Heritage Skills Training with the Inner Forth Landscape Initiative

Throughout 2015 AOC has been working with the Inner Forth Landscape Initiative (IFLI) to deliver a comprehensive programme of heritage skills training workshops. The diverse range of opportunities has covered everything from geophysical survey to learning how to gather oral histories! We’ve also conducted a handful of community excavations. At Borrowmeadow, Stirling, we explored the area close to the Abbots’ Causeway, long believed to have been a medieval crossing point over the Forth to Cambuskenneth Abbey. At Gartmorn Dam, Alloa, we investigated a waggonway that was used for transporting coal from the pits down into the town in the 19th and 20th centuries. Both of these small-scale excavations provided excellent opportunities for learning, with on-site training in excavation and recording techniques as well as standing buildings survey, topographic survey, plane table survey, dendrochronology, artefact identification and so on.

Our role is far from over – we will continue to work with IFLI throughout 2016 and 2017, delivering further training opportunities and excavations, to bring the past to life for as many people as possible.

To find out more about past projects and future opportunities for involvement, please see the website, www.innerforthlandscape.co.uk.