Ind Archaeol Rev 19

Highlights the importance of the records left by four generations of the Fairbank family, surveyors who were involved in the construction projects in the Sheffield region in the century after 1750, a period of growth in population and of development of industry, agriculture and transport. The Fairbanks worked on the development of mills, workshops and factories, the building of houses of many kinds, estate valuation and agricultural enclosure, and the planning of turnpike roads, river and canal work and of the first generation of railway schemes. Their records have survived in unusual quantity -- due to preservation and use by nineteenth-century surveyors -- and present a significant source of historical and topographical information, essential for archaeological interpretation of changes in the urban and rural landscapes of the region. It is suggested that comparable material should be sought elsewhere.

Reports on a programme of archaeological excavation and survey, undertaken in 1989--90, which recorded the surviving phases of the structure of Monkey Marsh lock as part of a programme of restoration in advance of the re-opening of the full length of the Kennet and Avon Canal. This restoration threatened the existence of a turf-sided lock and a Scheduled Ancient Monument. The results of archaeological work are integrated with the fragmentary historical record.

Argues that archaeologists should make first-hand records of industry. By taking a saddlery manufacturer in Walsall as an example, this article outlines some of the benefits of documenting working practices. It emphasises that a first hand knowledge of manufacturing techniques can assist archaeological interpretation, and shows that processes rarely proceed in a `text book' manner, usually allowing for empirical adaptations. Process recording can also be used as a critical tool in the understanding of archaeological sites where the techniques employed are now extinct. The article concludes by considering two accounts of the iron trade written in the eighteenth century, which are compared with the results of process recording in the twentieth to offer new insights into industrial archaeology as the archaeology of work.