River Ure Research Project About

Ure River Research Project

About Us

In 1732 there was a great flood that thundered down the River Ure causing tremendous damage to the mills and bridges that lined its banks. Both Masham and West Tanfield bridges were completely destroyed, animals were killed and mill folk left destitute.

Almost three hundred years later a local group has been set up to research the structures affected by this event and in doing so research the history of the river.

The Ure River Research Project is a local initiative run by volunteers from the areas in and around Masham to West Tanfield in North Yorkshire, England. It also involves the wider online community and skilled professionals.

The project aims to help local people find out more about local life in the past and in doing so develop other skills such as research and IT. The project also aims to involve the wider community by producing walks, talks, guides and schools projects.

The general area covered by the project is the River Ure from Jervaulx Abbey to East Tanfield and as such includes many ancient structures including the early medieval bridge at Kilgram, a 12th century mill complex at High Burton and even touches on the regions most ancient site - Thornborough Henges whose ceremonial causeway may have began close to East Tanfield Mill.

There are generally two sorts of researchers in our group, many perform both functions. Field Researchers are generally local people who visit the sites in order to gather data such as taking photographs. This information is uploaded onto the Internet for our other type of researcher - the Online Researcher to look at.

The hope is that by working in this way we can create a project both of interest to local people, but also to the very keen amateurs around the world who often lack the sites to exercise their passions.

Overall the project has been broken down into a number of discrete tasks. The idea is that members can choose to opt in to one or more tasks.

Many tasks are designed to be short term for people who feel they can only commit a short period of time. Often these tasks will be performed as a result of participation in training courses, for example we intend to hold a geophysics weekend during which we will establish the ground plan of a now demolished 12th Century Mill. Participants will learn how about Geophysics techniques, measuring out, computation and interpretation as well as gaining valuable practical experience.

But this is not just a group of amateurs. Thanks to the Local Heritage Initiative we are able to fund paid professional advisers who will help, teach and perform specialist research tasks, we hope that the way we structure the group will allow us to make best use of these.

This project will run initially for twelve months but it is our firm intention to extend further down and up the river later on. We hope to join with other groups that we know are active in the area.

If you would like to find out more please email us info@ureresearch.org.uk.

In 1732 there was a great flood that thundered down the River Ure causing tremendous damage to the mills and bridges that lined its banks. Both Masham and West Tanfield bridges were completely destroyed, animals were killed and mill folk left destitute.

Almost three hundred years later a local group has been set up to research the structures affected by this event and in doing so research the history of the river.

The Ure River Research Project is a local initiative run by volunteers from the areas in and around Masham to West Tanfield in North Yorkshire, England. It also involves the wider online community and skilled professionals.

The project aims to help local people find out more about local life in the past and in doing so develop other skills such as research and IT. The project also aims to involve the wider community by producing walks, talks, guides and schools projects.

The general area covered by the project is the River Ure from Jervaulx Abbey to East Tanfield and as such includes many ancient structures including the early medieval bridge at Kilgram, a 12th century mill complex at High Burton and even touches on the regions most ancient site - Thornborough Henges whose ceremonial causeway may have began close to East Tanfield Mill.

There are generally two sorts of researchers in our group, many perform both functions. Field Researchers are generally local people who visit the sites in order to gather data such as taking photographs. This information is uploaded onto the Internet for our other type of researcher - the Online Researcher to look at.

The hope is that by working in this way we can create a project both of interest to local people, but also to the very keen amateurs around the world who often lack the sites to exercise their passions.

Overall the project has been broken down into a number of discrete tasks. The idea is that members can choose to opt in to one or more tasks.

Many tasks are designed to be short term for people who feel they can only commit a short period of time. Often these tasks will be performed as a result of participation in training courses, for example we intend to hold a geophysics weekend during which we will establish the ground plan of a now demolished 12th Century Mill. Participants will learn how about Geophysics techniques, measuring out, computation and interpretation as well as gaining valuable practical experience.

But this is not just a group of amateurs. Thanks to the Local Heritage Initiative we are able to fund paid professional advisers who will help, teach and perform specialist research tasks, we hope that the way we structure the group will allow us to make best use of these.

This project will run initially for twelve months but it is our firm intention to extend further down and up the river later on. We hope to join with other groups that we know are active in the area.