A very Happy New Year to all our ‘friends’ from the President and all the Committee. We give our thanks to Mick Jones for putting together another excellent programme for 2007. He has outlined this for us below. Several of you who attended the FLARE Christmas Party have expressed your appreciation, by word and letter. The general feeling was how relaxed and pleasant it all was and how much members enjoyed the entertainment. I quote from one letter: “The entertainers were a star discovery, revealing a totally unexpected ‘side’ to two sober archaeologists.”

One issue of concern to FLARE is a proposal by the County Council to establish an ‘Integrated Cultural Facility’ to bring together the diverse elements that make up our cultural heritage. These include the Library, Archives, Tennyson Centre, ‘The Collection,’ Museum of Lincolnshire Life, Conservation Lab. and other related bodies. It is envisaged that Lincoln University with its library and academic resources will play a major role. One idea being explored is all of these elements, including their stores, being more centralised and substantially re-located to a new cultural ‘Centre’ – possibly located on the University Campus. As an interested body, with a special remit for archaeology, FLARE has been invited to preliminary consultative meetings and I am attending these on your behalf. When firm proposals have been made I will bring these to our meetings for your consideration.

John Wilford

CITY ARCHAEOLOGIST’S REPORT

My contribution this time is mainly concerned with the programme of talks and outings for the first part of 2007. Not that there has not been other news. The continued excavations at St Catherine’s revealed more evidence of Mesolithic activity to add to that from south of Brayford Pool. We shall now regard all areas of sand close to the water’s edge (as it was in c.5000BC!) as potentially containing similar evidence – but it is difficult to identify it unless a large area of land is available to be explored. We do expect that further environmental sampling will be possible during this year in conjunction with a number of developments. Among these there should be an opportunity to trace the former line of the River Till, the predecessor of the Fossdyke, as it met Brayford Pool, with possibilities for dating the origin of the canal.

Our two new volumes on the Upper City and on Saxon and Medieval Pottery were formally launched in December, along with the report on medieval and later glass. Offprints of the glass article, by Julian Henderson of Nottingham University, are now available, and copies will be on sale at our meetings. The post-excavation team at the Lawn is continuing the process over the next year or so of completing the final reports and archiving records and finds.

These last will end up, of course, in the stores of The Collection. It is pleasing to report how well the new Museum has been received. It attracted almost 120,000 visitors in its first 12 months, and has won a number of awards. Our first evening session of the year, on 24 January, will feature an account of the discoveries made at the Museum site, by Steve Malone, who was in charge of the dig. There will also be a report on the first two years of the training excavation at Sudbrooke Roman villa, by Craig Spence of Bishop Grosseteste College and Lindum Heritage.

In February, we shall hear about the phenomenon of depositing precious objects in rivers during the prehistoric period, something with which we have become familiar in the Witham Valley. Our speaker, Mark Pearce of Nottingham University, has studied material from the Trent Valley.

The latest issue of Current Archaeology carries an account of the recent large-scale excavations in Leicester. Richard Buckley, of University of Leicester Archaeological Services, who wrote the article, will be here on 21 March to describe the new information on the Roman and Medieval city. (Richard had planned to speak to us in September, but had to cancel owing to illness.)

In April we continue the urban theme with a presentation on Birmingham by its archaeologist Mike Hodder. This will be an enlightening session: ‘Brum’ has remains from the prehistoric period, and much of medieval and later date.

In May, Roger Leech – another previous cancellation owing to ill-health – is due to provide us with an account on research in the Caribbean, the most exotic location of the year.

You will note the rest of the year’s programme from the programme card issued with this Newsletter. More details on the other talks will be provided in the May/AGM Newsletter. Attached is a booking form for our two planned outings, to the Colchester region (as described by Ken Hollamby in November’s Newsletter), and on Saturday 19 May to Cresswell Crags and Renishaw Hall (click here for the form). At Cresswell, in addition to the visitor centre, tours will be given of the highly important, recently-discovered cave art. Renishaw is the home of the Sitwell family. We shall take lunch here before giving members an opportunity to visit the galleries and gardens.

For those of you not thoroughly sick and fed up of hearing me speak about Roman Lincoln, I have agreed to contribute to the Museum lecture series, with talks on Tuesdays 20 March and 1 May, both commencing at 2pm. There will be a charge, but the fees received will go into FLARE’s coffers.

Mick Jones