April 21 |The Creation of an Estate: Archaeological Investigations at Kiplin Hall, North Yorkshire | Jim Brightman, Solstice Heritage 7.30pm at Stockton Central Library TS18 1TU. Guests are welcome for £4 each on the door.

The ‘Charting Chipeling’ project was a volunteer archaeology project, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, and focusing on the Jacobean and later Kiplin Hall and its grounds, located near Richmond, North Yorkshire. Set within a wider landscape of prehistoric and Roman archaeological sites, the wide sand and gravel terraces flanking the River Swale are known to host archaeological remains ranging from the Mesolithic to the present day and, prior to the building of the Hall, Kiplin was dominated by a monastic grange of the nearby Easby Abbey. Despite this, the Kiplin grounds have been subject to almost no previous archaeological investigation. What has emerged is a fascinating story of the development of the grounds as we see them today, a dynamic period of change and remodelling of the land against a backdrop of societal and industrial reform.

About the speaker

Jim Brightman, Director of Solstice Heritage, is a professional archaeologist and heritage consultant with over a decade of experience in undertaking and supervising planning-led archaeology, research and conservation, and community-based projects. Jim’s wide-ranging experience has included working on urban and rural sites of all kinds, and examining archaeological remains from Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to late Victorian slum housing.

In the early 2000s Jim completed a BA and MLitt in archaeology at Newcastle University during which he developed his passion for the archaeology of northern England which had been first kindled by the castles and abbeys of North Yorkshire as a child. Outside archaeology Jim is a keen musician and hillwalker, and can also be found dangling from rock faces around the north of England. Jim is a fully accredited member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (MCIfA).