IfA/HLF Workplace Learning Bursary in Historic Building Survey and Interpretation

Lon Swan Chapel, Denbighshire
DS2009_155_002   NPRN 7565 - © Crown Copyright RCAHMW

Hello to all the Royal Commission’s blog readers, my name is Ross Cook and I will be working at the Commission for the next year as part of an IfA/HLF Workplace Learning Bursary in Historic Building Survey and Interpretation. The aim of this placement is to equip me with the skills and expertise needed to work with historic buildings in the archaeological and heritage sectors, something I’ve always wanted to do and something I wish to pursue as a career.

It has been almost four weeks since the placement started, and in this time I’ve met all of the Commission staff, attended the staff Away Day, been learning about the work of the Commission and the data systems it uses. I’ve also been out on fieldwork in Denbigh with Buildings Investigator Susan Fielding, carrying our survey of sites for the forthcoming publication on Historic Denbigh.  Here I got to grips with using the Total Station and TheoLT in the survey of two chapels in the town, Lon Swan and Capel Mawr, and undertook a sketch survey of an ‘at risk’ industrial complex (smithy and later butchers) on Love Lane. A morning was also spent with Royal Commission photographer Iain Wright, photographing St Mary’s Church in the town, following which I was able to work-shadow Investigator Richard Suggett during his reconnaissance visits to possible tree-ring dating sites with Dan Miles from the Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory.  I’m now busy processing lots of data, producing illustrations and carrying out research following on from this fieldwork.

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