The Birth of Heneb and a Vision for the Future

Dr Carol say a lifeo okay and go with now um is Kyle this F car um of course board so a very warm welcome to uh everybody um here lovely to see you know such a a large audience for such a a significant but also such a very enjoyable um meeting such as this organized by the Welsh fellows of the Society of um antiquaries of London um if you like this there are all sorts of ways as we'll say at the end you can get on to the program and uh join with us uh more and more um around 10 months I think it is since the foundation of H the um unitary archaological trust um for Wales it's a very real pleasure as well as a very important um matter for us to be able to to hear the chair's um review of uh experiences hes for the future fears from the future who knows um for this significant organization so without more of you the title is up there the lecturer is in front of us I'll hand over to C thank you so thank you so much for your generous introduction it's really a pleasure to be here today to share the story of HB so far and to reflect on what lies ahead I'll continue in English today so that everybody can hear the same story at the same time um but the Welsh language is Central to HB and we use it at work and in our interactions externally as much as possible I was particularly delighted to receive this invitation from the Welsh fellows of the Society of antiquaries as I am both fellow and as John was saying the treasurer of the society and I'm also delighted that Natasha macenroe the General Secretary of our society who took up her post last year um Natasha wave at everybody um is here with us and I hope you've had a chance to to talk to her and meet her now I have to apologize I've got two gadgets going here because my my laptop wouldn't talk to the AV system so if I if I hit the wrong button that uh periodically please forgive me so as Dyan Thomas would say to begin at the beginning um henb is an independent charity dedicated to conservation the conservation investigation recording and promotion of the historic environment in Wales on the 1st of April last year the four Welsh archaeological trust merged to form henb whose official name as we've heard is the trust for Welsh archaeology mirroring the activity spheres of the four former trusts which also were Charities hb's four regions are Cloyd pois David glogan gwent and gev the regional expertise and and Service delivery which was the Hallmark of the Fortress has therefore continued seamlessly under the aices of henb Regional Offices remain in use and uh the expert colleagues delivering our services have not changed today we number just under 80 staff spread across Wales indeed we are one of the national organizations in wheels that cannot be accused of being cardi Centric as our offices are in bangal Welsh pool Sano ban and Newport so this is what we do we manage the regional historic environment records about 25,000 Welsh archaeological and historical sites recorded therein we provide archaeological planning services and also work with um developers of infrastructure and other facilities U what is known as sometimes commercial archaeology and we provide services in that um regard as well as offering Heritage management advice and possibly most important of all engaging communities and Volunteers in everything we do this rather busy graphic shows hb's activity scope in non-financial figures covering statistics on engaging communities and Volunteers in our work managing the hisor iic environment records and providing archaeological planning services around 22 people per day are taking part in our preach activities and around 29 people per day are taking part in facilitated learning programs 664 inquiries were made by members of the public into the historic environment record um last year um that's about three inquiries per working day and we also assess around 85 planning applications per day now providing archaeological services to developers is a growing part of our activities uh as I say this is sometimes called commercial archaeology but it would not be too strong to say that the sheer quantity and indeed quality of developer lead excavation in the UK has transformed our understanding of the past in recent years as many of of of this audience were know since 1990 archaeology has been an integral part within planning processes and uh developers have funded archaeological investigations in order to mitigate the impact of their work on the historic environment perhaps uh people don't realize that developer Leed archaeology by now employs roughly 3ars of the archaeologists in the UK doing absolutely brilliant work and it provides um an income of about 200 million to the archaeological profession annually across the UK and is a very cost effective way of furthering archaeological research at at a high standard developer Le archaeology Wales has us become a crucial tool for discovering and preserving our Rich archaeological Heritage while balancing the need for modern development the four Welsh archaeological trusts have been operating for nearly 50 years providing a comprehensive and wellestablished network of archaeological expertise across the country hbno as I've said continues this work um alongside maintaining the historic environment records and providing other advice this system is unique to Wales and has no direct equivalent in other parts of the UK this distinctive approach which has a strong Public Service ethos in our view um allows uh the Welsh way to better to deliver National programs and importantly Community engagement but growing developer lead income is also an opportunity for HB to fund more in terms of productive research and to grow even further our engagement with communities those of you who know me like Professor Whitley will not be shocked to see some graphs which in my view Trump tables any day of the week when you're trying to convey a trend the four trusts had a wide range of income sources um kadu for for example from central government being the most important local government developer Leed contracts and work funded through grants as well as partnership projects henb is therefore Diversified in terms of its income both geographically on by source as you can see from this graph the recent growth in income of the for trust has been mainly in the other category being the commercial sector although the the grant aided um funding from kadu uh for which we are extremely grateful Remains the most important Single part of our overall revenue and in 2024 the funding from kadu represented 44% of the total now here I'm showing the same Revenue data split by region so working our way up the chart CL pois is the darkest band at the bottom