Talk on the floorboard finds

Join Mark Newman, the National Trust’s archaeologist for East Riddlesden Hall, for an exploration of the exciting and unexpected worlds that lie hidden under the floor of National Trust houses.

Thanks to causes ranging from rats to lazy builders, objects get hidden and dropped into the voids beneath our floorboards. When carefully collected and recovered by archaeologists like Mark, they can tell an amazing array of stories of how rooms were used and lived in in the past. Two of the rooms at East Riddlesden have been explored in this way, revealing over a thousand objects ranging in date from medieval times to the 1980s. Drawing on these finds and those from other NT Yorkshire properties, Mark will explain how we can read these often overlooked shadows of the past.

And if you’ve got something intriguing you’ve found in your hose or garden, and don’t know what it is, do bring it along and quiz him about it.