Hyde900 marked the completion of the project with a presentation at Hyde900’s King Alfred Weekend. Hyde900 was granted just under £1200 for preservation and publication of a unique set of photographs associated with Hyde Abbey.
A local resident, Barbara Hall, lived in Hyde in the latter part of the 20th century and made a unique record of the excavations of the east end of the abbey church carried out in the 1995-99 Community Archaeology Projects. The digs revealed the design of the choir, altar. ambulatory and chapels of the church and located the graves of Alfred the Great . The collection also records the construction of the memorial garden by the Friends of Hyde Abbey Gardens. The garden was designed by renowned designer Kim Wilkes to commemorate this important site of the final burial place of the only English king to be termed “Great” For further information click here.
The set of photographs was catalogued and were digitised by the Hampshire Record Office . These were then uploaded to the Hyde900 website as separate galleries covering the 1995-99 Community digs and the construction of the Hyde Abbey Gardens. These will subsequently be captioned in a community project lead by Hyde900, enabling the images to be fully searchable by use of the key words associated with each photo.
The project, and the availability of this important digital archive, were publicised through two events put on by Hyde900. The first, a reunion in September of those taking part in either of the 1995-99 digs or the Hyde900 digs of 2016-18, attracted an audience of over 50, and was addressed by Ken Qualmann, previously director of Winchester Museums Service at the time of the digs. A presentation to Barbara Hall took place at the AGM of Hyde900 in October, and featured two banners, also funded by the HAT grant, showing the highlights of the 1995-99 community digs and the development of Hyde Abbey Gardens. These will be used in further Hyde900 events to publicise the archives.
