Reports & Books
Over the years Jon has worked with community groups across Yorkshire to investigate and publish their archaeology. Here you can explore a selection of the resulting reports and books. Many are available to download free as PDFs, while some can also be purchased as printed copies.
Finding Iron Age and Roman Cawood 2019
Margaret Brearley and Jon Kenny
Finding Iron Age and Roman Cawood tells the story of a community archaeology project that set out to investigate remarkable cropmarks on Cawood Common. Fieldwalking, aerial photography and geophysical survey led to a five-trench excavation in 2019, investigating a landscape of enclosures, roundhouses and other features associated with later Iron Age and Romano-British settlement.
But this 229-page report goes much further. Margaret Brearley brought together years of local research to place the excavation within the wider story of Cawood, including earlier Roman discoveries, Cawood Castle and its Garth, Keesbury, the rivers and historic landscape, and the work of the Cawood Castle Garth Group. It is both a detailed archaeological report and a record of what sustained community research can reveal about one Yorkshire landscape.
Keesbury Manor Heritage Project: Evaluation Excavation Report: 2015
Jon Kenny
This report tells the story of the 2015 community excavation at Keesbury, a medieval moated manor on the edge of Cawood. Once held by the de Cawood family, the site provides a fascinating contrast with the nearby residence of the powerful Archbishops of York at Cawood Castle. Seven trenches were opened to investigate the manor platform, moat, possible buildings, drainage and other features across the site.
Although the main medieval house remained elusive, the excavation revealed a surprisingly long sequence of activity, including possible Anglo-Scandinavian occupation, medieval structures and craft working, hearths, a cesspit and later demolition and horticultural use. Together these discoveries begin to show how this small manorial centre developed and changed over many centuries.
Wheldrake's Historic Landscape
Jon Kenny
Wheldrake’s Historic Landscape grew from my curiosity about the village next door to my home — a place where my children went to school and whose fields, lanes and surrounding countryside are part of my everyday landscape. The book follows that landscape from the end of the Ice Age, through the first evidence for prehistoric settlement and the Iron Age and Romano-British farms, to the emergence of the medieval village.
Using archaeological discoveries, historic maps and documentary evidence, it explores how Wheldrake developed: its medieval tofts and crofts, fields and commons, the riverside settlement at Waterhouses, Langwith, the possible castle and manor, and the long influence of Fountains Abbey. It is an attempt to read the history still preserved in a familiar landscape and to understand how the village and the countryside around it became the place we know today.
Community Search for a Medieval Manorial House in Osgodby: It's about the journey!
Jon Kenny and Jan Mitchell
This report follows a community archaeology project that set out to find Osgodby’s elusive medieval manorial house. Local people worked through the archaeological process from documentary research and aerial photography to geophysical survey, excavation and test-pitting, investigating the development of the village and the surrounding fields. The search produced evidence ranging from Romano-British pottery to substantial quantities of medieval material, including Northern Gritty Ware and Scarborough Ware.
The missing lordly house — and the hoped-for chapel — remained missing, but the project achieved something arguably more interesting: it helped locate the beginnings of Osgodby and trace the village’s development from its earlier landscape into the modern settlement. It was also very much a community project, surviving the interruption of lockdown and bringing people back together afterwards to investigate their local landscape in the field.
Windsor of the North: How might Cawood Castle have looked? explores one of the great lost medieval buildings of the lower Ouse. Cawood was a favourite residence of several Archbishops of York, entertained kings and queens, and developed over centuries from an archiepiscopal manor into an impressive fortified residence. Yet remarkably little survives above ground today. Drawing on historic maps, early engravings, written accounts and archaeological evidence, the booklet follows the story of the site and asks a deceptively simple question: what might Cawood Castle actually have looked like?
Rather than presenting a definitive reconstruction, the booklet brings the surviving clues together to build a reasoned picture of the lost complex: its Great Hall, chapel, Archbishop's accommodation, service buildings, gatehouse and courtyards. It also considers whether “castle” or “palace” is really the right description. The evidence suggests something of both — a residence designed to display the wealth and authority of an Archbishop, comfortable enough to house royalty, but sufficiently fortified to discourage attack. The resulting reconstruction is deliberately open to debate: an invitation to look at the evidence and imagine Cawood's lost “Windsor of the North” for yourself.
Paul Durdin, Brian Elsey and Jon Kenny
The Iron Age Ouse and Derwent Project brings together the results of three years of community archaeology investigating the surprisingly rich Iron Age and Romano-British landscape between the rivers Ouse and Derwent, south of York. Working at sites around Hemingbrough, North Duffield and Wheldrake, the project combined desk-based research, geophysical survey and excavation to investigate a lowland landscape that had previously received relatively little archaeological attention. The results revealed a countryside containing settlements, roundhouses, enclosures and field systems, helping to demonstrate that this apparently quiet part of the Vale of York was extensively occupied during the Iron Age and continued to develop under Roman rule.
