The Hadrian’s Wall Community Archaeology Project (WallCAP) focused on improving the heritage of Hadrian’s Wall, part of the UNESCO transnational Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site (WHS). The international significance of the archaeological remains of the Wall was recognised by UNESCO in 1987, inscribing the sites onto their list of World Heritage.
Initiatives in recent years have raised a number of concerns in regards to Hadrian’s Wall WHS; namely that there is a lack of centralised curation and/or management of the WHS meaning that complex arrangements are required to forward needed conservation, that there are many aspects about Hadrian’s Wall that require further research to improve our knowledge of its archaeology and finally that while there is an active public audience that engages with the Wall and other Roman archaeology, these groups desire further opportunities to participate in its heritage.
WallCAP addressed these concerns through the delivery of an ambitious community archaeology project that engaged local communities and volunteers in the vital task of securing the heritage of Hadrian’s Wall WHS for future generations.
The Key Aims of WallCAP were to:
- Deliver a project to a uniformly high standard across the entirety of the Hadrian’s Wall WHS.
- Improve our understanding of the current and historic risks to Hadrian’s Wall to secure its heritage for future generations.
- Undertake research to better understand the historic use of Hadrian’s Wall in the Roman era and across successive centuries.
- Engage and empower local communities in the heritage of the Wall, locally and across the WHS, for the duration of the project and beyond.