Norton Community Archaeology Group was established in 2006 to investigate the archaeology of the historic parish of Norton in Hertfordshire, now part of Letchworth Garden City. Norton has extraordinarily well preserved historical records covering 1000 years of our social history and unspoilt archaeology spanning 10,000 years. The Norton Community Archaeology Group (NCAG) was set up to further our knowledge of the village and surrounding area through practical “hands-on” historical research and archaeological excavations. Participation is currently at no cost to all.

The Group is not currently undertaking archaeological activities but members continue to meet and work on Historical Documents.

Current Developments

STOP PRESS – February 2022. NCAG has published its fourth book entitled ‘Further records of Norton 1007-1681’. Copies are on sale at the price of £10 (see NCAG Publications).

In this latest book we have sought to provide transcriptions or translations of every document we could find relating to Norton. Documents in the book include Feet of fines, the St Albans chronicles, legal documents of transfer, extracts from equity court cases, lists of parish officers, a large collection of wills, inventories and probate accounts and many more. As a bonus, the endpapers show an image of the 1007 Charter of Æthelred, the first document which mentions Norton, provided by kind permission of the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

Meanwhile NCAG members can still engage with archaeology by accessing a winter’s season of free Zoom meetings which are organised by Kris Lockyer for the Combined Hertfordshire Archaeology Societies.

Archaeological section

[To be written]

Historical Documents section

The NCAG Historical Documents section is active in researching the written history of Norton.

The first major project was to publish translations and transcriptions of Norton’s manorial court records. The court records run from 1244 to 1916 and around 85% of them have survived. With the help of grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation and North Herts District Council we were able to pay for the translation from Latin of the earlier documents. Eventually all records were published in three books, fully indexed and with introductions giving interpretation of the texts.

A fourth book, ‘Further records of Norton 1007-1681’ has been published in February 2022 (see NCAG Publications).

Current work

Our work of transcribing documents continues. The section is currently working on further projects. By the end of 2023, we hope to publish

• St Nicholas school log books 1873 – 1918

We are always pleased to welcome new members to help in transcribing original documents. We meet formally about twice a year. If you are interested in taking part please email us at ncagmembers@live.co.uk.