Haigh Hall - Cultural Heritage Centre

Last month Ashley and I were invited on a tour of the Hall, to look at the progress of the refurbishment work and offer some input on its future use.

Showing us around were Kate Brindley (Head of the Cultural Programme) and Peter Hughes, (Assistant Director of Culture & Events). Jim Meehan was also on hand to gives us a comprehensive history of the site (once home to one of the largest and most significant private libraries in Europe). As we were led through the various rooms it became clear that only consolidation work had been done on the interior. This has been a priority to ensure the fantastic delicate plaster work on the walls and ceilings is conserved.

The major focus of work so far has been on the exterior, particularly the roof which has had to be completely replaced. In each room, plans for its future use were explained, including widening some doors and a lift being installed to provide access for all visitors. A café is planned for the ground floor, overlooking the golf course, and a roof top terrace on that same side. The ground floor will still be available for weddings and other functions but the first floor is to be transformed to cater for temporary art exhibitions of national importance. On the upper floors, bedrooms will be available for wedding guests to stay overnight, but it will not generally operate as a hotel.

The money for all this work is coming from £20m Levelling Up Fund which Wigan Council has matched with £24m. The National Lottery Heritage Fund has also granted £5.5m again with £3.6m match funding from the Council. We were told that bidding for the work on the interior will be starting in the next couple of months and once the works starts it is expected to take a couple of years to complete. This is an ambitious programme which will transform this iconic site (including the grounds) into something all Wiganers can be really proud of (lets hope so).

Although we are in the closed season for digging, work continues at the Bolton Archive Facility. This is where all the cremated bone and pit fill material is being stored. Last year Chris Drabble put together a comprehensive procedure for washing, cleaning and drying the bone so that it can be sent off for analysis. This has allowed volunteers to come to the Facility over the winter months to carry out this work. We've also been finishing the micro-excavation of Urn1 which we removed from site at the end of last year (shown here working on it are Tim and Jan McAvoy and Isabel Vaudrey). The bone from feature F13 (one of our un-urned pits) was complete before Christmas and duly sent off for analysis. Osteologist Dr Sam Walsh at UCLan has been selected for this work and we have now received the results from this first batch. They are quite spectacular with almost 70% of the bone fragments being identified. Included in the assemblage are teeth and pieces of petrous (sections of the skull) which have enabled Sam to identify the person as a young adult. There wasn't enough though to estimate the sex of this individual.

We are looking forward to our next batch (F12) now which promises to be even better.

As usual this is still a work in progress, but there are a number of speakers already booked. In March Rachael Tynan from Merseyside Arch. Soc. will be presenting a talk on the history and use of the Medieval Long Sword. In April, David Stanley from South Trafford Arch. Soc. is booked giving his talk on Medieval Defence Structures in the Northwest. In May we have Graham Mottershead with his talk on Roman Manchester. For our trip, we're looking to visit Castleshaw to view Norman Redhead's excavations on the Roman Fort there.

Wednesday 4th February - at the Real Crafty on Upper Dicconson Street starting at 7.30pm as usual - and as it's our AGM subs are due. This year our Society's business won't be too long as all officers have agreed to continue. When it's finished Patrick's presentation will be an update on the previous year's work on our fantastic site at Aspull. Our Ring Ditch project has been ongoing now for over four years now and this last season has produced just as many surprises. It will include the amazing results from the cremated bone analysis .Well worth seeing. Hope to see you there - BA.