Twinwood Tour 17th May 2014

Thanks to Robert Allen and all the volunteers at Twinwood Museum, we had a fascinating morning listening to and seeing how a World War 2 airfield site and buildings have been restored and developed into a successful and popular museum.

We heard about the renovations to the Control Tower and how the display has been improved over the years and will change again to try to re-create the conditions when the Tower was in use. Many of us didn't know that the windows which now give a splendid panorama of the airfield site would have originally been blacked-out, which of course makes sense during war time.

Downstairs in the Tower the airfield's connection to the World War 2 bandleader, Glenn Miller is told by way of photographs, uniforms and models, overlaid by the sounds of the tunes made popularly his Big Band.

Many of the group found the recreated wartime house interiors and shop scenes, in the Aviation Museum most engaging. Everyone stopped still to the sound of the air raid siren.


A special thank you goes to Jack for showing members of SAW around and explaining about the work behind the scenes.

'Much Larks' at Mountfitchet Castle

Castle Village

The Daily Grind

In April SAW participants made a group visit to Mountfitchet Castle in Essex. This is a reconstructed wooden castle on and original motte and bailey site. Complete with live animals, smoky fires, skeletal prisoners, hanged criminals and torture pit, it gives both and engaging and lurid insight into Medieval life.

Punished for having too much of a good time!

You can try your hand at heaving the grinding mill-stones; kitting yourself up for riding in the slips; try on a helmet or two and wear some very heavy chain mail.

Let battle commence!

The fallow deer, ducks, geese and goat are all keen to get close for a free feed, if you buy a bag on your way in.

There are trails to follow and windy stairs to climb for a good view out over the area. You get a good idea of how defensible this site was and yet the castle was eventually taken by King John in 1215?

The reluctant goatherd!

A few nibbles...

Following the visit, I asked what members of the group to send me comments on: 

• what they particularly enjoyed at Mountfitchet Castle and,
• from an archaeology point of view, did they think it is a good idea to build a replica castle on top of the actual site of a castle...?

Liva said:
I thought the great hall  was exciting because I liked the models, and the information was interesting.  I also liked the pretend gallows because it showed that life in some parts of history was tough. The herb garden was good too because it was beautiful. 

Also from an archaeology point of view it would be good to build the replica on top of the original castle because if you discover any new things in the ground you can add it to the collection at the castle. Which is important to see things in their original background.

Malthe said:
For the first question, I enjoyed feeding the animals because it was funny when the animals were chasing me to try and get the animal food. For the second question, I think that the reconstruction is good, but they should have built the reconstruction somewhere else so that people can enjoy the original castle and the reconstruction of the castle.

Matthew's mum, Julie said:

It is really difficult to pinpoint what we particularly enjoyed as it was all so good.  The village scene with its wide range of exhibits, the individual buildings and the gallows (which both the boys were a bit wary of (lol!) all provided a great experience for the boys and not forgetting the wildlife freely wandering around which just made castle village life all the more real. 

There was such a lot to see and do and without you guys organising the morning SAW session I don’t think we would have got so much out of it.  

Shells and snails and muddy blob tales...

Environmental Archaeology - why mud and microscopic animals are very important!

In January, participants at SAW found out how important microscopic evidence is to archaeologists. The types of snail and seed that you can only see with the help of a microscope help to tell archaeologists and those who study past environments, what the climate of a particular place used to be like and the sorts of plant and animal species would have lived there.

This in turn can help to explain the kinds of activities the past inhabitants have undertaken and the help explain the sorts of man-made objects the archaeologists might find.

Archaeologists routinely take mud and soil samples from their excavated sites to sieve and study. We got to sort through the residue from buckets of muddy water. It's amazing what you can find, someone even found a miniature sea urchin!

Apart from anything, we just love getting muddy!

Winter Greetings from SAW

The New Season of Saturday Archaeology Workshop Sessions is here:

Winter & Spring 2014

Here you will also find details of how to Register and book places for SAW sessions.

2013 has been a busy year for all connected with The Higgins Bedford. Find out some of the things we've been doing on our News page:

News

Stuck for something to do over Christmas...? Have a go at our Quiz of 2013, in the Gallery page:

Gallery

Wishing you all the very best  Christmas and for 2014.

From everyone at Saturday Archaeology Workshops. 

New Season SAW

Greetings SAW bloggers!

After a busy summer, there's a lot to catch up on with dig and visit reports due - watch this space! 

Or alternatively, SAW people, let us know what you have been up to. Send in your photos and a short piece about an archaeological or historical site or museum, you have visited recently and we will choose the best to put share on the SAW blog.

In the meantime, the new season of SAW sessions is now to be found here.

Rothwell Charnel Chapel visit

On Saturday 10th August, I visited the medieval charnel chapel in Rothwell church's crypt. The church and charnel chapel were built around 1350 and held approximately 1000 complete skeletons, and it is one of only 2 surviving in England due to Henry XIII's reformation in the 16th centaury, and outlawing the worship and reverence of bones in England. It was discovered around 1700 by a grave digger who (supposedly) went mad due to what he saw. Over 100 years after the discovery Victorians who studied the crypt removed most of the bones excluding the femurs and skulls, as they believed they were in there by accident as they believed you only needed your femur and skull to get into heaven. This has since been proven to contradict medieval beliefs as they believed that god would reassemble them on the day of judgement, no matter how dismembered they were. I found my visit very interesting, and the students from the university of Sheffield who were studying the site were very informative and knowledgeable.

 

by John D.

[Sorry it has taken so long to include this John. Thanks for sending it in. Ed.]

Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum Exhibition Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my last visit to the British Museum in London and my visit to Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum exhibition curated by Paul Roberts. The objects themselves were incredible, especially the wall frescoes, graphiti and kitchen implements. My favorite objects were two faience frogs in the Hortus area which were beautiful, I have never seen faience quite like it before. I was also very impressed with the displays. The exhibition is set out by the different rooms in a typical pompeiian house, Tablinum, Culina, Atrium etc. I thought this was very clever as progressing through the exhibition was almost like walking through a Roman house.

As I have been to Pompeii and experienced the incredible the incredible levels of preservation of the buildings this room set idea really helped to bring the living conditions alive for me. Quite a few of the objects I have studied about at school through Classical Civilisation so it was good to see them up close. The displays were also very good. I often feel in some exhibitions that the displays are trying to show the creative "genius" of the curator but these displays were minimalist  and emphasized the object, not the design of the display.

If I am to criticize the display in any way I would say the visitor flow was poorly designed as there were many bottlenecks and I often found myself getting very close and compact with other visitors when filing through narrow corridors. The labels were also, like the displays, slightly minimalist and could have done with a bit more information. But altogether a very good exhibition, highly recommended. However if you are going you must remember to book as it is the fastest selling show the British Museum has had for 25 years.

http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/pompeii_and_herculaneum.aspx