Industrial Archaeology

So just what do we mean by industrial archaeology?

Well to some it's anything to do with industry, the manufacture and making of goods. Included of course are the machines used to make those goods, and the buildings which housed those machines. Machines require a motive power, and industrial archaeology certainly includes wind and watermills, as well as steam and oil engines and the electric motor. From the early 19th century sawmill we open for the public, to Laurance Scott and Electromotors. From Traction engines to fairground rides. From the medieval woollen industry to the canning of baked beans. From smokehouse bloater to Norfolk turkeys. The range is huge.

Goods have to be transported, and so roads, rivers, canals and railways must be included. From turnpike roads to railways including industrial railways. From the North Walsham and Dilham canal to the Pulham Airship base.

There are of course the extractive industries, no coal mines in Norfolk, but everything from neolithic flint mines, the medieval peat diggings that became the Norfolk Broads, major sand quarries, the first major forest plantations for timber around Thetford and of course the North sea gas fields. Extensive chalk workings to make lime, many brick fields and now concrete block manufacture.

And underpinning much of Norfolk's economy is agriculture. Home of innovators such as Turnip Townsend and Coke of Holkham, Large 19th century farms and even larger 20th century ones. The Society recorded the remains of one of the earliest fertiliser factories. Norfolk was home until the 1960's of a major fishing industry, and there is still an important inshore industry.

We must also include the people who worked in these industries. Their housing, some with "weavers windows" whilst Cromer fishermen may have the crab boiler. The shops and pubs to churches and chapels, all form part of the fabric of society that our members are interested in.

Archaeology?

As British industry contracts and centralises so businesses continue to close. Often with closure records are also lost. Norwich was once the major production centre in Britain for Ladies and children's shoes, now more are sold in its shoe shops than made in Norwich. When Thermos closed its vacuum factory in Thetford our record was of the last production of that product in Britain. For 35 years we have been recording fish smokehouses, fertilizer factories, tanneries, lime kilns,maltings, iron foundries, brickworks, mills, pumping stations, shoe factories, and so on. Industries don't have to be all that old to justify recording. As an example two breweries established in Norwich in the 1980's have closed.