Battle of Hatfield Investigation Society

Dear All,

"Where we're at ..."

Whilst there's lots of societal activity and continued external interest in the project, true deliverables are presently a little thin on the ground. We'd love to hold a 3rd meeting soon but would really like to be able to announce some concrete success especially in the permissions and funding arenas. However, we need to balance this against going too long between meetings. We have the offer of the use of Cuckney Village Hall again.

Firstly "Permissions"

Due to unfortunate circumstances, the Parochial Church Council did not get our application in time for review at their meeting of the 20th January. Hence, this will not be assessed until the latter part of March / April.

About a week ago, the Welbeck Estates Company sent us another holding letter, explaining that the Principal who needs to be involved in their decision is not currently available but will be reviewing the matter upon return.

Secondly "Research"

Andy & Sean (from Mercian CIC) plus Joseph & I,visited Nottingham University's Kings Meadow campus on Lenton Lane last Friday (14th) to start our perusal of the 22 box Maurice Barley collection. We completed a review of what we thought were the most interesting c. 20 items of the 44 identified (from about 350 !). To put things in context, Maurice Barley only spent 1 day of his entire career at St. Mary's Cuckney (in 1951), hence, predictably, very little was revealed. However, we cannot leave any stones un-turned, so at least we have that satisfaction.

We also very recently managed to contact Maurice Barley's 2 sons, who kindly confirmed that they did not have any photographs of the skeletons unearthed in 1951.

Joseph has also sent a list of key words & phrases to a Nottinghamshire County Council archivist in preparation for our visit, probably next Friday (28th).

Thirdly, "Media coverage"

We have an article in the just published Spring / Summer 2014 edition of the, "Nottinghamshire Historian", (by the Nottinghamshire Local History Association) written by Sarah Seaton.

Fourthly, "Funding"

Having been asked by English Heritage to restrict our 1st claim for funding to the non invasive work at St. Mary's, Andy has itemised the work involved but still needs to associate a cost against each of these items (which I hope he can do this week). This will help increase our chances of funding success.

A potential Private Company sponsor is gearing up to make a final funding decision very soon.