08 Jun Celebrating 20 years of amazing discoveries!
We can’t quite believe it that it’s been 20 years ago since the four original Headlanders, armed with the determination to ‘do archaeology’ differently, set up office in Edinburgh. Over the past 20 years the company has grown from being a ‘four-man-band’ to becoming one of the largest heritage practices in the UK, with fully-resourced offices in Edinburgh, Leeds, Luton and Hereford. Understandably, we’re extremely proud of our achievements; for example getting from a staff of four and a turnover of £200,000 in 1996, to £1m in 2004/05 and to a turnover of some £13m at the height of Ireland’s Celtic Tiger economy in 2007/08?
Since 1996 we have worked on some of the largest archaeological projects undertaken in the UK and Ireland; high-profile sites, such as the Scottish Parliament site; providing archaeological support in advance of major roads infrastructure projects in Ireland, north and south of the border; principal contractor for the M74 Completion Project and other major infrastructure projects such as Forth Replacement Crossing, Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route, Edinburgh Trams, Clyde Wind Farm, Hereford Cathedral, Staffordshire Alliance on the West Coast Mainline and many many more. Not to forget that we’ve also run research and training projects, investigated the stomach contents of more bog bodies (and one Iceman) than you’d want to shake a stick at, produced some of the major landmark publications of the past two decades and won awards, both for our business acumen and our archaeological expertise.
Over the course of the next 12 months, we’ll be posting stories to illustrate various aspects of Headland’s first 20 years. Some of the posts will focus on specific projects but we’ll also be looking at how the sector has changed over the past 20 years and how Headland has responded to these changes; we’ll also look at how we met the challenges of recession and the economics of ‘boom-and-bust’ and how we survived the various recessions along the way, and came out leaner and keener; and, with over 800 current or former UK ‘Headlanders’ out there – and it is those people who have helped to make all of this happen – we’ll also be looking at how Headland has made a difference to our profession.
So, if you want to see some of our key discoveries (maybe you even worked on some of the projects?), check them out, sit back and relax. Enjoy the trip and get ready for the next 20 years –because they’re going to be even better…