This substantial report is also the record of a genuinely community-led archaeology project. Alongside the excavation reports it contains the project's desk-based assessment, interpretation, geophysical surveys and specialist studies of pottery, animal bone, environmental remains, flint, industrial waste and scientific dating. Volunteers from communities across the Vale of York took part, while the project also worked with local schools and deliberately created opportunities for people with learning difficulties to become involved in archaeology. The result is both a detailed archaeological publication and an account of what can be achieved when professional archaeological support and local knowledge are brought together to investigate a landscape.
Skipwith Moated Site: Community archaeological investigations in 2021 and 2022.
Jon Kenny and Brian Worrell.
Skipwith Moated Site: Community Archaeological Investigations in 2021 and 2022 tells the story of a major community project exploring the tree-lined medieval moat just south of St Helen’s Church. Geophysical survey followed by three evaluation trenches demonstrated that substantial archaeological remains survive on the platform, revealing a sequence of buildings and rebuilding stretching from the medieval period into the post-medieval centuries. The evidence suggests activity increased from the later 13th century, with significant redevelopment during the 14th and 15th centuries. Stone walling, brick and tile, lead window came and other finds point towards an increasingly high-status residence, perhaps including a courtyard and gate tower, while pottery and animal bone provide glimpses of everyday life at the manor.
The report is also the record of archaeology undertaken with and by the community. Forty-nine volunteers from Skipwith and the surrounding area contributed more than 3,700 hours of fieldwork and hundreds more in post-excavation work, supported by specialist analysis of pottery and animal bone. Alongside investigating the archaeology, the project set out to teach new skills, involve local schools and university students, record local knowledge and create opportunities for young people with additional needs. The result is a detailed 152-page archaeological report, but also an account of how investigating one rather overlooked moated site helped a community rediscover an important part of its own historic landscape.
Searching for Skipwith: Understanding our historic village landscape.
Jon Kenny
Searching for Skipwith 2024 records the next stage of Skipwith Heritage Group’s investigation of the village and its surrounding landscape. Running from 2024 into early 2025 with Heritage Lottery Fund support, the project moved beyond the earlier excavation of the medieval moated manor to ask how the whole settlement developed. Using historic maps, LiDAR, earth resistance and magnetometry, test pits and coring, the project began to reconstruct a medieval village of tofts and crofts stretching along the present Main Street. Pottery from the test pits suggests that the recognisable medieval settlement developed or expanded during the Norman period, while geophysical evidence raises intriguing possibilities for earlier activity around the Anglo-Saxon church, including a possible enclosure ditch around the former Minster and a potential large timber building east of the later moated manor.
The project also places the medieval manor back into its wider landscape. Rather than standing in isolation as it does today, the manor appears to have formed part of a much denser medieval village, closely related to the church, surrounding fields and a complex system of drains, dykes and moats. The report traces how this landscape changed as the medieval manor declined, larger farms emerged and houses disappeared, particularly following the construction of the new manor after 1700. Like the earlier Skipwith project, this was very much community archaeology: around 50 volunteers took part alongside a historical book and film club, art workshops and activities involving young people with learning difficulties. The result is not simply a search for individual archaeological sites, but an attempt to understand how Skipwith itself developed as a community and landscape over more than a thousand years.
Gateway to the Past: Discoveries at Skipwith 2025
Jon Kenny
Gateway to the Past: Discoveries at Skipwith 2025 reports on the latest stage of community investigation at Skipwith’s medieval moated manor and the neighbouring church. Building on work undertaken since 2021, three trenches were opened to investigate features identified by earlier geophysical surveys. Although the hoped-for medieval gatehouse was not found, the excavations revealed something more complex: evidence for changing routes into the manor, a cobbled and cambered approach constructed around the major rebuilding of c.1400, demolition and recycling of the manor around 1650, and traces of earlier activity beneath the later approach. Particularly intriguing are pits and a possible beam slot which may relate to activity before or around the construction of the first moated manor in c.1250, while the absence of an earlier formal track raises the possibility that the original manor was approached from a different direction.
The excavation also added an important new chapter to the story of St Helen’s Church. Trench One encountered two successive ditches: a large ditch apparently backfilled around the 13th century and, beneath it, an earlier and narrower ditch which could pre-date AD 950. Although this earlier feature produced no dating evidence, its position and stratigraphic relationship raise the possibility that it belonged to the early Minster or church enclosure. The project therefore links two important centres in Skipwith’s landscape—the early medieval church and the later lordly manor—and shows how that landscape was repeatedly reorganised over many centuries. Just as importantly, this was a substantial community project: 45 volunteers contributed 1,365 hours, with finds work, aerial photography and reconstruction artwork providing ways to participate beyond excavation, while 71 visitors received guided tours.
