Published: May 2026

By Bethany Goodman - Vindolanda Trust Archivist

In April, I began work leading an exciting new project to catalogue not only The Archive of Eric Birley, but four other archives held by organisations in the North East which capture the modern history of Hadrian’s Wall.

Funded by an Archives Revealed Consortium Grant, the next two years will see The Vindolanda Trust work in partnership with Durham University’s Museum of Archaeology and North East Museums to catalogue these archival collections and present a programme of engagement.

You can read more about The Vindolanda Trust’s archival collections on these blog pages, as well as this video which highlights our more recent history. But who are our partners?

Durham University’s Museum of Archaeology is housed within the historic Palace Green Library complex and holds material dating back into Prehistory. You can read more about the Museum, its history and even links to Eric Birley here.

North East Museums is a regional museum, art gallery and archives service which manages twelve museums and galleries across the North East and the Archives for Tyne and Wear.

You can have a peak into Tyne & Wear Archive’s busy stores here, see glimpses of past excavations at Arbeia South Shields Roman Fort here and tour around some of Great North Museum: Hancock’s exhibitions here.

Alongside these core organisations, we’ll have the opportunity to work with some other wonderful organisations in the North East… keep in touch with the project here as it develops to find out more about our work and where it leads.

In the next blog, I’ll introduce the five archives that the project will be focusing on.

 

The Archives Revealed programme is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Pilgrim Trust, the Wolfson Foundation and The National Archives.