Medieval Christmas Shopping - well nearly!

SAW made a special visit to the Moot Hall in Elstow on Saturday 15th December and were made very welcome by Gary Mudd, Assistant Curator, who gave us a short but fact-filled talk on the history of the building. The Moot Hall has stood on this spot for since the 15th century from its origins as part of the original Elstow Abbey, its associations with John Bunyan, (who at one time rang the Abbey bells), to becoming a medieval 'shopping mall'.

One of the building construction joints
identified by the children.

A carpenter's mark on one of the beams,
indicating the top side of the constructed
section, from which we can deduce
something of hoe the building was made.

Mark showed us how to look at the block-work
in this end wall of the Abbey Church, to help
identify that this wall was built after the original
Norman building was constructed.

In the Moot Hall the children learnt how to measure and record an old building and spent time examining the construction of the timber frames, trying to identify the joints and find the carpenters' marks.

Inside the Abbey Church Mark Philips pointed out differences in the stone construction and decoration that the children could use to help understand the age of an English church.

Many thanks to Clive Arnold and Gary Mudd of the Moot Hall Museum and the Rector Jeremy Crocker, for letting us explore these fascinating buildings.

We thought we might come back in warmer weather for a picnic!

Less Holmes and Watson, more Clouseau and the Laughing Policeman

On a very wet sodden day in November, SAW members used their powers of observation and detection to attempt to locate and record evidence of a simulated discovered dead body. Plastic skeletons had been laid out complete with shoes, items of clothing and personal items and the groups were taught how to deal with the scene.

The team leader collates the evidence.

Managing the evidence.

Marking and numbering the evidence.

The session leader taught the children about the procedure for treating the evidence field and undertsand how to respect the evidence and the treat it as if it were real so that someone had died.

Second team evidence photograph. 

Second team leader completing his records. 

Though very excited about what they thought they might find, the children treated the activity itself very seriously, although the chain of command was a little ropey in the first team! The second team, though generally more respectful of the operations strategy, did rather exceed their remit and managed to collect a substantial amount of 'evidence' that subsequently turned out to be litter! (The park rangers were pleased!)

First team evidence photograph.

The weather did get the better of us in the end and we trooped back to the warm with all the evidence and some rather 'leafy' skeletons. The session was a great success with the children and was oversubscribed, so we'll definitely do a similar activity in the future. We had a great deal of volunteer assistance, for which we are very grateful and a big 'Thank You' goes to W.S. for organising it all.

What are those children doing in that graveyard...?!

Only good things, I promise!

This was the essence of the conversation that took place on a bus which passed by St Mary's Church in Bedford on Saturday 20th October. Fortunately a well-informed traveller was able to reassure her fellow passengers that they shouldn't worry, the children were engaged in a legitimate activity, in fact they were recording the gravestones for posterity!

Our chief advocate trumpeted the glories of Saturday Archaeology Workshops from the last four years to such an extent, that by the time they reached the bus station, the whole top deck knew all about SAW!

Recording the memorials for posterity.

This was the second phase of the St Mary's Church graveyard memorial survey, so far we have completed about two thirds of the whole outdoor area, with the memorials inside the church to record as well. When completed, the results will be kept  by Albion Archaeology as the official record of the state of the memorials in 2011-12.

So don't be alarmed if you see children with fluorescent vests saying 'SAW' hanging around in graveyards, they're just preserving history!

For more news on what SAW as been up to in the last year go to our Gallery and for a sneak peek of what's coming up in 2013, go to our News page.

Charlie, Oliver and the Romans!

Thanks to Mid-Nene Archaeological Group, a few young people from SAW got the chance to spend a day an excavation at a Roman site called Durobrivae, near Peterborough this summer.

Here are Oliver and Charlie's thoughts:

The last two Saturdays have been fantastic. On the first Saturday I was excavating on a Roman road next to the Samian specialist Felicity Wild which was fantastic to talk to her about Samian Ware pottery which I am very interested in. There were three Samian specialists so I spent a lot of my time talking to them which was fascinating. I didn't find much though and the experience of digging the surface of the  road was very hard work. The earth was very dry and it eventually really hurt my wrists. I felt sorry for the archaeologists who had had to dig there all of those weeks. On the second Saturday I was trying to find the terminal end of a Roman Fort ditch. It was quite difficult to see the cut and was quite frustrating when we were told we had to keep on digging down. But what kept me going was all the finds. I found two pieces of Samian ( form 33 and 31) so the experts told me. I also found a piece of bronze sheet, no idea what it was though, I personally think/hope it was a piece of armor. I had an absolutely fantastic time, an experience I will never forget. Thank you to Hellen and all the organizers that helped. It was fantastic.

Ollie

Picture 1 is my Roman Coin that i uncovered.

Picture 2 is a close up of the head of the coin.

Picture 3 is the tails side of the coin.

Picture 4 is me sifting through the soil.....hoping for another coin!

Picture 5 is the Roman bracelet my mum and I found in our area. It is a bronze ladies bracelet.

Picture 6 is the area beside the Roman road we excavated; they think it was an area of road that sunk which was then used as a rubbish area (maybe to build up the sunken hole).

Picture 7 and 8 John and me working on the fine detail of the hole.

Picture 9 was one of the bucket on bones that we took out; the teeth are horses, the big bone is cow. Alison a friend off my mums is an osteoarchaeologist and knows alot about bones!!

Picture 10 is the pig jaw that i uncovered.

Picture 11 is a picture of the west site; where the two bucket are in the picture is where we excavated.

It was very exciting to work on our own area and get some great finds

my finds number was number 100th find 40th coin and pit number 301.

103rd find 1st bracelet and pit number 301.

They might end up in a museum in Peterborough; they belong to English Heritage.

It was my first ever coin soo i was very very excited and pleased about it......

I was allowed on the last day to have a look at the spoils pile and were allowed to keep bits of pottery I found.

I found some Roman pottery. Just little bits show so much, rim shape, colours of glaze, different clays used, patterns they used for decoration.

Charlie

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Picture 11

Really Old Stones.

There's a bouncy 'Stonehenge', by artist Jeremy Deller, touring the UK at the moment, but John recently visited 'the real thing'! He said, "...it was really interesting, and quite cool to be near something 5000 years old! Here are some pictures I took for the blog."

What I want to know is, how it is currently thought they managed to transport the big blue Sarcen stones from Wales...?

And now more Saxons...!


http://www.medievalists.net/2012/07/31/sixth-century-anglo-saxon-woman-discovered-by-british-soldiers-in-operation-nightingale/

News from Silchester

Britain before the Romans - plates and olives - but still Romans built better roads it seems...:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jul/31/silchester-iron-age-roman-britain