York Historic Environment Record

In September 2014, the Head Teacher of Lord Deramore’s School approached the lead author, as a parent at the school, seeking advice on how to implement her idea of reconstructing a short stretch of First World War ‘fighting trench’ on the school playing fields. This was intended to form a component of a school-wide programme of learning around the theme of the war, intended to continue throughout the centenary. Taking into account plans to reconstruct a new school somewhere on the grounds (whose exact location remains uncertain at time of writing), the author suggested that the reconstruction should be preceded by archaeological investigations in which the school-children could actively participate, and which would inform subsequent mitigation work by archaeological contractors in advance of the development. The investigations at Lord Deramore’s School approximately coincided with two five-day ‘skills modules’, the first dealing with analytical earthwork survey and the second with geophysical survey, organised and conducted by the authors on Church Green, an expanse of University- owned lawn that lies on the opposite side of Field Lane from the school. This land had already been identified as a convenient and cost-effective venue for student training, because it retains a range of slight earthworks as well as features likely to be susceptible to geophysical techniques, and can be readily appreciated in the context of the local historic landscape. However, the land is prone to flooding (for reasons discussed below) and the school playing fields seemed to offer a convenient fall-back venue in the event of Church Green abruptly becoming unusable. The skills modules were primarily designed to train post-graduate students at the University’s Archaeology Department in non-invasive survey techniques.