Workshop 3: Heritage and public impact in Norman Conquest archaeology

Despite the prominent place of 1066 in the popular consciousness, public understanding of the Norman Conquest is derived primarily from the historical sources of the period. Beyond castles, archaeology and material culture have had little influence on the portrayal of the Norman Conquest in education, media, and heritage. As such, this final workshop will focus on strategies for communicating the archaeology of the Norman Conquest to wider audiences, and brainstorming new ideas for improving the public understanding of the material dimensions of the 11th and 12th centuries through outreach and education.

Particular areas of discussion will include the potential of collaborative research partnerships between academics, museums, heritage bodies, and professional archaeology, and how we can best facilitate mutually beneficial partnerships and future research on existing datasets and collections. We will also build on discussions of field archaeology from workshop 2, focusing on how the professional sector, which is responsible for generating and interpreting a large amount of 11th and 12th-century data, can play a more active role in archaeological scholarship and debate on the Norman Conquest. Contributors from the institutions responsible for the protection, curation, and presentation will highlight the particular challenges and opportunities that these properties and collections offer for ensuring that the archaeology of the Norman Conquest, and the stories we can tell through material culture, become more prominent in the public consciousness. There will also be a particular emphasis on highlighting the current HLF project to refurbish and redesign the 12th century Norman palace keep at Norwich Castle Museum, and utilizing the ideas generated in all three workshops to inform future plans at this institution.