Today I’ve added two Links: one to the Archaeological Data Service (ADS) and the second to the Vernacular Architecture Group (VAG), both good sources for Bedfordshire landscape and buildings.
VAG was formed in 1952 for the study of traditional buildings, originally those of the British Isles but now it reflects international interests. Members are ‘involved in all aspects of the recording and study of vernacular buildings’. The website has information about conferences, its publications and links to databases. VAG’s cruck buildings and dendrochronology databases are held on the Archaeology Data Service website (ADS).
ADS is a MUST for all Bedfordshire historians. It brings together research from English Heritage, National Monuments Record, Bedfordshire County Council and many more. There’s much too much to even try to describe its scope. A crude search of the ADS Online Catalogue for Bedfordshire found more than 3000 hits, ranging from palaeolithic flakes to Royal Observer Corps monitoring posts of the Cold War period. I explored ADS for places that I’m interested in and discovered that Stanbridge in the south of the county is described as a shrunken medieval or post-medieval village and that the Fonterraultine priory of Grovebury may not have been fully established.
There’s plenty of opportunity in both these sites for anyone with Bedfordshire interests or wishing to put the local in a regional or national context.
Barbara Tearle
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