Launched in 2024, Digging Market Garden is a community archaeology and heritage project. It is designed to investigate the material traces as well as social and personal memories associated with preparations for the airborne component of Operation Market Garden in South Lincolnshire during World War II.  Directed by Dr Tim Clack (University of Oxford) and Prof Carenza Lewis (University of Lincoln), the Digging Market Garden project was undertaken in collaboration with South Kesteven District Council (SKDC), the Operation Nightingale and 13 Service personnel and their families attended as part of Wings to the Past,  the project really connected the past and present, with Wings to the Past having RAF personnel and families and members of the Army from the Airborne regiments being central participants.  The site of RAF Fulbeck, Lincolnshire, is an historic cliff village at the heart of the British 1st Airborne Division’s planning and preparations for Operation Market Garden. As well as various headquarters, the village had significant accommodation sites throughout. The dig even identified a medieval building of significant size.

The Wings to the Past personnel dug into the colourful history of the British First Airborne – on the very site where Maj Gen Roy Urquhart was stationed before he left for Arnhem in September 1944.   

The dig took place between 15 – 17 August on two sites within the Manor grounds. The hosts were the Fane family and the local authority South Kesteven District Council (SKDC). The site is part of SKDC’s Airborne Forces Heritage Trail, illustrating the presence locally of Allied paratroopers pre-Arnhem – specifically British First Airborne on this site. The project was seen as a ‘proof of concept’, a possible springboard into more archaeological exploration across an exciting landscape of district airborne forces-related sites. Saturday was be a Public Day, with the Village Hall staging military memorabilia displays, re-enactors. We are fortunate to be joined at Fulbeck for some community art input from Doug Farthing, ex-2 Para Warrant Officer, who was the Project Artist on the Falklands War Mapping Project.