Newsletters

Welcome to Reclaim Rewind! This quarterly newsletter will keep you up to date with everything that we’ve been up to over the past few months.

Reclaim Rewind: Winter 2025

Lincoln Cathedral survey, talks in the local area, and helping church communities…

This winter has been packed with survey projects, taking us around Lincoln and the wider county.

You probably saw us on BBC Look North in January, talking about the exciting interior ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey in Lincoln Cathedral that we started in December last year. Here’s their article in case you missed it.

We finished off areas in the cloister this year that were previously inaccessible due to the works on the Wren Library, meaning that most of the interior of the Cathedral has now been surveyed. This is the largest interior GPR survey ever done in the UK. We hope to uncover evidence of the previous Romanesque church and perhaps structures from even earlier…

Alongside this, we continued our surveying efforts on the green spaces around the Cathedral. The paved and cobbled area in front of the cathedral was completely surveyed, with Chris answering the many questions from the public on the busy Saturday that the survey took place (mostly asking what the hell he was doing with that lawnmower). These surveys combine with that of the South Green of the Cathedral from May 2025.

You can see the results of the South Green survey here, which shows curious arrangement of burials, and hints of potential Roman structures. This work also shows the applicability of our GPR techniques in cemetery contexts, which we are already using to benefit local communities.

Outside of Lincoln itself, we’ve also been working with local church communities, putting GPR equipment to use to help uncover their histories, and for more practical reasons too. In January, we went out to All Saints’ Church in Nocton, to the south-east of Lincoln. We surveyed about a third of the interior of the beautiful 19th-Century church to help confirm the existence of an underground tomb that is causing structural issues in the church.

Upcoming from Reclaim Heritage

Keep an eye out for the results from the Cathedral interior survey early this year…
In May, we’re running a small excavation on a WW2 site in Whaddon near Milton Keynes with the charity NSIST.
We’ll be out and about in Lincoln, continuing to survey the green spaces around the Cathedral, and elsewhere, tackling issues for local communities.

Interesting events you should know about:

Lincolnshire

Wednesday 15th April, 7:30pm – The Search for the Lost Manors of Harlaxton, Douglas Brown, Harlaxton History Society – run by SLHA, at St Hugh’s Church, Lincoln – admission £4.00, for SLHA members, £3.00. – We did GPR for this project!
Thursday 23rd April, 2:00pm – Stone Age Finds: From the Portable Antiquities Scheme, Dr Kevin Leahy – run by SLHA, at Lincoln Central Library – admission £3.00
Saturday 2nd May to Monday 4th May – Lincoln Festival of History – run by the City of Lincoln Council – free!

Online

Wednesday 22nd April, 7:00pm – This is Archaeology: What is Archaeology and why does it matter? Creating a Future for the Past by engaging young people in Archaeology, Morgause Lomas, University of Loughborough, – run by the Council for British Archaeology – free, but relies on donations
Friday 1st May, 5:30pm – The Haunting at the Rectory: Ghost Stories and Women’s Lives, Professor Sasha Handley, University of Manchester – run by the Royal Historical Society – free!