Compiling your finished Report on ?
Use a folder and include in this order:
- a title page giving the title, your name and completion date
- contents page and number your pages
- location map for your site (you can take this from web) with its OS grid reference number
- plan of the site (as with everything else, source should be credited)
- your own summary of the information in your Desktop Study; you can include footnotes then include all the Desktop Study evidence
- then describe what chosen site was like when new you can use a picture from any book to illustrate this
- then show what the site is like now using your own photographs with scale, captions, and compass directions and, if appropriate, footnotes you can use overlays to highlight certain features
- photographs and other illustrations need to be within the text use and comment upon them.
- say what is missing on the site and what has been preserved and why
- assess if the site is stable or has continuing damage
- give a full Bibliography of all your sources if someone has given you verbal information then record this as a personal comment from the named person.
- include Acknowledgements to anyone who has helped you.
You may have found new information about your site. Even if you have not, your photographs and description will provide up-to-date information on the site. So show your Report to the County HER/SMR Officer and, if appropriate, place a copy of your Report in the County HER/SMR. You have produced really useful information so well done....
Parish Regression Maps
You can investigate an area, for example a parish, in the same way. Here you will produce regression maps. Your headings will depend on the surviving features of your particular site; the following is a general outline but some areas may require, for example, an Iron Age section or perhaps a division in the 19th century section. The same map is used in each section. So your folder will slightly differ from the above list by including:
- An overall map of the whole area indicating your sub areas
- Then a Prehistoric Section showing the same map but highlighting the Prehistoric features (earthworks, artefact finds) you have located.
- This is then followed by a full description of each feature.
- Then you do the same for the next, Roman, section and so on......
- At the end have a Conclusion summarising your findings to demonstrate the way your parish has been used, where people have lived, where evidence could have been expected but has not survived, where further fieldwalking or geophysical surveying may provide more evidence and so forth....
Again, show your Report to the County HER/SMR Officer and, if appropriate, place a copy in the HER/SMR for future researchers.
I hope you have enjoyed this...and maybe you will continue investigating and perhaps go on to volunteer to help on a directed excavation as well.
©Ruth E. Richardson 2012