Greetings ...

... to any Yorkneyites (Yorcadians?) visiting these pages dedicated to documenting the York University dig at Newark Bay, Deerness, Orkney, carried out between 1968 and 1974.

It's 40 years ago this summer that a group of students from the University of York began digging up the chicken run at Mr Delday's farm at Newark Bay in Deerness in Orkney. So now seems a suitable moment to see what was achieved over the six years of the dig, and what if any, lasting results were achieved.

We'll be up in Orkney in August next year (2009) - if anyone cares to meet up on the beach at Newark for some reminiscing (bring your own digestive biscuits and tuna sandwiches) ... perhaps we can fix a date!

These pages will shortly be appearing in an updated form as I have found some more notes and plans and have been collecting periodical articles. Meanwhile here's some new information as background: a report written by Sid Bradley on the first year of the dig in 1968. He must have spent a lot of time in the Orkney Room of the old Kirkwall Library.
1968 report

And for those who think there's no surviving plans see these: the first is a tracing of the ground plans I helped draw, and the second was drawn by Alan Fleck.
Newark Chapel
Tunnel and chamber(s)

And thanks to Sigurd Towrie at The Orcadian this is what that newspaper said about us in the edition of 14th August 1969 - click the image to enlarge:

Someone in Orkney who goes by the name of Wideford, has been kind enough to link to these pages so I shall return the compliment. He has interesting comments and pictures of our site. The following links should open in a new window.
Newark souterrain
Newark fogou
If he reads this he may be interested to know that I have got a copy of Don Brothwell's mycoform article - written of course before the discovery of Mine Howe ...

Why now?

In the summer of 2005 while we (Sue and Tony Hopkins) were staying at Cantick Head on Hoy, our friends from our York days and now fairly near neighbours in Essex, Geoff and Helen Bowles were touring the northern islands of North Ronaldsay, Papay and Westray. York has a dig currently on Westray, so they visited, and suddenly realised that references were being made to our Newark Bay dig, and its apparent lack of documentation. Having been there with us, they knew plans had been carefully drawn, notes and photographs carefully taken and finds labelled and boxed up for further study. So this is an attempt to rectify the situation.

The first two of the following are PDF files for which you will need Acrobat Reader:
 
Part of Reg's diary from 1969
Sue's diary from 1970

August 2007 - Met Trevor James and family quite by chance on the beach at Newark, and he has kindly provided the following photos:
Trevor's old photos

Location of site - link to Multimap.

Hopkinsaga
History of the dig, 1969-
Old Orkney photos - slide show

York's current dig on Westray
Orkney Archaeological Trust - article on Newark Bay skeleton

If you have any documentation, photos or other memorabilia you wish to share please email me, Sue Hopkins, at the following address, replacing the word (at) with a @ please: hopkins248(at)btinternet.com