Bamburgh is one of the most popular tourist sites in the North East of England and the many visitors who flock there cannot fail to be impressed by its stunning combination of medieval castle and stately home. Few of them however will be aware of the great historical association that the castle site has with the history of the northern region. Bamburgh and York were the two most important centres in Anglo-Saxon Northumbria.
Surprisingly despite its extraordinary history Bamburgh has attracted very little in the way of archaeological interest. In an attempt to redress this situation The Bamburgh Research Project was set up in 1996 with the intention of investigating the castle site, together with its surrounding environment, using modern archaeological techniques.
A further reason for the initiation of the project was that the original core members of the Research Committee had identified a lack of quality training facilities for professional archaeologists. The multi phase, multiple site nature of Bamburgh makes it an ideal place to train the next generation of field archaeologists. Bamburgh was started in order to attempt to resolve these issues.
The Bamburgh Research Project provides an ideal environment for the training of students. They offer a wide range of education opportunities from basic field techniques through to supervisory roles.
The key to the project is the multi disciplinary nature. The project directors are professional field archaeologists, each with a wealth of experience. Their combined talents and skills allow a broad base to the excavation techniques practised at Bamburgh. There is also a strong culture of investigating the written record, in order to create a secure archaeological strategy, before excavation begins.
As a part of the project Bamburgh Research run their own media department to create a video archive of all the archaeology as part of their primary site archive as well as documenting the social history of the project.
They use the archive to produce their own films, the latest of which is a 10 year retrospective that involves the discovery and investigation into archaeologist Brian Hope-Taylor's legacy of physical artefacts and excavation methods at Bamburgh. The latest promo, made in conjunction with Esper Films, came out of a collaboration with York St. John's Film & TVcourse. The project provide work experience in film and TV and general media to students and volunteers.
The picture on the left shows one of the more publicised excavations at Bamburgh. This area has become known as 'The Bowl Hole'.
The depression contains an early Anglian graveyard. What makes the graveyard so sensational is that although it spans a relatively short period, perhaps only three hundred years, it contains distinct phases. The first phase is the early Northumbrian long cist cemetery. This is identified through prone burials. The second phase is a slightly later incursion representing the pagan incomers, who buried their dead with grave goods. The final phase is only marginally later, and shows the return to more traditionally Christian burials, without grave goods, after the conversion during the 7th century.
The Bamburgh Research Project and their discoveries have featured regularly in the local news of the region, both in the press and on television.
The BBC's "Meet the Ancestors" has produced a programme centred on the excavations carried out in the Bowl Hole and children's BBC also used the West Ward excavation as the archaeological section of a new educational series about the Anglo Saxons.