then glogan and gwent DED and gwith at the top as you can see the individual geographical contributions vary from year to year which is broadly reflective of how much developer Leed work is taking place in the respective regions so having having given you a picture of our revenue and where it comes from I'd now now like to tra turn to creating the new National herit Heritage organization that is HB and why and how we did this the decision to merge the four historic trusts had already been taken by the trustees of those four Charities before they set out to find a new chair early in 2024 which is when I became involved I would like to pay tribute to those trustees for their vision and downright hard work and many of them are here with us today indeed in the runup to the merger which happened on the 1st of April 2024 we had to be very hands on with weekly board meetings so it was a lot more beyond what trustees expect to do in in archaeological Charities at times the list of regulatory and compliance tasks that had to be accomplished looked extremely daunting but we kept our eye on the prize Guided by legal and accounting advice and we successfully merged um on the 1 of April last year forming a board with diverse skills and moving quickly to establish the executive leadership team within an organizational structure capable of delivering a new five-year strategic plan were critical initial tasks and I'll speak about how we went about this and the steps we we have taken to create a unified identity as fast as possible the rationale for creating henb was ambitious increasing competitiveness to strengthen hb's position when bidding for developer funded contracts by using our resources more efficiently across Wales the second was to facilitate sharing bre practice across our regions more effectively and to deploy learnings from one region to another to stay at The Cutting Edge of archaeology thirdly again a scale point to be more attractive a more attractive and a more equal partner with other archaeological units when large field teams are required just to contextualize the point about scale I've here compared henb which is a whole of Wales if you like with Museum of London archaeology of which I was a board member before um I became chair of um HB and West and westex archaeology these companies which like Hena Charities have seen high levels of Revenue over the past four years driven by hs2 major road building and infrastructure projects and in mola's case of course major building works in the city of London in Broad terms depending on which year you look at henb is about a six the size of these English charities in terms of Revenue in the 2024 accounts molar Accords 425 staff and westex 349 hb's total in our 2024 accounts was 88 in comparison by adding the number of Staff across the four trusts none of these three organizations are looking to make profits for shareholders rather they seek to spend the money the income they generate on growing their charitable impact so the more income they generate the more funds are available for research projects and community outreach 2024 for hen brought additional costs related to the merger which will result in net revenues in the future so but so therefore if we look at 20123 across the uh three Charities as a fairer basis for comparison both esex and mola made losses while the four Welsh archaeological trusts were profitable strong financial control is essential and breaking even in operational terms is important for financial sustainability as is maintaining a good level of financial reserves proportionately henb has more reserves than the two English Charities which is one of the reasons that former Trustees of the four historic trusts could contemplate investing in the merger but back to the rationale penb now has the national scale to represent archaeology in Wales and to become a significant voice on Heritage in Wales to have a seat at that table it was also important for the board to maintain the regional expertise and the decentralized service delivery that was a Hallmark of the four individual trusts and we've been able to keep PL ethos my own work in archaeology has recently focused on multi-disciplinary Regional synthesis of archaeological and textual data which has received a huge Boost from machine learning and artificial intelligence methodologies developed in other sectors but at a more immediate and practical level hb's ability to invest in digital technology generally will be helped greatly by being a larger scale operation um and ensuring that digital expertise is shared across the whole of Wales rather than being resident in in one or two of the trusts now this chart um and I promise you this is the final One Compares the re revenue generated per member of Staff in henb compared with westex and mola the 2024 four proforma figures for HB are a simple aggregation of course of those are the four historic trusts with four separate Chief Executives and administrative functions supporting the archaeologists clearly there is potential to grow hb's Revenue per staff member with senior leadership Finance HR and Business Development functions shared across a larger business the last area of obvious benefit is through sharing best practice which I've mentioned briefly already this has been it has been very interesting to see that each one of the four trusts has had best practice in different types of different types to share across Wales and I hope to illustrate this uh a bit later in the lecture but for now I'd like to show you a picture of the staff and board group that gather Ed for the first ever HB offsite in aest withth in October you'd never guess that I was going to a cur football match next our chief our chief executive Richard where are you Richard there there's Richard over there and um our truste how John a much better C camouflage although they were also going to where I was going so turning briefly to the mechanics of the merger and what we have done to position henb for Success organizationally I've been involved personally as has how John in merging uh energy companies for most of my working life but bringing this one across the Finishing Line was no less complex I can assure you of that but we did manage it thanks as I've said to the hard work of the board and the executive so first a shadow board um made up of board members from the four trusts produc a prospectus opposing a merger in December 2022 the Prospectors argued that four independent Regional trusts would not provide the most unified and independent voice for archaeology and Wales at a national level it therefore proposed that establishing a pan whales body would not only provide that consistent voice but would also enable the regional Excellence to be develop further to build a resilient future two trustees from each trust work during 2023 and early 2024 on the shadow board which was chaired by Shan Reese who is in the front and there'll be more news about Shan later on in there in the presentation I'm sure so following legal advice HB was created by collapsing uh three of the existing trusts into the remaining one the fourth receiving trust was DED because its articles of Association were the most easily adapted to the other three trusts cat G Gat and Gat um um were then merged into uh merged into DED and at the time DED happened to be the largest um in terms of turnover and net profit but as I've said before that um largely dependent on what work was going on across the group throughout as I say we followed detailed legal advice to ensure the charity and employment law issues were addressed appropriately and um we also work closely uh with executive colleagues um and the Auditors to ensure financial reporting of the transfer of friends to henb um was completed at the end of the 2024 Financial year we engag a search firm to identify First me the external chair and one further independent director which is when I came to the into the picture obviously in February last year and Stefan Williams also joined at that point and Stephan is a leading Financial PR practitioner uh with roots in Telo and his help has been invaluable to us as we've sought to communicate um our journey forward so here is the picture of the hen board at its inaugural meeting in welshpool Stefan Williams was not able to attend in person unfortunately so Stefan is not in the picture but the rest of us are there and I think um a large number of of my colleagues are in the room today um um but um the others are here in spirit I can assure you and we'll be looking forward to seeing the recording one of the most important features about hb's board is that it has diverse skills Beyond archaeology Heritage management and experience of Charity governance I'll not read the slide but as I've already already mentioned um there's we have a real U focus on strong financial control we have the luxury of not one but two Chartered Accountants on the board communication and advocacy is another feature and Beyond what the rest of the board can do we have a seasoned professional to advise us in Stefan as I've already said the Welsh language I've I've mentioned three of us were born were brought up in Welsh speaking homes and three others have learned to a level of fluency or extremely high proficiency I could go on two knowledgeable about environmental societ sustainability three competent on pensions but we're all committed to diversity and inclusion safeguarding and providing h with the best governance oversight possible turning to the staff structure Richard Nichols U our chief executive um reports the Board of Trustees and he's supported by a head of finance and business services who is currently Judith Holland Judith is retiring shortly after a distinguished career at David archaeology prior to henb and we'd like to thank Judith very much indeed for her service um Denise Jones uh will begin in post as our new um head of Finance um and she comes to us uh and she'll be in Welsh based in welshpool uh having been head of Finance for Shropshire towns and Rural Housing and T Go it's fair to say that the financial part of the merger was over was overseen and brought to fruition by Judith Holland and um I've already paid tribute to her but I can't um overstate how important it was that we could start uh with a clean bill of health um on the financial side at the beginning of this financial year Richard also has strategic leads which are in the column on on the right hand side of the chart in these areas um um these These are spread again around Wales and um what we have is um sorry let me start that again to be absolutely clear we've we've got a head of region or joint heads of region in every one of our Regional Offices and um Richard has also put in place strategic leads who are in the column on the right hand side there um responsible for different areas with uh Zoe arur and Jenna Smith responsible for engagement Jenny EMT responsible for planning Claudine Gerard um responsible for Heritage management and CI Rose responsible for historic environment records our head of archaeology uh Bas inuth is John Roberts and he oversees our field service teams and is henb strategic lead with the charted Institute for archaeologists CIFA henb of course is a CIFA Reg registered organization and here we have the senior team at at the Abus withth offsite as you can see the gender balance in this case is in favor of women which slightly offsets the um the small mail tilt on the board I've mentioned the importance of inperson and cross Regional meetings already to build um build relation ships Carol I'm not certain your sles moving on up here ah this one is not moving on no it isn't it stopped moving on does anybody have any [Music] technical what what oh you it went to sleep did it who knows who knows it's got a the mouse is a mind of its own right um so sorry that there they are a slightly um um female dominated your team there um balancing out the board as I said so um getting together was very very important H having um a shared purpose um but another thing we had to do to cement the merer was to produce a new logo so that we could Rebrand effectively the design we selected is based on a square bronze PL plate found as long ago as 1872 apparently as part of a large hoard of metal work um in INF flincher um the plaque is s to date to the early part of the first century BC so um we adopted that we adopted that logo and it's one that can be easily quartered to represent the four regions of HB now rebanding the back catalog of lectures and seminars is underway but the major piece of work which was launched earlier this week was to produce a new website which we're very excited about and we'll give details of that towards the end so Richard's first few months in post was spent on developing and agreeing a five-year strategy the important Point here was to have agreement across the organization with the views of colleagues across whales Incorporated not just a strategy uh dictated by the board and the chief executive you can see the the priorities we coalesced around on this slide now generating revenue for reinvestment is something that I've um already mentioned but reinvestment in our Public Services particularly by developing new skills to expand our abilities in Heritage management delivery throughout Wales developing Financial resilience by creating an organization which prospers thereby being able to meet current and future Financial