2 March 2011
This week Eastbourne school children have been invited to help discover the archaeology of a disused railway line in a joint project involving the town’s Museum Service, East Sussex County Council, Chris Butler Archaeological Services Ltd (CBAS), and Eastbourne Natural History and Archaeological Society.
From Monday 28 February to this Friday 4 March, pupils from Stafford School will be joining a small team of volunteers and archaeology experts to find out more about the track that runs by the Horsey Sewer.
This falls along part of the route of the County Council funded Sovereign Harbour Cycle Network and dates back to 1849 when it was used to transport shingle from the Crumbles back to the mainline so it could be distributed around the country.
Eastbourne Borough Council Museum Officer Jonathan Seaman said “This is a particularly exciting time for the Eastbourne Museum Service, with our collection audit progressing well, school outreach programme proving very popular, research projects uncovering fascinating information about the town, planning for a summer exhibition, and now for the first time ever, Museum Volunteers participating in archaeological fieldwork.
“Following our recent appeal we have over 80 people wanting to volunteer for the Museum Service and because of this interest we can now be involved in larger scale projects. It is a wonderful opportunity for our volunteers to work alongside professional archaeologists from CBAS and the County Council and will provide excellent experience for further practical fieldwork I am planning for later on in the year.”
The railway line the team are looking at eventually closed in 1966 and the majority has now been dismantled or forgotten. The team carrying out the archaeology evaluation excavation hope to find out what evidence survives of the line and its construction before it is removed to allow the cycle path to go ahead. Stafford school pupils are being invited to go along and use their investigative skills to work out what is going on as the experts carry out the excavation.
Councillor Matthew Lock, East Sussex County Council’s Lead Cabinet Member for Transport and Environment, said “This opportunity is one of the benefits of working in partnership with our colleagues in Eastbourne and I will be fascinated to see the results.”
The entire project is being funded by East Sussex County Council and will also involve CBAS and the Eastbourne Museum Service working together to produce some permanent on-site interpretation along this part of the Cycle Network.
Eastbourne Borough Council Cabinet Member for Tourism and Leisure, Cllr Neil Stanley said “This is a fantastic opportunity for our Museum Service as well as local school pupils to work together on an exciting project discovering the history and archaeology of, what was once, a significant railway line for Eastbourne. With some great work being carried out to audit Eastbourne’s local history and archaeology collection already making over 10,000 artefacts more accessible to the local community, combined with a brilliant programme of events at the Redoubt Fortress, 2011 is shaping up to be a great year for discovering years gone by in Eastbourne.”
