The Fair at Bolton Museum last Saturday was a great success (despite clashing with the ‘Iron Man’ weekend in Bolton). My Rectory Project talk was well received and we had quite a number people interested in our stand.
It was particularly useful to be able see what other societies are up to and to compare notes. Bury Society, for instance, have been excavating a similar site to ours and have some very interesting 16th century pottery. STAG are creating a database with the finds from their Timperley Old Hall (moated site) which will be very useful for us to use to date our site (which has a similar history).
It was also great to be able to show our stuff to the professionals such as Brian Grimsditch and Norman Redhead (Norman was running an interactive stand where you could look up information from the HER database).
looking up details from the HER database
Talks in the lecture theatre were, in general, well attended in particular this one by Joyce Tyldesley from Bolton Archaeology and Egyptology Society. The Bolton Society have not been very active recently but are keen to get things going again in the near future.
The day was a great success and great credit should be given to Ian Trumble for putting the effort in to arrange it all (Ian, who works for the Bolton Museum, is also a member of our Society).