challenges creating a strong voice for Welsh archaeology at a national level outside government being able to compete effectively and increase our market share in the developer Le commercial archaeology Market developing St staff capacity skills and expertise to meet future Heritage management requirements advocating for archaeology and the historic environment in Worlds investing in technology to enhance effective delivery of services designing and developing new specialities and income streams to diversify our offer and developing with Partners an integrated and accessible historic environment record and last but not least developing closer links with communities and with organizations such as businesses trusts land owners universities schools museums and societies we have links already but we are working on building the financial capacity and resilience to do more with all of you our first major Grant award as henb of just under under 250,000 pound has come from the national lottery Heritage fund and this will enable us to invest in business development to secure new customers and expand Partnerships and Outreach we're extremely grateful to the fund for this investment which will make a big difference to our pre presence and delivery in communities but also in creating Financial resilience through investing in developing a broader range of commercial customers this is particularly important as the development of clean energy infrastructure gathers Pace under Westminster government and Welsh government's decarbonization plans as you see here we have a Wheels first strategy building on our strengths but archaeology doesn't stop at the border and there will doubtless be opportunities to work in adjacent parts of England well finally we can now turn to what you've why you've really come here which is to um learn about some fascinating examples from different archaeological periods and parts of whales that highlight hb's current work and also its deployment of state-of-the-art um technological um methods and and tools John Roberts our head of archaeology based in Banger and Zoe authors our engagement lead based in welshpool have helped to compile a fascinating toour for us as I go along I'll note the Partnerships under which this work uh has been carried out and you will also see how our work involves local communities at every opportunity the area that is missing in this snapshot of current work is an example of an excavation within the South Wales Industrial Heartland where so many uh Global breakthroughs were made in the 18th and 19th centuries but within GL the glogan gwent team we have a great deal of experience of archaeology in industrial context and if we were to look back across the last decade or so so we would find excavations in Mera with its iron iron making Heritage in collaboration with Cardiff University and the MVA uh copper works with um with Swansea University the project um I the team would like me to speak about first is our landscape of Neolithic axes project so I'm starting with the oldest project from the Stone Age this multi-year project has investigated the sources of the stones used for Group Seven Stone axe manufacturer above shanan and Pen Ma at the North End of the Cari mountain range the work involved small excavations with strong participation and engagement by the public the project which runs until the end of this year is in collaboration with the can cani landscape partnership scheme which is funded by the national lottery Heritage fund together the stoned resources above pen and shanan form an extensive landscape related to Neolithic axe production of national importance axes produced from Stone in this area have been found across much of Southern Britain and but until now this phenomenon has not received much archaeological study so this slide shows on the left a view of dasas the distinctive Hill above Shan coni which is a micro diorite uh outcrop used for the production of neic Zone axes this is one of several locations in the area where suitable Stone out crops for axe manufacturer exist all these known Stone sources were used for ax making by the Neolithic people who lived in this landscape and one settlement site is also being investigated by the project on the right is an aerial view of volunteers digging a trench to investigate axe making in the scree at the foot of dinas and here we have volunteers digging test bits um and then digging down layer by layer until the natural glacial deposits were reached and on the third picture on the on the right um axe debris uh is being bagged up of course layer by layer from each test pit the excavations found ample evidence of stone ax manufacturer the top left and middle um show that most of the material found were flakes from shaping roughouts which is uh evidence of the first stage in the production of u a stone ax and the top right picture is such a rout which as you can see is not small moving West along the the North Coast now to gas which is a hill fort in a dramatic setting on the west facing Coastal Edge U six sorry 8 km south of canaran it's located on a dominant Hill of glacial drift which Rises just over 30 m above the surrounding coastal plain the site is a scheduled Monument of national significance and a site of special scientific interest because of the importance of the glacial sediments it's owned by The National Trust the hill Fort is being lost through active erosion on the west side if current rates of erosion continue uh the entire for could be lost within the next 233 to 583 years according to our calculations so some rather precise numbers there um but um but quite a big range um they're leaving themselves a bit of slack um a project investigating the site was initiated by the cherish project in 2019 whose partners are shown on on the right with the archaeological work and undertaken by HB this comprised scientific investigation involving gradiometer readings ground penetrating radar and topographic studies that revealed a dense pattern of roundhouses inside the fort using these results henb then carried out targeted excavation including community members in the team and revealed two substantially built roundhouses this was followed by subsequent seasons of Community excavation funded by kadu with additional funding from The National Trust anen aonb trench one investigated a substantial iron AG Romano British roundhouse trench 2 investig investigated part of a second roundhouse um a substantial bank and Terrace that included a large area of burning and an extensive metal surface part of a second century ad um Pottery vessel and a fourth Century bead were recovered during excavations suggesting a long period of occupation following the trial