Boston Hanse Community Excavation

Archaeological Project Services successfully tendered for this community excavation project, which focused on the former Hansatic area of medieval Boston. The aim of the project was to support the Boston Hanse Group on their Heritage Lottery Funded programme of archaeological work, providing opportunities for the local community to get involved and try and locate one of the medieval merchants’ warehouses.

Over a two week excavation period, the project engaged with a substantial number of the local community taking part in a community excavation, including new and diverse audiences and significant involvement from local
schools including 3 secondary schools and 5 primary schools, all of whom reported an enormously positive experience, both by teachers and children. Alongside this work APS ran a wide ranging programme of community
engagement including archaeological fieldwork,
geophysical activity, two public open weekends, medieval living history at Hussey Tower and an associated exhibition at the Boston Guildhall.

To tell the story of the project and demonstrate its success in achieving its outcomes, Heritage Lincolnshire produced the initial evaluation framework, collected the data, and compiled the report, detailing the breakdown of participants and their experiences through photographs and qualitative and quantitative feedback. The project lead for the Boston Hanse Group reported, “The evaluation is very professionally presented, and a fair summation of the huge contributions made and everyone’s efforts to make this archaeology project such a success. I am very impressed with the statistics, the photographs, and the numerous quotes you have included. It certainly makes a very interesting read and highlights the areas where we can make improvements on our next project.”