The Past Harvests Project
The Past Harvests Project
Posted by Mark
21 January 2026In early January, five members of the Past Harvests project team ventured across snow and ice for initial visits to Chatsworth House and Holkham Hall. The purpose of our visits was to meet with the archive teams of each estate and discuss the practicalities of assessing their impressive, often untapped collections.
Both estates are situated in distinctive settings. Chatsworth is located high up in the Peak District, while Holkham rests on gentle East Anglian shores. The archival collections of each reflect their unique contexts with rich accounts of past agricultural practice recording local customs, techniques and terminology related to the management of woodlands, hedgerows, pasture and arable fields.
We had highly productive meetings with the archive staff at both estates. Our team were especially keen that the project should not only draw upon the archives of each partner estate but also give back. To this end, we discussed how our research could support estate priorities and areas of interest surrounding sustainable landscape and biodiversity management.
The team are looking forward to returning to Holkham and Chatsworth in the spring.
This update was provided by Dr Alex Hibberts, Postgraduate Research Associate on the Past Harvests Project.