trenching in 2019 cherish commissioned Sumo geophysics to carry out a ground penetrating radar survey of The Hil Fort interior and this technique produced a 3D model of subsurface features um and from this time slices can be extracted from the model showing the sequence of of results at different depths below the ground surface so here is um a vertical aerial photograph of the site during the 2021 excavations and here are some of the objects uh recovered from the Dig including a uh the bead um and coin I mentioned earlier the the copper Alo coin by the way is a numus of dioclesian dating to the period 294 to 305 ad it's always great when you find coins isn't it one of the techniques used to record the excavations in addition to drawn and photographic site records is photogrammetry photogrammetry is widely used in archaeology and is um a powerful um tool for documenting analyzing and preserving archaeological sites and artifacts it allows archaeologists to generate detailed 3D models and accurate measurements without phys Bally disturbing the subject and this was used in trench the trench one area as a result of using photogrametry um an orthographic photo from the 3D model so constructed uh was converted easily into a scaled plan and on the left we have that orthographic photograph and uh from the 3D model and on the right the plan that was produced from it the area one roundhouse is now Consolidated and accessible with educational information installed we expect radiocarbon dating results later this year to complete the post excavation picture staying in gev um before it closed U closed for uh Redevelopment the am the national slate Museum in cheris um asked uh HB to do an extensive photographic and 3D modeling survey uh of the existing displays more than 300 images taken of the museum interior and exterior um were were commissioned to provide an extensive record of the historic layout and the use of the museum and uh the museum also required 3D models of specific rooms to be to be built in order to in order to um display uh these subsequently after the rooms were dismantled and these um were used were completed using photogrammetry as I've mentioned um in in the previous work and here are are some examples I hope they're not too dark there are a little bit dark I know um but I know these rooms very well from when I was acting President and Vice President ofri and um it's fascinating to me that every tool every nail you know is there in its place and future Generations will be able to to enjoy these as I did and here are some more examples of what we did uh it's an amazing technique and it's great that it's being deployed here in Wales to record things that are being redeveloped moving south now to pen Brookshire following a chance uh treasure Discovery in 2018 by a metal detectorist preliminary excavations and covered a chariot burial the first of its kind at the center of a circular Monument uh located near the entrance to a hitherto unknown Iron Iron Age promary Fort through a partnership project which was Grant funded via the National Heritage Lottery fund whales kadu and am kri the excavation of the burial monument and conservation lifting of the Chariot fittings was completed in 2019 sample excavation of the fort dishes and further survey enriched understanding of its landscape context and indeed a film was made by young people through a partnership with pemer college amri has acquired the finds made in this jig for wales's National Collection the project is now being led by m Giles of the University of Manchester in partnership with am and henb and hb's work will now focus on post excavation analysis producing reports for a project monograph attending working groups stakeholder meetings and contributing to workshops and conferences and I I was lucky enough to see these wonderful horse fittings from the burial in the conservation lab of am just before Christmas and I can vouch for these colors if anything as being bright brighter in real life than than they're showing up here what an important find and um just a complete um comments on this find here we have in situ um a sword um before it was excavated on the um on the on on the left hand side and uh two chariot wheels on on the right hand side indeed an very important find so let's go back to the north now um this time the Northeast to clo pois is Heartland WS dke is a linear Monument consisting of a bank and ditch which ran along the western edge of the Midlands there was probably a defensive Earth earthwork for the mercian frontier um but definitive dating of this landscape feature had not been established over the last decade hen has taken samples for scientific dating from different interventions along the wats DK as well as two interventions through wdik as well as part of community projects and rescue and Commercial work most of these investigations were planned to test whether similar results to those achieved in 2006 um in the gooen wats stke excavation could be obtained and samples for both radiocarbon dating and optically stimulated luminesence OSL dating were recovered the results have been surprisingly variable with some primary bank and ditch deposits of late prehistoric Roman date and um earlier Bronze Age U ground surfaces as well and features identified beneath the bank and others largely provide dates during the 6th to 10th centuries ad a series of optically simulated luminescence St provided scientific dating for the infill sequence and buried soil showing construction and use occurred in the early 9th century a possible episode of um slighting occurring in the mid 9th century and a deliberate major episode of infill associated with medieval plowing in the 14th century hen postulates that these dates can be related to historical events and suggested um a construction date for wat St during either the Reigns of the kings of meria Ken wolf or his successor kwolf and that would dated at 796 ad to 823 or for that of wigl dur during the 830s everybody probably knows ponc which is the most magnificent um Aqueduct um crossing the D Valley and henb is providing archaeological support to the canal River trust's multi-year Project of improvements and maintenance at the aqueduct which is of course a UNESCO world heritage site the once in a decade decision to drain the aqueduct Canal provided trust archaeologist Matt Thomas with the opportunity to do a photometrical survey of the structures interior the technique required Matt to spend three days in on the could have um in the trough I wouldn't fancy that personally I have no headlights shooting over 4,000 images um the resultant model captures details down to the level of individual bolts and even spoilers webs beneath the suspended toe