Project Consultant : Christine Shaw
By 1970, the archaeological world had determined to adopt a programme of education and research to inform the interpretation of prehistory and history. In January 1970, a proposal to establish a working "ancient farm" was produced. The following summary, taken from the original, clearly provides the relevant background.
SUMMARY
The proposal to set up a permanent working ancient farm on Little Butser is being made by the Research Committee on Ancient Agriculture of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the Council for British Archaeology. The paper that follows sets out in some detail the reasons for the project and how its development is envisaged. In short, it involves the establishment of an institute unique in this country which should bring great benefit in archaeological interpretation, in the presentation of prehistory and history to students of all ages, in the use of educational methods involving practical work and in interesting the public who visit Butser. The need for it in terms of research has been demonstrated abundantly by hundreds of inadequate single experiments. Investigation of farming practices requires appropriate and very varied skills as well as years of scientific recording. The final justification for the permanence of the ancient farm will be that it lies at the core of a research institution whose teaching virtues stretch beyond pure archaeology into natural history, ecology and the inculcation of simple accurate observation, vital to research in all fields.
The cover below, shows the general style, the logo and the location of the proposed site on Butser Hill, Hampshire UK.
A point of interest is that the logo, appearing for the first time, was designed by David Johnston, lecturer at Southampton University and member of the Research Committee on Ancient Agriculture.
It was as a direct result of this proposal being adopted by the CBA, that Peter Reynolds was identified as a candidate to run the project because of his emerging work and publications in the field of experimental archaeology, while still teaching classics at Prince Henry's Grammar School, Evesham.
However, little could be done until funding had been established. Finally the Woolfson Foundation came up with an offer of £30,000, a substantial sum in the early 1970's. This was regarded as sufficient to fund the first three years of the Project and Peter Reynolds accepted the offer to take on the exercise. Years later, when struggling as an independent, he remarked that, "His salary at that time was an advance on that as a history teacher ... whatever happened in-between?" Notwithstanding, the remit he was given was to make the Project self-sufficient within that three years. As part of that he set up the Friends of Butser Ancient Farm almost straight away. An almost complete set of Bulletins of the Friends is held in the Hampshire Record Office and gives much insight into progress over these early, as well as later, years. One can see the cycle of events that repeated themselves over the thirty plus year life of the Project, including regular references by outside funding bodies to the effect that, "We'd love to help but times are hard".
One feature of the Project management by the CBA was the succession of title changes to the Managing Committee, from Steering Committee through to the setting up of a Charitable Project Trust. Peter's annual reports, "budget projections" and progress included, are also at the Hampshire Record Office.
Once up and running, the site progressively evolved, with both house construction and cereal growing becoming routine. By 1974, after two years, the site was opened to the public for a couple of days in August. It would not have looked as complete as in the view below but it was on its way. The diagram above was prepared for this Open Day. The areas faintly marked 1 are the animal compounds. Area 5 is where the houses were and Area7 represents the cereal fields, all more clearly seen in the view below.
This is one of many
overviews of the site at Little Butser and shows the barrel
shaped profile of this inhospitable spur. The small white
erections spaced across the cereal fields, with one at each end
and one centrally, are all believed to be weather recording
stations, presumably because it was not known at this stage
whether one or other location was best representative. There is
no written record of this detail, identified so far, but it may
be buried in Peter Reynold's many writings about this time.
Several roundhouses can be seen at various stages of development,
as Peter was starting to explore the effect of size on the
constructs' design. At this early stage the public did not have
routine access to the site, except for the Open Days alluded to
above. The animal fields were located beneath the point from
which this view is taken.
The board in the view below was erected for an Open Day. On it, displayed to the right, is a leaflet describing the Farm's activities but dating from the days when the Demonstration Site, lower down the hill to the right, was in use.
In this view, the notice board obscures much of the site. The animal compounds are on the steeply dipping slope immediately beyond the board. The field to the far right, where cows have congregated, is part of a commercial farm and nothing to do with the Research Site. The shining white patch to the middle right of the Notice Board, is exposed chalk where a linear bank was being tested.
This page is under continuing development.
Created 20 January 2004 - Updated 31 August 2007