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Family Fun Archaeology Day

By Central Winchester Regeneration, News, Outreach No Comments

Join us for a Family Fun Day at Winchester’s Friarsgate Park on 29 August 10am – 2pm. This event offers a range of activities for all ages, inviting families to uncover Winchester’s hidden history and enjoy the newly created outdoor space. Get hands-on with washing archaeological finds, handle real artefacts, and test your skills with challenges based on previous digs.

Meet the archaeologists, take guided tours of the community excavation, and participate in pottery workshops with Design Junction. Don’t miss the chance to create pottery drawings and take them home. The event is free to attend, so just turn up on the day at Friarsgate Park, on the site of the former medical centre behind the bus station (what3words: craft.districts.groom).

Event Details:

  • Date: 29 August 2024
  • Time: 10am – 2pm
  • Location: Friarsgate Park (former Friarsgate Medical Centre, behind the bus station; what3words: craft.districts.groom)
  • Cost: Free! No need to pre-book.

PCA Cambridge Honored with Certificate of Appreciation

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We’re proud to announce that Sian O’Neill at the Cambridge office has received a Certificate of Appreciation from local schools for hosting students in work experience placements. This recognition highlights the impact of helping students develop key skills like communication, teamwork, and confidence in a professional setting. These placements offer students a real-world view of potential career paths, bringing to life jobs they are considering for their futures.

We’re pleased to display this certificate at our office and online; this partnership is a meaningful way to invest in the next generation, and we look forward to continuing this initiative.

Work Experience at the Cambridge Office 2024

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The end of the school term means one thing at the Cambridge Office – work experience placements! We have been proud to host students from Sawston Village College for the past 11 years and have increased our provision to students from other schools and colleges in the region too since 2021. This year we have hosted 12 students over the past 2 months!

Harry excavating a cremation urn with Osteologist Petra

For insurance reasons we can’t have under 18 year olds working on construction sites so the majority of the placement is based in the office – working on finds and environmental processing and archiving. We do our best to make our placements as interactive as possible, introducing students to different career paths within archaeology through taster sessions with various staff members in different roles, such as specialist finds analysis, photography, and GIS.

Sawston Village College students on a site tour with Rita’s Saxon teacup pot

We also try to get students out to visit an excavation and were very lucky this year to have an amazing Saxon project based just ten minutes from our office, where they were present to see rare and unusual artefacts actually coming out of the ground, such as the small Saxon cup pictured here!

One of thousands of bags of bone marked this year!

As well as providing a comprehensive view of archaeology for our students, we also of course expect them to work hard and this year have had particular legacy project that needed to be prepared for archive. With their help we should be able to deposit the 640 boxes of animal bone that they meticulously marked by Christmas!

So, many thanks of course to our work experience students for all of their time and effort: Harry from Linton Village College; Audrey, Charlie, Lewis, Luca and Matthew from Sawston Village College; Isabel from Trumpington Community College; Ben from Tring School; Daniel from Hinchingbrook School; Sam from Kings College London; Seb from Parkside Community College; and Ró from Swavesey Village College!

Polebrook school visit

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Sian O’Neill’s recent talk to a group of Reception and Year 1 kids was a big hit!

Sian came to visit us at Polebrook school as the ‘Fabulous Finish’ to our History learning. She was brilliant!

Sian was exciting, engaging and passionate about archaeology. The children loved finding out about Polebrook in the past and the powerpoint was full of great images that really helped them to understand the different stages in history. The children were delighted to touch and hold real life artifacts and order them- This was just magical to watch!

The whole session was perfectly aimed at KS1 children, and we just can’t thank Sian enough for the opportunity to learn from a real-life archaeologist. Thank you so much for taking the time to come and visit! 

 Jessica McIntosh, teacher

Offensive Industries: Preliminary results from Jubilee House, Stratford

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Harry Platts will be speaking to West Essex Archaeological Group (WEAG) on the preliminary results and findings from our late medieval industrial site at Jubilee House, Stratford. Harry’s talk will be tonight, at 8pm, at Woodford County High School for Girls. There is parking in the school site, or it is about 15 mins walk from Woodford tube station.

Our excavations at this site unveiled a series of timber revetments along the riverbanks, with two docks cut through them for boat landings.

The accumulation of debris behind these revetments provided evidence of a long history of demolished buildings. Additionally, we identified contemporary and later industrial activities, including tanning pits and lime mixing pits. Some of these pits contained organic remains, such as fragments of decorated leather, offering a vivid connection to the past.

Harry will discuss our intriguing findings that included a significant number of animal bones, suggesting on-site butchering and the use of skins and horns in the manufacturing of various goods.

If you’re in striking distance, we’d love to see you there!

CWR Volunteering in 2024

By Central Winchester Regeneration, News, Outreach No Comments

We’re extending the opportunity for volunteers to participate in the processing of finds from our ongoing excavations at the Central Winchester Regeneration site into the New Year.

From 10th January until 22nd February, on Wednesdays and Thursdays, volunteers will be welcome at PCA’s Winchester office to wash the artefacts; we still have plenty coming out of the ground!

Once booking has been made, you will receive an email to the address used in the booking, which will include detailed instructions on location, timings, etc.  

BOOK YOUR PLACE HERE

We’ve had a lot of lovely feedback from those who’ve attended so far, most recently from Tina who sent this photo and said:

Just wanted to say thank you for an enjoyable and educational couple of days finds processing.

I cleaned a lovely piece of Samian ware which seems remarkably similar to a piece in the Winchester City museum which I went round before going home.

Southwark Heritage Trail

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Join us for an immersive heritage walk through the archaeological sites and historical landmarks of Southwark on Saturday 2nd December at 11am.

Explore the rich history of the area around our site at Avonmouth House, where Roman roads, mausoleums, temples and Tudor remains intertwine with post-medieval cattle burials, medieval inns and prisons!

The walk will begin at Avonmouth House, Avonmouth Road SE1 6NX at 11am and is expected to last 2-3 hours.

Milton Keynes Archaeology Day

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Mark and Conor provided an update on the amazing archaeology revealed by PCA’s recent work at Milton Keynes to a full house of over 100 delegates at the Central Library on Saturday.

Mark and Conor received glowing praise from the organiser who said the event was:

‘a very successful day all round. An audience of 110 for the talks (the biggest crowd since we started the event in 2007) which were all well-presented and well received with plenty of questions. Many thanks Mark and Conor for attending (and helping with chairs!) and also Judy for providing an excellent script’

Clockwise from top left: Mark and Connor’s presentation; an early Bronze Age barrow monument; a late Iron Age cremation cemetery; excavation of an early Roman log ladder found in a watering hole at a Roman farmstead; aerial photo of a middle to late Iron Age settlement consisting of 80 roundhouses with evidence of continuous human occupation from c. 350BC until at least 1st or 2nd century.

Jubilee House Open Day

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The Open Day at Jubilee House, Stratford, was a huge success. Visitors crowded in to explore the exciting, intense riverside and industrial activity revealed by our excavations here. With a series of revetments and docks, along with evidence for a long history of demolished buildings, contemporary and later industrial activity and a plethora of finds, there was plenty to discover!

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