Useful Contacts

Who is responsible?
This page can provide useful links to various archaeological contacts around the estuary. The national organisations responsible for the heritage of the estuary are English Heritage and Cadw. The National Trust and the Council for British Archaeology also have a national interest. Local authority archaeological curators are responsible for their areas on many topics, including planning related issues.

Finding out
If you want to find out more about the archaeology of your local area you should contact the Historic Environment Record (HER) Officer, in your local authority curatorial unit. Currently the only HER in the area that is available online is the one for Somerset (not including North Somerset). It is a free service at www.somerset.gov.uk/heritage. There are also national archaeological records for England and Wales which have wider but less complete information.

Joining in
If you would like to become involved in the archaeology of the area a good first step would be to become a member of SELRC. You might also like to contact your local archaeological/history society. For children there are some Young Archaeologists Clubs in the area.

Reporting discoveries
Archaeological discoveries can either be reported directly to your local government archaeological curator or to a Finds Liaison Officer. With the exception of finds of treasure all archaeological finds are normally the property of the landowner.

Removing finds from or otherwise disturbing a Scheduled Monument without English Heritage or Cadw consent is a criminal offence. Any wreck found in the sea or washed ashore must be reported to the Receiver of Wrecks. This includes cargoes of wrecks. Special rules apply to finds from the inter-tidal zone and wrecks. Any discoveries of human remains should be reported to the police. If you find anything that may be a live explosive call the police or HM Coastguard immediately.

Nature conservation
The Severn is extremely important for nature conservation as well as archaeology.
Several different nature conservation organisations have responsibility for the area and for the network of nature reserves.