About the YourFind project

'Discovering the Ancient Don Gorge' is a Don Gorge Strategic Partnership project, which is being managed and delivered by Doncaster Council Museum and Art Gallery, in partnership with South Yorkshire Archaeology Service, inHeritage and Creswell Heritage Trust.

Aerial view of Conisbrough Castle Copyright Ivanhoe TrustFunded through Defra's Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund, which is administered by English Heritage, the project is aimed primarily at the local communities living in the parishes of Cadeby, Conisbrough, Sprotbrough, Warmsworth, Denaby, Edlington and Mexborough.

The core aim of the project is to reduce the effects of aggregates extraction on local communities by raising awareness of the rich historic environment of the Don Gorge, demonstrating its regional importance and educating the local communities about the link between aggregate extraction and the discovery and study of local archaeology.

The project focuses on the development of the landscape and human occupation of it, from the Ice Age until just before the Norman Conquest. A series of public events and activities have been designed to promote community engagement in understanding and discovering the heritage of the Don Gorge.

Launch event at Conisbrough Castle Copyright Doncaster Museum and Art GalleryThe project was launched with a public open day held at Conisbrough Castle on Saturday 4th August 2007, and will celebrate its completion on February 9th 2008 with the launch of the travelling exhibition and general release of the FREE children's comic and graphic novel.

One of the most exciting and innovative elements of this project has been the development of a children’s comic and a Manga style graphic novel, designed to relate the archaeological information from the Don Gorge to a young audience in narrative form. The stories, whilst being fictional, are based on the archaeological evidence from the Don Gorge and aim to impart knowledge and an understanding of the rich heritage of the area in a fun accessible format.

Both the comic and graphic novel have been developed from children’s and young adult’s workshops that were held in libraries at Sprotbrough, Conisbrough, and Mexborough in August 2007. Here the artists Marvin Harding and Louise Ho who are designing and drawing the comic and graphic novel respectively, engaged with the children to help create characters and form storylines.

Here you can see two images which show the different artist's styles.

Louise Ho Manga Art  

Marvin Harding Comic Art


Below is a list of the main project outputs:

  • Comic and graphic novel workshops for children and young adults, run in local libraries.
  • A free comic and graphic novel circulated through schools, libraries and museums.
  • Talks and finds identification sessions for local community groups and local history, archaeology and metal-detecting societies.
  • Discovering the Ancient Don Gorge sessions for schools.
  • The 'YourFind' website to include a YouTube style video diary and web-blogs, which local school children can post on.
  • A set of three 'Myfind' postcards (to post to friends and family, or collect) featuring key artefacts, chosen by public voting.
  • A travelling 'Discovering the Ancient Don Gorge' exhibition, touring local museums, libraries and community centres.

If you would like to know more about the project please contact us