£5,000 Records at Risk Grant saves 2000 Archaeology Reports

Tuesday 15 July 2025 12:00 am

A grant of £5,000 from the National Archives ‘Records at Risk’ Programme will ensure that 2000 archaeology reports in the ARCUS archive in Sheffield will be saved for the future – for research, for public understanding and for people to access.

The University of Sheffield set up an Archaeological Consultancy (ARCUS) which operated from the mid-1990s until 2009, carrying out desk-based assessments, building and site surveys, watching briefs and excavations required for planning applications. In 2009 the unit was abruptly closed down. Some 2000 reports were left in the Archaeology Department which has now also closed, in the care of Colin Merrony. Over the past couple of years, volunteers from the Hunter Archaeological Society have been cataloguing the paper reports and getting them into order, and the next step was to scan and upload them to the website of the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) where they would be available for anyone to access – clearly a major task.

These reports contain textual descriptions, detailed plans, photographic records and some first-hand accounts obtained through site visits and interviews. ARCUS undertook work all around the UK – while working far afield, the majority were in Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire. The sites recorded are varied. The archive is particularly rich as a record of the development and surviving industrial heritage of South Yorkshire.

The National Archives oversees a Records at Risk Grants Programme https://www2.fundsforngos.org/latest-funds-for-ngos/records-at-risk-grants-programme-united-kingdom/

to provide support for urgent interventions to save significant physical and digital records facing immediate peril, across the UK. This project exactly fits that aim. An application was made to the programme for a grant of £5,000 to fund a recent postgraduate student Jonathan Gray in coordinating the work of digitising and uploading the documents, assisted by volunteers, and the application was successful. We can now be assured that the content of these reports will be available for research.

Contact: secretary@hunterarchaeologicalsociety.org.uk