peter drew on family memories and anecdotes to give a personal view of developments and innovations in construction through the inter-war decades. He concentrated particularly on house building in the Dartford/ North Kent area.
Finally, Christopher Proudfoot rounded off the Conference by thanking the speakers for contributing to a day that was both enlightening and enjoyable, and he congratulated them too on exploding a few myths along the way. The audience joined Christopher in expressing thanks to David Carder for arranging the event.
data very kindly provided by the Letter Box Study group), milestones (thanks to data from the Milestone Society) and tackled the considerable number of cropmarks reported to the HER every year. Currently, they are working on rectifying all of the Tithe Maps for the county. This entails correctly locating each map image on modern computer mapping so that at the press of a button we can flick between modern and historic mapping that predates the 1st edition of the Ordnance Survey. The eventual aim is to create one new continuous map of the county as it appeared in c.1840. This will then be made available via our website, hopefully early in 2013. All of this has been made possible by the very generous and dedicated individuals who each regularly give up a day a week to help out. We are always looking for new recruits and have a number of new projects in the pipeline. If you would be interested in getting to grips with the HER and becoming part of the volunteer team please contact Ben Croxford on 01622 221528 or ben.croxford@kent.gov.uk. No previous experience is required and full training is provided. With your help, the Kent HER can continue to improve and expand.
Map: Dover on the Kent HER - showing fortifications (Roman, medieval and more recent), listing buildings, roads, railways, non-listed buildings and the concentration of archaeological sites in the ancient heart of the town. For more information, including the key to the various symbols used, please see our website www.kent.gov.uk/her.