Industrial archaeology in Britain

The importance of industrial archaeology
The closer we get to the present day, the more documentary evidence becomes available. So it might be surprising to find that archaeologists have just as important a role in understanding our industrial heritage as they do in relation to more distant periods.

Yet the historical record – written sources of information – contains huge gaps about our industrial past. For all that key inventions such as the steam engine, the spinning jenny and the blast furnace feature in even the most basic of history textbooks, we know very little about the detailed origins of the Industrial Revolution – and even less about many aspects of the great technological changes that transformed first Britain, and then the whole world, from the late 18th century onwards.

Not just filling the gaps
As is often the case, archaeological research in Britain has not only been filling in the gaps in the historical record. Sometimes it has uncovered fresh evidence that challenges, or even refutes, the standard histories.

For example, in 1998 a prototype blast furnace was discovered during excavations near Rievaulx Abbey, in Yorkshire, which dated from the early 16th century – some 200 years before the first blast furnace was thought to have been invented by Abraham Darby at Ironbridge, in Shropshire. Another, even earlier blast furnace, dating from the late 15th century, has been found in the Sussex Weald. Time Team's Mick Aston has long argued that we should look for the roots of later large-scale industrial activity in the monasteries of medieval England. It is just possible that had it not been for Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries, the Industrial Revolution might have happened earlier and taken on a rather different form.

Was there an industrial 'revolution'?
Other archaeological research has pointed towards the fact that it wasn't actually a revolution at all – at least not in the sense of a sudden, momentous change. Research being carried out by Marilyn Palmer, professor of industrial archaeology at Leicester University, suggests that 'the process of industrialisation was one of discontinuity rather than continuity, that it was not a general story of progress, and that the working class resisted being turned into factory fodder for as long as possible'.

Palmer has sought to demonstrate this through archaeological study of the industries that resisted the introduction of the factory for longest – the handloom weavers, stocking knitters, boot and shoe makers, and nail and chain makers. Her work includes looking at these workers' purpose-built housing, which was used as both home and workplace, and seeing how late it was built and for how long it was in use.

Chapels, cinemas, music halls and football
While this sort of archaeological research can be said to contribute to the 'big picture' of the process of industrialisation in Britain, there is a great deal more taking place that focuses on more parochial aspects of the industrial or modern era. Two of the main contributions to a recent edition of Industrial Archaeology Review, for example, deal with the Embassy Cinema at Braintree, Essex, and the old Burnden Park football ground in Bolton. Other topics that have recently been the subject of research by industrial archaeologists in Britain include Pullman railway carriages, nonconformist chapels, malting houses, music halls and (a good one for Time Team, perhaps) pubs.

The importance of the amateur
Industrial archaeology in the UK also includes the vast range of research, cataloguing, conservation, reconstruction and other activities carried out by amateur enthusiasts. As with archaeology in general, industrial archaeology owes a great deal to its non-professional pioneers.

As Marilyn Palmer commented in a contribution she made recently to an industrial heritage conference in Sweden: 'Britain has a great tradition of volunteer activity, never more clearly demonstrated than at the beginning of industrial archaeology as a discipline in the 1960s. The country would have a far less rich variety of industrial monuments had it not been for the armies of volunteers who cleaned out derelict canals, rebuilt narrow-gauge railways, cleared undergrowth from around derelict iron furnaces and steelworks, restored locomotives and stationary steam engines and filled in countless record cards to ensure that the importance of the industrial heritage was recognised.'

Protecting industrial monuments
Largely as a result of the successful campaigning by these amateur groups and their supporters, we now tend to take it for granted that our great industrial monuments should be protected and cared for in a similar way to our more ancient monuments. We have grown accustomed to the idea that a decommissioned power station might be recycled as a modern art gallery; that closed-down industrial buildings should be reopened as museums; or that one-time industrial warehouses should be reused as modern flats.

World Heritage Sites
In 2002, three textile-mill sites in Britain were added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage sites considered to be of 'outstanding universal value'. The three – Derwent Valley Mills, in Derbyshire; New Lanark, in Scotland; and Saltaire, near Bradford – join such internationally renowned ancient sites as the pyramids of Egypt, the Great Wall of China and the Acropolis in Athens, as well as the likes of Stonehenge, Hadrian's Wall and the Tower of London in the UK. Britain now has five industrial sites on the World Heritage list, the other two being the Ironbridge Gorge, in Shropshire, and the Blaenafon industrial landscape, in south Wales.

Find out more

Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of third-party sites.

Association for Industrial Archaeology
www.industrial-archaeology.org.uk
c/o Isabel Wilson, Liaison Officer
AIA, School of Archaeological Studies
Leicester University
Leicester LE1 7RH
Tel: 0116 252 5337
E-mail: AIA@le.ac.uk
The AIA is the national organisation for people who share an interest in Britain's industrial past. It brings together people who are researching, recording, preserving and presenting the great variety of this country's industrial heritage. Industrial architecture, mineral extraction, heritage-based tourism, power technology, adaptive re-use of industrial buildings and transport history are just some of the themes being investigated by members. Every year the Association monitors over 200 hundred applications to alter or demolish industrial sites and buildings. It works with other amenity groups to protect Britain's heritage and represent Britain on the International Committee for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage.

Text only