I worked in the Surrey Historic Environment Record from January 2018 until December 2023, exempting the six months I took off for a sabbatical in the middle of 2023. I’ve been crunching the numbers and in those five-and-a-half years I produced, alongside hundreds of database records and datasets for customers that are the bread and butter of HER work, a heck of a lot of outreach content. These ranged from 16 pieces in the Surrey Archaeological Society Bulletin/Surrey’s Past through to a smaller number of presentations (with the inevitable pre-pandemic in-person/post-pandemic online split) and public displays. I also wrote a total of 15 blog posts for the HER Blog on the Exploring Surrey’s Past website (plus contributed a paragraph to another group effort).
Researching and writing these blog posts wasn’t the reason why my rate of posting things on Surrey Medieval fell off a cliff in the years 2018-2023, though I would say working a full-time job in the heritage sector leaves you with less inclination to do similar work outside of it and so is a much better explanation of how things came to be the way they are (were?) with this website. Nevertheless, looking back over all of my posts at the end of my time with the HER was an unexpectedly wonderful experience. I was surprised at the breadth of topics I’d ended up choosing to write about (although, if memory serves, my very first post about Suffragette history and the historic environment of Surrey was one chosen for me – and gladly accepted, I might add!), with many more covering subjects from the 18th to 20th centuries than the Middle Ages. In fact, it’s a wonder I limited myself to just one early medieval-themed blog post (I had a second in the works which will instead see the light of day on here).
In roughly chronological order of their subject matter…
HER Monument 1 and the Mesolithic archaeology of Surrey (December 2023)
My final HER blog post, mostly written in haste on my very final working day! The Mesolithic isn’t my period but the fact the card index that would in time become the Surrey HER began with of all things a lithic find spot on the slopes of Leith Hill couldn’t help grab my attention and write something about it, especially since a journal article to which the HER contributed a map provides a great new framework for interpreting sites of the period in Surrey.
Vive la France et le Surrey! (July 2018)
This was my very subtle attempt at trying to wind up Brexit voters by emphasising Surrey’s repeated links across the millennia with what is now France. It starts with Iron Age and Roman material culture but goes right through to a 19th-century eccentric who was buried upside down for a spurious reason (though this was not why subsequently he was exhumed and reburied).
A piece of shameless bandwagon jumping from the time when a little corner of the archaeological world went all giddy at a film being made about one of its iconic sites. It allowed me some time to think in a bit more detail about a site near where I used to live in Puttenham, which in turn has spurred me to do some more research for publication elsewhere.
Stay Home, Save Lives, and discover more about the historic landscapes of Surrey (April 2020)
Something that began life as a simple research guide following up on a day’s workshop I helped to arrange for the Surrey Archaeological Society’s Medieval Studies Forum in mid-March 2020 turned into a rather different animal after the first Covid-19 national lockdown was announced two days later. Features most of my trade secrets for online research to do with Surrey, especially in the Middle Ages.
Lagham Park Historic Landscape Survey, South Godstone (July 2020)
A post to launch the 140+ page report I largely wrote as the culmination of a landscape survey and research project based on a historic park in south-east Surrey. Completely bonkers that we managed to undertake and complete this while also keeping on top of business as usual tasks (though that’s the wonder of flexible working hours).
What the Surrey HER could do for you: digging deeper for answers in Horsell (October 2019)
This was a really enjoyable post to put together, over an extended period of time. Sometimes when you start writing a post you know where it’s going to go and how it will conclude. Not this one.
Legacies of slavery and colonialism on the Surrey HER (June 2020)
Written in the wake of the protests that followed the murder of George Floyd and very much prompted by them and the Black Lives Matter movement. This was the start of my making a deliberate effort to integrate the heritage of minorities in Surrey HER data, which became one of my proudest achievements of my tenure as HER Officer.
The Surrey HER, Black History Month, beforehand and beyond (October 2021)
A follow-up post to the previous one in many ways, reporting on progress but also striving to show the multiple facets of Black history in Surrey. It was also one that benefitted from collaboration with colleagues at the Surrey History Centre.
A walk through the historic environment of the Surrey Hills (July 2019)
Quite possibly my most popular post, largely due to the fact people love to search online for walking routes in the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and so came across it. The post covers a lot of 19th-century features but also older ones (including an early medieval estate boundary denoted by two street signs) and later ones (most impressively, a Second World War army camp).
Of all the posts I wrote over the years, I think this is the one of which I am most proud. Why? Because it foregrounds some of the most marginalised of all minority groups – as attested by the absence of relevant terminology within the thesaurus used in all HER databases. With there being a real shortage of online content about the archaeology of Gypsy, Romany and Traveller communities in the UK, this post hopefully can bring a bit more awareness of such things at a county level.
Sites of Suffragette history in the Surrey Historic Environment Record (February 2018)
My very first blog post on ESP! And one that really impressed upon me how historical events happened in places that exist in the present day, adding extra layers of information and interest to the often dry architectural descriptions found in NHLE and HER entries.
I may as well admit it; by and large, Second World War archaeology holds little interest for me. But there are exceptions to this and here is one of them. Having first heard of the site in the midst of the pandemic and then seen it by means of some online photographs, to experience its size and intactness in real life was a genuine thrill.
How did that get here? A forgotten folder of notes on the history of Shepperton (March 2018)
I put this post last as it concerns a local history folder compiled between the mid-1960s and early 1970s, though it covers all manner of older things (right back to an early medieval boat that nearly featured in a TV series). I don’t think Surrey HER was alone in finding it had acquired some mystery items of uncertain provenance over the decades, and in this case the folder has found a lasting home in the Surrey History Centre (item reference CC1275).
I’ve kept the following two blog posts separate from the rest as I created them not to focus on a particular period, place or topic, rather to publicise improvements that had been made to the HER elements of Exploring Surrey’s Past:
A biggie in many ways; the official launch of the first update of the online Surrey HER summary dataset for several years, one that also delivered a greatly increased number of records available to view. This was the culmination of several months’ effort (following several years of false starts and delays) and a real accomplishment.
A second post about enhancements to content on ESP, this time improvements made the series of explanatory pages relating to the HER. This addressed many of the concerns expressed in customer feedback to the HER over the course of the previous few years, and put the HER back where it began at the heart of the website.
Last but not least comes my one contribution to Surrey Heritage’s Marvel of the Month strand, which is always worth a read;
Milestones in the life of Surrey’s historic road network (August 2020)
A little piece about “big infrastructure” in 18th/19th-century Surrey that actually turned out to have a much greater impact than I could have imagined, since it was used as a source to support the decision made the following year to list the milestone in question and all of its surviving counterparts along the historic London to Eastbourne road.
Surrey Medieval 