Can archaeology tell us anything about life in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that we don't already know? The answer, as demonstrated by this English Heritage-funded publication, is an unqualified yes. This affordable book serves two main goals: one, to report on the 2003 excavations of the Hagg Cottages, at Alderley Edge near Manchester; and two, as a synthetic overview of the archaeological study of working-class life. While the excavation of sites less than 200 years of age remains a rarity in the United Kingdom, in North America such research forms the core of historical archaeology. The volume builds upon the practice and the anthropological approach of historical archaeology, reflecting the North American training of first author Dr Eleanor Casella of the University of Manchester and the expertise of second author Dr Sarah Croucher, now lecturing at Wesleyan University in Connecticut.
In the best tradition of historical archaeology, The Alderley Sandhills Project effectively weaves together material, documentary and oral historical evidence to present the history of the occupation of the Hagg Cottages from the late seventeenth through to the mid-twentieth century. The voices of the last residents of the Hagg Cottages, Mrs Molly Pitcher, Mrs Edna Younger and Mr Roy Barber, permeate the volume. Their memories serve as inspiration, and are effectively employed as a check on interpretation. Their perspectives also soften an otherwise heavy-handed emphasis upon analysing the impersonal forces of capitalism, consumerism and the imposition of industrial discipline.
Following opening chapters that reflect on the archaeology of communities and the specific history of Alderley Sandhills, the authors address the following themes: feeding the family, keeping the home, recreation and relaxation, and community life. A concluding chapter pulls together the evidence and situates the Hagg Cottages within their broader national and international context. Each chapter draws from an impressive array of comparative studies (mainly North American and Australian) that lend weight to the interpretations derived from the excavation.
Throughout the study, the authors reflect upon the challenge of elucidating individual and household experiences through examination of the often overwhelming quantities of industrial material culture associated with sites of the recent past. They frankly acknowledge that budgets did not permit a full analysis of every artefact – a daunting prospect familiar to anyone who has examined Victorian and later sites. Instead, they successfully employ a range of selected objects (eg, sauce bottles, porcelain figurines, children's toys and linoleum floor coverings) to tack between multiple scales of analysis: from individual to household, household to community, community to nation. A number of these objects are nicely presented in colour plates; others appear in (somewhat crude) pen-and-ink drawings.
The volume will be of considerable value to anyone interested in the lives of the English rural working class and more broadly in the contributions made by historical archaeology to understandings of household and community life in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The case for the archaeological research value of the recent past is eloquently and thoroughly made by The Alderley Sandhills Project.
