Newsletter 95

Roman Warriors in Wigan

This is the title of a summer school arranged for children from the Wigan Borough later this month. The idea is to draw students from 15 different schools around the area (both primary and secondary) with the aim of developing their awareness of our local cultural heritage. Claire Burgess of the Kingsbridge Education Improvement Partnership is running the initiative, which has been going now for the last 4 years. She says the idea is to provide challenging experiences for bright students across a wide age range. This year the theme is based on the dramatic find of a Roman bathhouse, revealed in excavations last year in the centre of Wigan in advance of the Grand Arcade development.

The summer school will last a week starting on 17th July. During that time the pupils will visit the new heritage facility at Wall's End on Tyneside, to observe how other communities have benefited from similar initiatives. They will then be asked to produce a number of items to promote the awareness of the excavations and our local heritage in general. These will include a booklet, a website, possibly a mosaic but more excitingly a scale model of the bathhouse. During the week they will meet with a panel of town planners, councillors and archaeologists to presenting them with a proposal outlining how the young people think the finds should be used.

Support for the scheme comes from Oxford Archaeology North who excavated the site last summer - they are bringing the artefacts found for the students to work with. Also Norman Redhead form the GMAU will be helping them with developing the proposal. We have also been asked to provide support during the week and Tom Glover our chairman has volunteered to join the panel to be interviewed by the pupils. Mark Hayward has said he will help with the children making the model.

We, of course, have our own virtual model of the bathhouse (created by our Canadian member Dave Horrocks) and I have passed on some of the information used to create it to Brendan O'leary, who is supervising this part of the project. The History Shop is also involved, providing display space for an exhibition of the children's work, which will be on view over the coming months. This sounds like a fantastic project and Claire tells me she has already had a great response from the selected children - I wish them every success with it and hopefully it will inspire the young people to get a lot more involved in history, particularly our local heritage.

Tockholes Survey

Dot Waring of Darwen Arch Soc has asked if we could carry out a resistivity survey for them, this time in the grounds of St Stephen's Church in Tockholes, just south of Blackburn. Dot has been asked by the local Parish council if she would investigate the area where the old church once stood (and also an old school) to see if any buried foundations still survive. The work needed to be done fairly sharpish, so our small team of resistivity surveys (myself, Joe and Mark) quickly arranged a visit one evening last month. We completed the work in a couple of hours and afterwards Dot invited us for a very pleasant pint (4 for Joe) and a bite to eat in the local hostelry. I've yet to discuss the results with Dot, but they look quite positive with strong readings from where the old church used to be.

Next Meeting

Wednesday 5h July at the District Scout HQ (Baden Powell Centre) in Greenough Street, starting at 7.30 pm as usual. This month we have our annual favourite, John Johnson, who will be talking this year on 'The Life of the Egyptian Tomb Builders'. We know quite a lot about these people (even down to specific individuals) from the excavations of the tomb builder's villages from various sites in Egypt. At Giza the actual skeletons from the cemetery have been analysed to find out what they suffered from during their lives and what they eventually died from. The most famous workman's village is at Deir el-Medina, which is located in the remote hills next to the Valley of the Kings at Thebes (Luxor). These highly skilled craftsmen individuals were kept in isolation from the main cities in the hope that the tombs would remain secret (but this plan obviously never worked). Sounds like another very interesting talk.

Hope to see you there - B.A.