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Small pieces of Yorkshire Dales National Park history are being recorded for the first time.

Detailed records of nearly 29,000 bigger items - like old houses, barns and lime kilns - already exist in the shape of an Historic Environment Record (HER) that has been compiled by experts at the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority (YDNPA).

Now the authority's archaeology staff and Dales Volunteers are logging the less noticeable, smaller features - ranging from stands for milk churns to tunnels under roads for sheep and cattle - so they can be added to the HER. The first batch of new additions has just been added to the YDNPA website, called Feature of the Season.

Miles Johnson, the authority's countryside archaeological advisor, said: "Many of the features were part of the everyday farming landscape, but none has been recorded before. Many are now disused and some are threatened, so, by recording them in the HER, we have a detailed list that will help us and other organisations to preserve and conserve them and will enable people to learn about them too.

"We needed to collect information about small-scale historic features but, obviously, these small buildings and structures are almost impossible to locate from maps or aerial photographs," said Mr Johnson.

"The idea was to use the Dales Volunteers' interest in, and knowledge of, individual parts of the Dales to collect the detailed information."

So far the Dales Volunteers have logged 50 stock underpasses - passages beneath walled roads and tracks that enabled cattle and sheep to pass from one field to another, normally to get to water - as well as nearly 100 churn stands, hennery piggeries (combined henhouses and piggeries) and turbary stones that marked areas where people could cut peat.

Stone water troughs, polegate posts, dovecotes and millstones will also be on a growing list of other features that will be put under the spotlight as the project continues.

"Revisiting some of the features already recorded has shown that there are serious threats facing some of them," said Mr Johnson.

The project, along with datasheets and images of the features, can be seen online at yorkshiredales.org.uk/fos.

4:14pm Monday 7th April 2008

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