Future Research

Food for Thought: co-designing a Research Strategy for the Yorkshire Wolds

The Yorkshire Wolds Research Strategy has tried to capture this distinctive landscape and its unique heritage through a rather different approach to other regions, led by Historic England and delivered through the York Archaeological Trust. Instead of beginning with a detailed assessment of existing heritage assets and resources, it has focused on the meaning of the Wolds to present communities: not just professional archaeologists and community history groups but farmers, bakers, brewers and school-children, and their encounters with the past. The project was called ‘Food for Thought’ and used the theme of how people made a living in the past here, to open-up discussion about connections with life-ways in the present. 

In order to make the Research Agenda and Strategy an accessible resource for all individuals engaged in the future research of the Yorkshire Wolds, this resource seeks to provide a framework for thinking across time; by grouping ideas, methods and narratives into a set of overarching themes:

Theme 1: People and the Land

Theme 2: Making a Living

Theme 3: Crafting Ways of Life

Theme 4: Water

Theme 5: Belief

Theme 6: Transitions

Theme 7: Understanding and Managing the Heritage Resource