paath and when the board was up in Welsh for his first meeting we were treated to some um a detailed show of um of this early data so um the model and a range of orthographic plans you know images showing showing uh the aqueduct from various angles um rather like a a photographic version of an architect's plan will be used by crt's Engineers to complete their condition assessment of the structure without further delays to boating traffic across the aqueduct the only challenge remains of how best to view the final image is um one or orthographic image showing the entire length of the underside of the top paath is um as Matt informs me 650,000 pixels in length and that would fill more than 200 pages of A4 paper L end to end if it were printed out well thank God we're not doing that that would be bad for the environment um um but here you see Matt in action and um the uh ponas model one as it's called um showing a still shot of the 3D model as if the viewer is standing in in the trough and this is the um I don't know how clear it is John and I were were struggling to know what to show here given the choice um but this is an example of what we delivered to the canal River trust to inform their condition assessment it shows views above beside and beneath the path covering just one of the 18 spans of the aqueduct so the area in in red at the bottom there is um shown in closeup in the next picture right the last archaeological project I speak about is the work done recently at basing work Abbey in flintshire this has been one of hb's key projects over the last few years and it's an Exemplar of the benefits of collaborative working again through negotiation with um Greenfield Valley Park and consultation with kadu we were able to design a project to excavate The Abbey surroundings to inform new interpretation for the Valley Park with surprising results this project also provided an opportunity for volunteers and local students to get involved with our excavation and attend a variety of archaeological skills workshops and toolbox talks the excav ations in 2023 aimed to identify the potential extent of the monastic complex we did find some medieval activity although most of it this was from Disturbed contexts associated with a demolition of the AR in of course 1536 evaluation did however identify and here's a surprise Romano British activity surrounding the Abbey dated to the late 1st Century to early 2nd Century ad so we were expecting medieval but we got Romano British the 2024 excavations aim to develop understanding of these new discoveries by targeting larger excavations over the areas where potential Romano British activity was identified to the south of the Abbey trench one identified the presence of at least three round houses as well as other possible prehistoric activity and a later defensive ditch which was in use in the in the medieval period as well one of the most prominent features was a stone lined Hearth incorporating a flat topped pot stone material culture recovered from these roundhouses suggests that they were occupied from the late Iron Age to the early Romano British period tic artifacts have included a range of Roman fine Wares as well as a late Iron Age Tri scale mount trench three also identified potential Roman domestic activity including a gully possibly associated with a roundhouse with material culture again DED to the late first and early 2nd Century ad others here will be experts on uh coins but that coin looks like Tren toy although I think don't think it's been published yet and if if it were from that period um he was in charge between 98 98 ad to 117 the finding suggests the presence of a Romano British settlement with significant trading links with the newly arrived Romans therefore um and it's our interpretation that the Romano British people who lived here seem to have benefited from the presence of the Romans by trading with them rather than being oppressed by them the roset LED inot recently found near rexam is probably evidence of what type of trade they might have been involved in the in the northeas of Wales at this point more and more evidence is coming that the Romans came to Britain and to whales in particular for metals and especially lead and as I said on radio kri last week the Romans had an insatiable demand for lead for the pipes and troughs used in baths like the one um recently found in in a in a wealthy house in Pompei and other evidence from Wales also suggests that the Roman lead industry was established very quickly after the Roman Legions arrived in uh the emperor claudius's time so watch this space for more on the development of this particular strand turning finally now to a bit more detail on how we support Welsh government priorities we do this in a number of ways including specific projects we acknowledge that the Heritage and archaeology sector has work to do in improving diversity and representation and henb is no exception mapping our her Heritage is a brand new project this year that will engage a wide range of individuals and groups from diverse communities and religious faiths to enhance the historic environment records with their own stories and special places we developed this project in response to the ant anti-racist whales action plan obtaining funding to deliver projects like this ensures not only a fairer and more inclusive whales but also a a a more inclusive historic environment sector as a whole it allows us to forge new Partnerships with organizations like peace Mala pictured here who bring together groups from across the world for Creative collaborations we also hope of of course that it will inspire a diverse next generation of archaeologists we also see archaeology as a tool for social inclusion and commit resources to educating the public in all things to do with archaeology henb has a vibrant outreach program providing unique experiences to people across Wales archaeology has the unique ability to appeal to a wide range of people regardless of age background or education and we have a suite of opportunities available I think it's in Alan Bennett's History Boys play that the master says to the boys Archaeology is the closest history comes to shopping and there's something in that I think um people like to see stuff rather than reading um chronologies from the pictures I've shown you about field workor you will know by now that HB is proud to host volunteers on our digs we believe that this helps well-being through being part of a team with a purpose as well as through being out in the open air to State the obvious volunteers are also an asset to us and we really value their support in the work we do for example currently there are plenty of long-term opportunities for volunteers