New Equipment

In the last few months our Society has increased its equipment list quite significantly. Using the funding obtained by Tom last year from the Community Chest, we have been able to purchase a Pseudo-section Kit to go with our resistivity meter (we first saw this kit 18 months ago, when it was demonstrated to us at the CIA conference at Beverly (see Newsletter 106).

The equipment is augmented by a new laptop computer which was purchased earlier in the year. Our latest acquisition is a digital camera, which has been awarded to us by the GMAU for our work in recording the gravestones in the Parish Church Yard.

Pseodo-sectioning

Our original resistivity meter allowed us to examine features lying just below the surface over an area of ground. Our new kit works in a similar way, but will enable us to look at a vertical section - up to a depth of 6 meters. It does this by sending signals through an array of 20 probes set out at equal distances across the section under study. The data is recorded using the same meter but now up to 57 readings are taken from the one setting. The data is then processed using a special inversion program and the results presented in a graph similar to this one.

New Camera

This is our new camera - for the technical it's a Panasonic Lumix FZ28 which as a 27mm wide-angle Leica DC Vario-Elmarit lens with 18x optical zoom. It has 10 megapixels and has an array of advanced manual and automatic features including hand-shake detection. The accessory pack comes with a case and a 2 gig memory card.

GM Federation

The 3rd meeting of the Greater Manchester Federation was held on Saturday where a presentation was given on the progress of the 'Dig Greater Manchester' project. This is an extension of the very successful 'Dig Manchester' community project which finished last year. Funding commitment has been obtain from the 11 local government authorities and the Heritage Lottery Fund, but commitment from the national government has yet to be confirmed.

Of particular interest at the meeting was a talk on Health & Safety given by Peter Bone. This is an important issue for societies carrying out any field work. Eric Walter has already compiled our H&R policy document which will be available at our next meeting. The Federation has also produced its first newsletter which summarises the work of societies around the region together with recent work of the GMAU. A copy of the newsletters will also be available at our next meeting.

Next Meeting

There is no meeting in August; our next meeting will be in September (2nd) when Alastair Vannan will be giving us a talk on the North West in the Iron Age. In my recent letter I mentioned that we needed an EGM to make changes to our constitution (this is to correct issues with our funding arrangements). We have not received any objections to our proposed changes, therefore we should be able to fit the EGM in at the start of the meeting in September (the only issue on the agenda will be our changes therefore the EGM should be over with quite quickly). I will send more details about the meeting nearer the time.

Rectory Project

The next site visit at the Rectory will be on Sunday 9th August when we will be conducting resistivity surveys of the area we have selected for our first trench. The following Sunday we will be putting in our first trenches. If you are interested in getting involved, contact me or Eric Walter on 01942 820957.

Wigan Baths

You may have noticed that the baths in Millgate are being demolished. As this is an archaeological sensitive area, Brian Parr has contacted Ian Miller, at Oxford Archaeology North, to express his concern that potential Roman remains, both here and at Municipal Building in Hewlett St, could be destroyed.

Ian has said that he is confident there are no remains left at the baths site. However he has been visiting both sites quite regularly and can assure us that any opportunity to record further remains will not be missed.