A brief history of the awards received by the Biggar Archaeology Group.
Pitt Rivers Award 2008
We have won the Pitt Rivers Award, the only Scottish recipients of awards at the Presentation Ceremony, held in the British Museum. The award was for our Tweed Project.
British Archaeology Awards 2006
- Runner up in the Pitt Rivers Award was for our Daer Valley Project
- commended in the Mick Aston Award for our web site
- Winners of The Heritage in Britain Award for consolidation and interpretation of Wintercleuch and Smithwood bastle houses.
That year we were the only people to come north of the border with prizes and they have been added to the ever-increasing list of trophies achieved by the Group and by the writer
Pitt Rivers Award 1996
The Glenochar Bastle and Fermtoun Trail, won the Pitt Rivers Award in 1996 for the best voluntary project.
Glenfiddich Living Scotland Award 1996
A booklet (Ward, 1998), produced to commemorate the opening of the Trail by the Marquis of Linlithgow, provides a full description of the Glenochar Bastle and associated buildings, together with summary account of a further 12 bastle houses discovered in the course of the Upper Clydesdale Bastle Project.
A special comprehensive education pack, that was devised for the Trail (Dreghorn et al., 1994), encourages children to visit the Glenochar site and the Biggar Museums and to research the site under the 5-14 Environmental Studies Curriculum.
Professor Ann Robertson Award for Young Archaeologists 1997
It was also in 1990 that the writer began the Biggar Young Archaeologists Club and which has been running very successfully and regularly ever since. The Club won the Professor Ann Robertson Award for Young Archaeologists in 1997 with a project on their local castle of Boghall. The Biggar YAC’s are encouraged to join in the adult digs and some remarkable finds have been made by them.
Tam Ward has received a number of personal awards for his contribution to archaeology.
- Inaugural recipient for the Dorothy Marshall Medal given by The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1996.
- In 2001 he was awarded an MBE at Buckingham Palace by the Queen, the citation being ‘For Services to Archaeology in Lanarkshire’.
- In 2006 he received the Presidential Award from the Glasgow Archaeological Society.
So it is that when our efforts in Scottish archaeology are listed, even briefly as here, we amaze ourselves as to what has been achieved.
Acknowledgement
Throughout our existence as an archaeology group we have been greatly encouraged and supported by many individuals, both professional and amateur, from institutions, universities, societies and other organisations. This support has sustained us and certainly without it we could never have achieved what we have. The rigours of all weather fieldwork often lead one to think “What the hell am I doing here? Being eaten alive by midges or being cold, wet and tired”. When a grant application is successful or a professional specialist offers advice or help, the depression lifts (for a little while) and one then feels it is all worth the effort. All of our supporters are accorded the customary thanks in report acknowledgements and to all we are exceedingly grateful.
