YOUNG historians have won a prestigious award for revealing some of the ‘hidden’ history around them.

The young members of the history club at Caldicot School received the Cambrian Archaeological Trust’s Blodwen Jerman Memorial Prize for their work on this year’s Welsh Heritage Schools Initiative.

Club members were inspired to look more deeply at the area after reading an archaeologist’s report drawn up as part of the plans to replace the current school.

They spent four months investigating the period from prehistoric times to the building of Caldicot Castle in the medieval period – and it is hoped this will be the springboard for even more revelations.

History club member Tegan Harron-Edwards said: “There are a lot of things you don’t know about which are nearby. We discovered how much archaeology there is in the area.”

Pupils built a model and wrote up their findings before presenting them to a panel of judges in the form of museum staff giving a talk.

They were praised by the judges for the variety of evidence they found and the way in which they questioned it, their enthusiasm and the presentation.

History teacher Matt Handford said: “We had very limited time to begin our investigation so we started the groundwork on the hidden history, the everyday history, that is around us but which we don’t think of.

“We thought about how we can make that more apparent, reach out into the local community and how we can build on the wider picture of the immediate history on our doorsteps.

“The investigation came initially from the new school build – we found the archaeological report for what is under our feet and that springboarded us to look at other sites which we might not know so much about.”

The new school is currently being built and will open in September next year.