Dr Carenza Lewis, well known from television in programmes such as Time Team and more recently Michael Woods’ series on Kidworth, has agreed to give the keynote presentation at a joint meeting of the Medieval Studies Forum and the Villages Study Group on Saturday 12th March 2011.

The meeting organised in conjunction with Surrey Heritage will focus on the use of test-pitting to help elucidate the development of settlements, being perhaps the most important source of evidence until documentary sources become more available in the 16^th century.

Carenza will talk about her work in leading the major project in East Anglian villages that has been running for the past five years. She will not only discuss the methodology of the CORS (Currently Occupied Rural Settlement) project but also illustrate how the results have changed previously accepted views of the development of many settlements.

Other speakers during the day will include Catherine Ferguson on Early-modern documentary sources as indicators of village development, Richard Savage on the results of the Society’s test-pitting at Old Woking in February and March 2010, Abby Guinness of SCAU on the potential of test-pitting for developing a broader based Community Archaeology programme across the county and Chris Hayward on incorporating test-pitting into all appropriate ongoing village studies. The day will be chaired by Dr Joe Flatman, County Archaeologist for Surrey.