List of our projects

Know your place

Project Coordinator: Steve Pearce



Visit the project homepage (if you have the SilverLight plugin, visit Know your place here).

BCAP has been a contributor since the early days of Bristol City Council's flagship project backed by English Heritage, to create a website offering access to to the many historic maps held at Bristol Record Office. The maps are linked to user-submitted information as well as data in the city's Historic Environment Record (HER), which contains a wealth of information about Bristol's archaeology and history - including Brislington.

As part of this endeavour BCAP members have visited Bristol Record Office to view and photograph a variety of documents detailing Brislington's past. Our initial contribution has been to prepare a transcript of information relating to the Brislington Tithe map of 1846 (the apportionment), which details who owned each field in the parish, who was using it, what was being grown there, its name, size and value.

A small working party laboured long and hard and completed the task within the deadline sgugested by Peter Insole, the Historic Environment Record Officer (HERO) at Bristol City Council who has been spearheading the project. The public launch of the website was held at Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery on Wednesday 16th March 2011, and attracted more than 100 guests. Hosted by Peter Insole and with keynote speaker Councillor Anthony Negus, the presentation included video of BCAP project coordinator Steve Pearce putting the pilot website through its paces. The event recieved a full page in the following day's Evening Post (with an online version).

As part of this preparation for this venture (formerly known as the Bristol Historic Map Web Project), BCAP members attended a conference about Communities and the Historic Environment, which was held at the Harbourside Pavilion, Bristol, on 12 November 2010. Steve Pearce delivered the opening presentation entitled Digging in the Community, and his theme emphasised the importance for community archaeologists to delve not only into the soil, but also into the memories of local people in order to find and preserve local knowledge. Download conference minutes (1.3MB .pdf)

For further information about this project, or if you have any maps that may be of interest (large or small - such as those on property deeds), please contact the project coordinator, above.



Credits
Text — Dawn Witherspoon & Ken Taylor (updated 07.03.11)