ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the special potential of a case study of Wallingford to contribute to far wider debates in medieval and medieval archaeology and urban studies, and introduces the project, its geographical and methodological scope and its academic and intellectual rationale. The Wallingford Burh to Borough Research Project is in some senses part and parcel of a far broader upsurge in interest in 'community archaeology'. The genesis of The Wallingford Historical and Archaeological Society played a role in the growing movement to shield monuments from unrecorded urban development and forms part of the early story of community archaeology in Britain. Brief summaries of the known state of the town's archaeology have been published at various points in time, but an overall account of Wallingford's growth and decline is absent, as is any appreciation of its potential to contribute to wider urban debates.
