Practical Conservation on the Ridgeway
The Historic Ridgeway Project seeks to unite people to interpret and conserve archaeological sites and features along The Ridgeway in Oxfordshire and West Berkshire – between Ashbury and Wallingford.
Here in Wantage, we are fortunate to be close to many of these sites, including Wantage Monument, Scutchamer Knob, and Waylands Smithy. The Project is looking to get more people involved in using the Ridgeway and to help protect and conserve the historical sites and wildlife.
Many of the archaeological sites along the route are hidden from sight, so thousands of visitors and landowners need to be made aware of the exciting stories from the past. Together with old maps and written sources, we can use modern techniques such as geophysics and drone surveys to help illustrate the importance of each site and how they relate to each other and people’s lives today.
The project manager, Hayley, approached the Ridgeway Explorer unit to see if the Explorers would like to undertake some conservation work near Wantage. We then extended this invite to the Wantage Scout Group, too.
On November 9th, we all met up at Scutchamer Knob on a lovely fresh Saturday morning to tackle some of the overgrown brambles and young trees that obscured the site. After all that hard work, Hayley and Sarah rewarded the team with hot chocolate and biscuits. We left the site safe, knowing we’d taken a small step closer to revealing some of our exciting history to future visitors.
The team after the work was done.
If you’d like to get involved or learn more about the Historic Ridgeway Project, please take a look at the PDF below:
