The project is run by Lincolnshire County Council, with generous funding from Historic England. The initial phase will run through 2026 and 2027, and consists of a county-wide survey (including North Lincolnshire and North-East Lincolnshire) aiming to identify every surviving mud and stud building, as well as gathering as much information as possible about buildings which have now been lost. Once the data has been gathered, it will be recorded in the Historic Environment Record, and be publicly available online, allowing everyone to access their place’s heritage. The project will also seek to improve the ways that mud and stud is identified and classified in existing records, so that a clear picture of the state of these buildings can be formed.
In future project phases we hope to carry out detailed archaeological recording of individual buildings, to enable us to understand how they developed and changed over time, and also to scientifically date them – at the moment we don’t know how old any of the buildings really are! We then hope to develop guidance for owners and occupiers to help them care for their mud and stud buildings, as well as exploring the potential of mud and stud as a sustainable, low-carbon building technique for the future.