in the glogan and gwent area in the um AR project which takes an Innovative approach to Heritage management by bining professional expertise with Community par particip participation in coastal Southeast Wales we are also looking for volunteers to work with us inhouse with the historic environment records in North Wales additionally we host hundreds of short-term volunteers for opportunities in excavation as well as placements for work experienced students we produce regular newsletters of course our first HB new newsl letter will be out shortly our staff regularly contribute to Publications such as the one um on on the right there um which is an article for the Journal of the PM Brookshire Historical Society throughout the year we participate in festivals events open days and sensory sessions to engage the public with archaeology the Festival of Archaeology is a highlight in our annual program it's a national festival with events across the UK and an opportunity for us to take to the road and share our work there is something for everyone and it Fosters a real sense of togetherness through collaboration with the council for British archaeology with links to stem subjects in almost all archaeological processes our school visits are a great way for schools to provide a day of fun for students while continuing to educate them in a different way we have a great relationship with several local schools around our offices and also with the Welsh universities we also attend careers fs and provide sessions on a variety of archaeological subjects such as geophysical survey finds illustration and pottery always on an eye with an eye on um inspiring the next generation of archaeologists we have a program of archaeological walks and talks throughout the year these events are always attended with um many well attended with many selling out um and this really highlights the public appetite for a Content like this traditional class-based lectures are great but hb's Outreach team often takes likes to head outside and take people to the Heritage the AR project um in southeast Wales is an ex excellent example of this the cotin is a dynamic environment subject to constant change through the actions of erosion land use and climate change which can both reveal and conceal sites of archaeological interest but can which but which can also damage and even destroy them we recruited local volunteers and brought them together to record and monitor the coastal Heritage um of their area they received training and support from professional archaeologists who acted as mentors and after learning how to identify and record record sites they were given recording forms and Equipment um including GPS and access to cameras um with the information they they are generating then being provided to the arer coordinator for incorporation into the regional historic environment record this information is invaluable for building up the record especially at a time when extreme weather risks are on the rise and the long-term effects of climate change are in play archaeology days are among our most popular events of the year most recently CL poest uh region held thereal archaeology day in rexam University presentations by herb staff members Ian Grant and Chris Matthews on um boras qu Quarry and um the work I just mentioned earlier on U basing work Abby were both exceptional and you can see that it's it's a room filled full to Capac capacity for the whole day our next archaeology day will be held by the David region in abest withth on the 7th of March and tickets will be available soon our YouTube channel has over 140 videos um covering projects from across the four historic trusts as well as now of course hb's projects definitely worth watching for new additions um including an online season lectures series and out would not would not be yeah exactly outre would not be complete these days without um a presence on social media um and I've had thousands of supporters who follow us through these platforms which help us to extend our reach and share our knowledge and resources with a wi audience check out the handle at hbor tww on the screen there for events opportunities um weekly project posts and more and now the great grand reveal of our new website after months of hard work to consolidate and develop the information and resources from our for previous trust websites the new henb website is now officially live as of Wednesday it's bilingual and fully accessible um it's U the gateway to all henb has to offer including commercial and curatorial services years of research project results heaps of educational content and resources as well as our new membership scheme and here I'd ask you to please consider becoming a member if you are able and to in any event subscribe to our mailing list to be kept informed well that's the end of of my tour around what we what we do uh de V thank you so much for coming I hope I've done Justice to the story so far and giving you a flavor for how we see the world are in and are investing in the future of archaeology and Wales not just for the profession but for everyone he headed um thank you very very much indeed um for that masses of material there I trust you will be prepared to answer um a few questions I'm sure there will be um Lots please so um who would like to come in first Robin yes I don't have a question i' like to say something oh I come here so that you can come me come come behind the desk so the mic is oh okay um but I'm going to give the reason why I've come here now is I want to say something I may not have another opportunity like this it is a very very important day a very very important lecture I spent well my life in sin fagin perhaps they think of me as a specimen on the on the on the the wall the CET I hope living one but this is what I want to say I should know by now that Wales is one of the most one of the most rich countries in the world as far as our culture the old and the new I don't I don't separate the old and the and the new we in s fagin now it's National Museum of History we are dealing with history and that's what we are doing here today and we're celebrating something fantastic I wish I was very young to continue again you know carry on because there's so much because well it's about 25 countries I have said this and I've been inviting people to come to Wales to see this wonderful culture old and new we have we want to make it known throughout the world the word we use in Welsh is rone h Carol and she she's been doing it for many years we don't want to put our treasure in a dark cupet out of sight we want to share it with all people not just academics and I I was very pleased to see the words connect Carol learn explore yeah we