Historic Environment Record

The Historic Environment Record (HER) holds information on known archaeological sites in Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield. The record now also holds information on the Local List of heritage assets.

The record has a database and digital mapping that makes our information searchable by:

site type (eg hill fort)
date (eg medieval)
specific location (eg parish)
individual sites (eg Sheffield Castle, Doncaster Roman Fort)
type of designation (ie local or national). This indicates if individual sites are flagged for planning and conservation purposes

Online searches

Digital information on monument entries from our record is available via the Heritage Gateway website, which also allows you to search other historic environment data sets.

Visit the Heritage Gateway website

Appointments

Some information is still held on paper, so a visit to our search room can be very useful.

For example, the HER holds copies of reports on archaeological excavation and building recording work carried out locally since about 1990.

Although spot finds are included on the HER, the database does not contain a comprehensive list of artefacts recovered from excavations.

For further information on excavation archives please contact the South Yorkshire museums.

Contact the Archaeology Service to book an appointment to visit the HER.

Charges

There is no charge for consulting the HER for the public or for academic enquirers.

For commercial searches there is a standard charge of £125 + VAT which covers the vast majority of consultations. If the area of interest is especially complex or large we may need to charge more. Please enquire if you think this may be the case. If additional work is required (eg scanning documents) then this is charged at £62.50 plus VAT per half day (minimum one half day).

Please contact us for a quote or to order an extract of our data.

Volunteer

We occasionally take volunteers and work placements. We have many requests each year and can only take one person at a time.

We ask people to submit a covering letter and CV when they ask for work experience.

We are purely an advisory service so we don't undertake fieldwork ourselves.

To volunteer for training excavations, on a dig or other fieldwork a good place to look is the Council for British Archaeology's Magazine - Dig it.

Volunteering opportunities

Early prehistory project

Archaeological Services WYAS (ASWYAS), with support from South Yorkshire Archaeology Service and funding from English Heritage (now Historic England), spent time in 2013-2014 improving the information held by the Historic Environment Record (HER) relating to Palaeolithic and Mesolithic sites and find spots within the county.

South Yorkshire contains a number of distinct zones where Palaeolithic and Mesolithic remains are likely to survive. Given this clear potential, threats to the condition and survival of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic sites from commercial development and extensive peat erosion are very real.

It is important that up to date information on the fragile remains of these periods is available in the record.

ASWYAS, with help from Penny Spikins at the University of York, added to the number of South Yorkshire HER records by gathering information from other data sets and documentary sources. They then produced GIS based maps highlighting areas of potential with the aim to assess, protect and manage very early prehistoric sites of human activity in the county.