An archaeological excavation in Alderley Edge has generated some new ideas about how the rise of consumer society impacted the domestic lives of ordinary workers.
The dig was carried out in 2003 with the involvement of local volunteers and schools and funded through English Heritage by the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund. The site itself contained the remains of two pairs of miner's cottages from the 18th century that were chosen because the lives of the cottages spanned three centuries.
Hagg Cottages were occupied until after the Second World War, and were only demolished in the mid-1950s. Three children who had grown up there are still alive and visited the excavation frequently to see the traces of their childhood homes emerge from the soil. Their memories, stories and family photographs provided a unique personal perspective.
Dr Eleanor Casella, a Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Manchester, said "By focusing on a domestic site, we sought to examine how the men, women and children of this ordinary working neighbourhood both maintained and improved their conditions of everyday life in the face of the rapid socioeconomic revolutions of the 18th to 20th centuries."
Eleanor added "Community outreach was an intrinsic component of this fieldwork programme, with project participants including former residents and neighbours of the excavated cottages. Their oral histories provided a crucial source of information for understanding the social meanings of archaeological objects and places within the study site."
The findings from the traditional archaeological excavation have recently been published by Manchester University Press in a book called 'The Alderley Sandhills Project', along with family photographs and personal memories of former site residents. It is available to purchase from Amazon.
The Alderley Sandhills Project was co-directed by Dr. Eleanor Casella, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Manchester, and Professor Emeritus John Prag of the Manchester Museum.
The powerpoint images are drawn from the Alderley Sandhills Project and courtesy of E. Casella, Alderley Sandhills Project, 2010.
