On Saturday, the South West Anarchy Research project was lucky enough to attend the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society’s annual symposium, generously hosted by MShed in Bristol! The theme of this years talks were ‘Community Archaeology’.
The day began at 10:00am (earlier for us as we had a stall to set up!) with the arrival of lots of wonderful BGAS members, and the morning session was introduced and chaired by Graham Barton, the Hon. Secretary for BGAS. Between 10:40am and 13:00pm, we were able to listen to 4 wonderful talks – interspliced with tea and biscuits of course!
The first talk by Timothy Darvill of Bournemouth University gave us an insight into recent excavations at the Sisters Long Barrow in Gloucestershire, followed by an update on the work being undertaken by GlosArch on Cleve Common, given by Phil Cox, GlosArch’s secretary.
After a quick coffee and hobnob, we were treated to a talk by Neil Holdbrook, Chief Executive of Cotswold Archaeology, on recent excavations of an incredible Roman tile kiln in Minety. This was followed by the final talk of the morning session, by Kurt Adams, the Finds Liason Officer for Gloucestershire and Avon. Kurt gave us an insight into the discovery and excavation of three coin hoards from Wickwar.
After questions and a lovely lunch at MShed’s cafe, the afternoon session began, with talks from Martin Papworth of the National Trust, on Chedworth Roman Villa mosaics, Tony Roberts, the director of Archaeoscan on new sites in Gloucestershire revealed by Public Access Archaeology and, of course, more tea and biscuits!
After this short break, SWARP’s own Dr. Stuart Prior gave a talk on the project – covering our excavations at Hartygrove, and in Royal Fort Gardens, and how the community have been and will continue to be integral!
As the theme was Archaeology in the Community, we were there to tell people about SWARP – it was a pleasure to be there with some of our finds, and information about us, and we had lots of wonderful people sign up to volunteer with us in the near future!
A huge thank you to BGAS, and MShed, we had a blast!