Report: Romans in Ravenglass Outreach Programme - Update

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for the Romans in Ravenglass outreach team!

What have we been up to?

SCHOOL VISITS

We have welcomed over 100 school children from four local schools – Haverigg Primary, Ennerdale and Kinniside, Black Combe and Seascale primaries - to the site. Not only did the schools get to see and handle Roman artefacts but they also got to do a bit of digging!

Jon Kenny, Community Archaeologist from the York Archaeological Trust supervises the budding archaeologists in Trench 4.

Project volunteer Finds Assistant Rosalie McAndrew watches over the finds washing!

We’ve already had some feedback from one of the teachers: ‘Thank you to you and your enthusiastic team for the excellent day…. The children learned a lot, were inspired, and it was a great start to our Roman topic - hands on history’.

YOUNG PEOPLE GROUPS            

We’ve run two special open days for young people this year. The first was with the Lake District National Park’s Young Rangers and Young Champions from the MOSAIC project.

MOSAIC Young Champions learning the art of ‘levelling’.

 

And last weekend we ran a session with Young Archaeologists’ Club, Kendal Branch. A huge amount of fun (and a lot of learning!) was had by all.

Young Archaeologists getting their hands-on.

OPEN DAYS

We hosted our first Saturday open day to coincide with the national Heritage Open Days festival. We had nearly 200 visitors to the site who either took part in a site tour, handled Roman finds, searched for buried treasure or got down on their knees to do a bit of digging. Some did all four!

  

Searching for ‘buried treasure’ in the sands of time!

I know I left a field drain down here somewhere!

Don’t forget to come and visit us this Saturday 27 September for our final project open day... Find out what else we have found and meet a real-life Roman ;)

Lisa Keys, Minerva Heritage Ltd

Romans in Ravenglass Outreach Coordinator

 

Report: Relentless sun (we're not complaining)

Unhindered by the weather so far this year (though some of the staff say the ground has dried out too much ...) exciting events are unfolding.

Thursday 18^th saw James Gerrard of Newcastle University visiting the Roman Baths standing remains to record them using a laser scanner. It was very much a test session for James, but the results already look very promising – more on that at a later date. He was very happy to give a talk about the work to both our diggers and the school party who were also visiting that day.

Scanner, diggers & James at the Ravenglass Roman Baths

From Friday 19th to Sunday 21^st Nicola Reid from Northlight Heritage of Glasgow, was on site showing diggers how to process environmental samples using a flotation tank and sieves. As well as finding small fragments of pottery, iron, charcoal and slag, some seeds have also come to light.

Nicola (Northlight Heritage), diggers and tank

On Saturday 20th, Steve Malone came up from Trent & Peak Archaeology of Nottingham to take high level pictures of the trenches and some of the buildings. This involved putting a camera on a very long pole – the results will appear later!

Polecam in action (thanks to Rosalie M for the photo)

Also on Saturday, the local Young Archaeologists' Club visited to dig in trench 4 and found out more about the site.

Lisa (Outreach Co-ordinator) and members of YAC visiting trench 4 (thanks to Rosalie M for the photo)

So another packed five days, and we're onto our final week of digging. If you're in the area, don't forget it's our special celebration open day on Saturday 27th September, complete with a Roman soldier visiting to inspect us and meet lucky visitors!

Comment: Save the date!

What:  End of season party

When:  28 September 5.30pm – 7.30pm

Where: The Old Laundry Room, Muncaster Castle

Currently there is a nominal charge of £6 for food. However the exact details to be announced at the start of next week.

Please e-mail holly.beavitt-pike@lakedistrict.gov.uk to confirm your availability to attend this social gathering by Monday 22 September.