WYRE ARCHAEOLOGY
Welcome to the Wyre Archaeology website. We are an amateur archaeology group, with some professional members, interested in all sites in the whole of Wyre, Fylde and beyond. Browse around and you will find information on our past and present digs, areas of interest, etc. Meetings take place at Great Eccleston Village centre and are on the 3rd Wednesday every month from February to October. Starting at 7.30pm, we report back on our digs and occasionally have guest speakers. Visitors/prospective members are welcome; contact
Latest digs include: Salwick Old Hall (with possible neolithic feature underneath the hall), Quernmore (a probable neolithic mound) and Brock cottage.
Meetings are generally for reporting back on digs and looking at suggestions for possible future digs but we do have visiting speakers. At our last meeting Dr Rick Peterson from UCLan gave a talk on human remains unearthed in a cave in Cumbria. This has been dubbed the "oldest northerner" after being found to date back 11,000 years.
Wyre Archaeology has adopted the "overwyre.info" site to preserve Gordon Heald's magnificent maps/drawings. These can be found by clicking on the "Resources" tab and then "overwyre.info".
Facebook page ... https://www.facebook.com/groups/1091772967850657
Being a member of the Facebook group does not mean that you are automatically a member of Wyre Archaeology. If you want to come to meetings or take part in digs then you should join as a full member. Single Membership costs £12, or £18 for 2 at the same address, for a full year from 1 May to 30 April. We accept pro-rata subscriptions for part of the year and students in full-time education aged 21 or under are free. Subscriptions pay for equipment, insurance and room hire. For further information contact
Bourne Hill
Bourne Hill has always been an enigma. It's height and position over the Wyre estuary has always invited questions over it's history. Wyre Archaeology carried out a number of excavations between 2005 and 2014 looking for feature and/or dating evidence. Unlike the hilltop stripping by mechanical diggers available to Oxford Archaeology North (OAN), we were only able to conduct 'keyhole' excavation, but despite our finding significant evidence of Iron Age and possible Roman military and Romano-British presence, our analysis was sadly inconclusive when we closed our dig in 2014. However, it is our understanding that it was at least in part due to our findings that an archaeological assessment was required as part of the planning conditions set by Wyre Borough Council, and carried out by Archaeological Research Services Ltd. (ARS), leading in turn to the full excavation by OAN.
It does seem that the site has turned out to be more than anyone could have hoped for. OAN mapped out several roundhouses and defensive ditches, found high grade Roman Pottery and part of a quern stone believed to have originated in West Yorkshire. Unfortunately, despite OAN stating that it is a very significant site in regard to the known prehistory of the area, the developers were unable or unwilling to provide additional funding beyond what was already agreed, which included post-excavation analysis. The site has now been closed and development paused pending OAN's report to Wyre Borough Council. More information can be found on the BBC site.
