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 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 WAS 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.
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