Hambleton Archaeological Investigations: 2022
Jon Kenny and Celia Barnes
In 2021 and early 2022 Hambleton History Research & Archive Association (HHRAA) got together with Jon Kenny – community archaeology to think about the historical landscape surrounding the village to the southwest of Selby in North Yorkshire. Our attention was drawn to the triangular plot at the centre of the village. This area appears to be open in the 1779 enclosure map but by 1845 the plot had been built up to include a farm (Hill Top Farm) a school and blacksmiths shop. Our project included assessment of maps and images and other "desk top" work. Following that we undertook geophysical survey and ultimately an excavation to investigate the building that was at one time in its history a village school.
Hook Moated Manor: The ups and downs of Lordly fortunes.
Jon Kenny and Chris Collins
This book reports on archaeological research undertaken by Howdenshire Archaeological Society (HAS) and Jon Kenny - community archaeology on the Moated Manor site in Hook in East Yorkshire. The report summarises research already undertaken in Hook and then sets out fieldwork undertaken by a community team in 2022 and 2023. The work includes a historical review (by Chris Collins) and fieldwork; geophysical survey, earthwork survey and evaluation excavation. The report also includes an assessment of the role of community archaeology in wellbeing work for those who worked on the project and the development of a wellbeing principal for the Hook Manor Projects. Lastly a story is built for the history of the Hook Manor site, from an early Hermitage in the marshes to the Norman de Hook family carving out a medieval township with its own moated manor house and chantry chapel. Then the rapid growth in the fortunes of the de Hooks seeing a substantial rebuild of the moated site that was selected as the childhood home for baby Margret Despencer (daughter of Hugh Despencer) in 1325. From that point onwards the moated site doesn't seem to develop very much and it passes through a number of Lords and possibly tenants until it is probably demolished (recycled) in the early 1700s.
Breaking New Ground: An archaeological evaluation of deposits at the Abbot's Staith Warehouse, Selby, North Yorkshire.
Jon Kenny, Mark Simpson and Peter Coates.
This book is the report on the archaeological excavations undertaken at the Abbot's Staith in Selby North Yorkshire as a community project led by Mark Simpson and supervised by Jon Kenny. The excavations were a preliminary evaluation of a unique building that is at risk and we hope that the community can play a role in finding a way for it to be conserved and form a part in the regeneration of this part of Selby. The archaeological work throws new light on our understanding of this warehouse that was once part of the monastic precinct at Selby Abbey.
St Augustine's, Kirkby-in-Cleveland.: Search for the Foundations of the Anglo-Saxon Church.
This short report describes the search for an earlier, Anglo-Saxon church in the graveyard at St Augustine's church in Kirkby-in-Cleveland, a village sitting on the north margin of the North York Moors. We tell the story of a local history group who developed a theory about the location of an early medieval church in the graveyard. The group were supported in their search by the author Dr Jon Kenny who at that time worked for York Archaeological Trust as a Community Archaeologist, the work was undertaken during 2010 and 2011. The archaeological research consisted of geophysical survey and test pit excavation.
Archaeological Investigation at St Mary's Church Hook: A Community Archaeology Project.
Jon Kenny
This report details work undertaken in 2023 in the south transept of St Mary's Parish church in Hook. Supervised by community archaeologist Dr Jon Kenny a volunteer team made up from local parishioners and members of Howdenshire Archaeological Society undertook investigation in a specific corner of the church. The purpose of the investigation was to inspect the floor underneath a suspended stone flag floor built in 1844. The location had been viewed before in the 1980s, revealing a coffin, that had not previously been recorded. The investigation revealed the burial, that had been damaged over the last forty years. The remains were recorded and dated by the shape and style of the coffin. The name of the person probably buried here was also identified. This report is then a short look into Hook in the 18th Century and a guide to how the underlying deposits in the church floor should be treated when the floor is modernised.
Archaeological Excavation of Pipe Trench at St Mary’s Church Hook: A Community Archaeology Project.
Jon Kenny
In November 2023 a community archaeology team led by Dr Jon Kenny undertook the excavation of a narrow pipe trench in the graveyard at Hook Parish church. The excavation was undertaken this way instead of providing an archaeological watching brief and allowed for the careful excavation of the deposits and their recording in this report. Our main discoveries were the build up of levels in the grave yard over the period since the mid to late 1700s, a time when the town of Goole was starting to grow in southern part of the medieval parish of Hook.
Early Deira: Archaeological Studies of the East Riding in the Fourth to Ninth Centuries AD
Helen Geake and Jonathan Kenny (editors)
Early Deira grew from a conference organised in 1995 by the University of York Archaeology Society, then chaired by Jon Kenny. The strength of the papers and the lively discussion they generated led to the decision to publish them, with Helen Geake and Jon Kenny editing the resulting volume. The book explores the transformation of the East Riding between the end of Roman Britain and the emergence of the early medieval kingdom of Deira.
Its eleven chapters range across burials and settlement, West Heslerton and the Yorkshire Wolds, King Edwin and the development of Deira, metalwork and coinage, Whitby, early medieval sculpture, wetland exploitation and bioarchaeology. Together they explore how archaeology was reshaping our understanding of East Yorkshire between the fourth and ninth centuries.