A major excavation at Flag Fen, one of Britain's most important Bronze Age sites, has secured £700,000 in grant funding, according to the BBC. The money comes through the Countryside Stewardship Heritage Service, a partnership between Defra and Historic England, and was welcomed at the site by Farming Minister Stephen Morgan on Thursday 10 September.

Key points

  • Funding — £700,000 from the Countryside Stewardship Heritage Service, run by Defra with Historic England.
  • The dig — the excavation will examine the site's western post alignment and record new evidence.
  • The risk — around 40% of Flag Fen's buried archaeology could be lost within months as peat dries out.
  • Volunteering — places will be open to local people, students, young carers and returning volunteers, with training to become supervisors and tour leaders.

The park near Peterborough holds a timber causeway and platform built some 3,500 years ago. Few Bronze Age platform structures survive anywhere in the world, and Flag Fen's scale, complexity and completeness give it national significance. It has been on Historic England's Heritage at Risk Register since 2012, with ancient wood and other organic remains under threat from degrading groundwater and drying peat.

Race against time

Jacqueline Mooney, general manager of Flag Fen Archaeological Park, said the funding had arrived "just in time", warning that roughly 40 per cent of the site's precious buried archaeology is at serious risk of being lost forever in a few short months. She said the causeway was a monumental example of how ancestors coped with a climate crisis 3,500 years ago, when the ground beneath them turned to marshland, and described it as a huge achievement of human ingenuity that let them thrive in a new landscape.

Historic England's co-chief executives, Claudia Kenyatta CBE and Emma Squire CBE, said the site was a remarkable asset for the Peterborough area and that the work would help secure its future and unlock its full potential. Peterborough City Council leader Shabina Qayyum called Flag Fen a wonderful and unique attraction, while Peterborough MP Andrew Pakes said the funding could not have come at a more critical time. The long-term aim is to remove the site from the Heritage at Risk Register and develop it as a destination that brings Bronze Age heritage to life.

Editor's comment

What it means in practice

The excavation is happening on the edge of Peterborough, so for most people in the UK it changes nothing day to day. What it does offer is a local chance to get involved, and a reminder that a site on the national risk register is being worked on before the evidence disappears.

  • If you live nearby — volunteering places are aimed at local people, students, young carers and returning volunteers, and come with training that can lead to supervisor and tour leader roles.
  • If you visit — the park remains open as a family attraction, and the findings will shape how the site is explained to visitors in future.
  • If you follow heritage — the project's stated goal is to get Flag Fen off the Heritage at Risk Register, so progress is worth watching.