learn I remember when I was having in India uh Le ing you would you would learn by actually experiencing touching and now we have henip this in Welsh D excellent a National Heritage organization not just for one corner of Wales for the whole of Wales with a regional basis in the four corners and I would like to take this opportunity of thanking you I've seen some of you for years and I know of the work that you have done you know I was paid to to the work in said but many of you are doing it voluntary and we want more and more people I like walks and talks we want to take our culture to the people and today is a very very important day and I hope I don't know if there are any uh cameras or newsmen here to write about it in the pap bro we have 50 of them you know all over Wales and they would like to have the uh information the work you've already done and now you're a chair you're there so so I I want to thank you all and thank you John for uh giving me the uh few minutes to say something from my heart about I'm very very very happy to go home today I have don't need to respond to I don't think I need to but I'm touched and um inspired yes it does Express certainly Sentiments of s I'm sure um questions please yes open the back in perhaps um first of say thank you for such a fine exposition of um what has been achieved in set up p and and the scope and extent of what you have done so far it's been very difficult I congratulate you and all the trustees who have uh made such progress because I mean I you feel myself that it might be easy to start with a black sheet and St the problem meeting for organization long and very active when I just thank you I think I'm going to ask Richard to help me with with that answer because well Callie's here yes yes yes knew so so that you can be heard yeah yes I mentioned Cali and here she [Music] is there's the mic good I wasn't expecting this when I walked in um so we already all were sorry where are you Alan I can't see you're right at the back the back there you are um we already work to the same same standards and actually we're we're quite a close-knit team anyway so we've standardized our policies um and our approaches to data we already have um a national I was going to say Global wouldn't that be nice a national guidance for data submissions um so we do all already work to the same data standards and we are being we're due for our quinquennial audit this coming Financial year um which we will do as one HR so we're already working as one henb HR um quite seamlessly I think it would be fair to say um because there were so many similarities between the four different HS um because we all worked even though we worked in our own ways our own specialities and different focuses on different types of sites we still all had the same ethos and the same policies to work to and amalgamating them all has been something we started pre merger which I think was very helpful for us um we sort of hit the ground running um and yeah we're a fairly fairly cohesive unit I would say now it's not not something we see as a barrier something more we see as a positive um way to grow the historic environment record in Wales thank you K great anybody else yes yeah thank you for the presentation my name is Martin Buckle I chair the bre and beacons Park Society um we've been developing a relationship with the archaeological trusts over the last the last few years although you know the background of our organization it's not particularly archeaological at all um but it's been a very fruitful um relationship we've been developing and and certainly we're looking forward to working rather more strategically yes in the future um one of the the um things that's been particularly valuable to us in that respect has actually been working with the national park Authority as well and their historic environment partnership and and you know I'd like to particularly commend The Authority in that respect and and and that as a model perhaps for engaging um statutory local authorities as well as societies like ours and trusts like like hen um and a finally you know incredibly comprehensive preservation would you be able to share it with all of us yes um I I'd be very happy to share it I believe we've been recorded and I believe it'll go up on the Society of antiquaries um website which will be available to all not not behind a pay wall and I'm hoping that we'll get permission to put it on the henb website as well YouTube channel that is um but if you wants the YouTube yeah yes so know very happy to share it and and the more the merrier and um gone of the days when you know terms like keeper keeping stuff away from people right um that that ethos is evolving and um you will have seen how many Ordinary People take part in what we do and we only want to grow that and the only purpose for growing our revenue is that we can plow it back in again throw it back into our purpose and be more proactive and strategic about research today wasn't the right day to talk about that particularly but um um that is something that that we're thinking about well I think we' actually also through the um questions and discussion we had a very very excellent illustration of the extent to which this is absolutely a collaborative and a team effort um that is going on here and something that is very much interesting me as that there's a team within the organization the organization itself has to be part of a team with other organizations and the extent of that will carry on almost infinitely even if there will be certain directions certain valencies that will be particularly important at certain times because of the circumstances or because of particular waves that are going through the organization um that time but it is in my view very very much a a position where having been sort of extremely proud and knowing what the benefit it was for Wales to have that unified General um system of the four individual trust it has evolved as it had to into the single uh National Trust now but I do think it is a I I don't mean National Trust trust for the nation um uh level um I think that is something that gives a very very great deal of um confidence for the future I think we've catch you on your feet for long enough there uh now anyway but um you know if there are other things that come out you know we don't have to leave the room absolutely in instantly but I would like you all please to join me once again in saying thank you very very much to Carol and in a way it's not just for coming and giving us this talk today but it's for what that represents in terms of a a real personal commitment to the development of the support of the Heritage here in w thank you very much next time I if there is