Festival HQ Blog 2010

Tuesday 17 August 2010

MAAG Back from a post-Festival break and ready to start the analysis of surveys from this year’s event organisers and think about preparations for the next Festival – only 11 months until it starts… arrgghhh! I’ve had a good response rate so far from event organisers so that will give us lots of information to work on to make next year’s Festival even bigger and better.

Updating the website is a big priority now, making sure its looking forward to next year’s event rather than referring the 2010’s ‘up and coming’ event, and then getting all the registration forms in place asap for 2011, so that they are ready to be mailed in January if not before (if I’m really organised!).

That’s all for now, we hope you enjoyed the Festival of British Archaeology 2010 and look forward to working with you again next year!

Wednesday 4 August 2010

Thinking about next year already… there’s no time like the present to make plans whilst the last event is still fresh in your memory! The dates are Saturday 16 - Sunday 31 July 2011 in case you’ve missed them. Event organisers have been filling in the online questionnaire about their events and the Festival in general so we will have some good feedback soon that we’ll be able to use in our annual report to our funders English Heritage and make public, and from that we’ll be able to plan for a bigger and better event next year!

Our Festival Facebook fanpage has done well this year with 589 fans and hopefully we can build that up over the year and get a massive following in time for next year!

Tuesday 3 August 2010

Well, the Festival has been and gone for another year, but what a fantastic celebration! The event organisers up and down the UK put on an amazingly diverse range of events which could not fail to appeal to everyone in some way shape or form, and they truly did show what archaeology is all about and why it is so important to look after our archaeology and heritage. So a massive thank you to everyone involved with the Festival for making what it is - the Festival simply would not exist without the hard work and dedication from all our organisers.

Do think about joining the CBA as a member if you’d like to continue to support us in our work throughout the year – we rely on our membership to show that archaeology has a voice and that our members really do believe that archaeology is important and must be looked after in the right way… visit our membership pages for more information.

Thursday 29 July 2010

HAS Wayside stone Hinckley Archaeological Society report a very successful Festival 2010. An excellent display of locally found Roman material was set up in Hinckley Museum and there was considerable interest from the public with attendances in the Museum higher than normal. An Illustrated talk for HAS in Hinckley Library by Richard Knox, Keeper of the Battlefield of Bosworth, on “Latest information on Bosworth Battlefield” was attended by 43 people. Excavation sessions for the public were held at New House Grange, Orton Lane, Sheepy Magna and the visitors enjoyed digging, trowelling and geo-physical surveying for the first time. Thank you to all members of Hinckley Archaeological Society for your contribution to the Festival!

The Milestone Society and Dartmoor National Park Authority organised a walk of the Wayside Stones on Dartmoor, which took people on a tour of all sort of stone markers, from medieval crosses to common bounds and milestones.

In preparation for the weekend, more media and online coverage of the Festival:

Wednesday 28 July 2010

Simulated dig at Kilmartin House museum Kilmartin House Museum in Mid-Argyll had fantastic weather for a great few days of events that included ‘Simulated digs’ for children, ‘Kilmartin Glen Walk and Photography Competition’ and a child’s photography workshop. There are over 350 archaeological and historical monuments in Mid Argyll and Cowal. Many of these are of national importance, some of international importance, and many more of regional significance. The Prehistoric centre of the region is Kilmartin Glen. With its standing stones, burial cairns, rock art, forts, duns and carved stones it is one of the richest archaeological landscapes in Scotland. Find out more about the archaeology of this area here.

Event organiser feedback surveys are available from today - all organisers will be mailed the link to fill in the survey online or have one posted out to them once the Festival is over - the feedback from our event organisers is extremely important as it dictates the direction we take the Festival in, based on what organisers feel works and what doesn’t. The online survey can be found here and should not take long to complete!

Media and online coverage of the Festival this year is better than it has ever been, with journalists and press officers finally picking up on the fact that all these archaeology events happen every year and that they’re part of a larger UK-wide celebration of archaeology! It takes time for events like these to become embedded in peoples minds as a permanent fixture on the annual events calendar, but we’re getting there now!

Monday 26 July

GGAT event Great Bowden The middle weekend of the Festival saw hundreds of events taking place all over the UK with thousands visiting and finding out more about the past on their doorstep!

The 2nd week of the Festival promises yet more exciting walks, talks, excavation visits, re-enactments, demonstrations… the list goes on and on, so do visit the online listings and see what takes your fancy; there is something for everyone!

The National Trust’s Live Like A Roman event at Letocetum Roman site, Staffordshire, last Sunday, had over 1,000 visitors with about 300 children. They were swamped with visitors and it was a phenomenal success! The Arthurian Centre in Slaughterbridge reports that they had a great two weeks of digging and events! The site has been left open to the public and there are finds/ information on display in the Exhibition Room, so do pop in if you’re in the area! The archaeologists have also set up a Facebook page for their archaeology and the new not-for-profit heritage organisation they have just launched - North Cornwall Heritage. Do have a look!

Great Bowden Heritage & Archaeology (Leicestershire) had a great weekend digging in the paddock adjacent to their Village Hall. They were looking for the foundations of a barn which shows on old maps and did in fact find some stone foundations and cobbled surfaces. They excavated on their own on the Saturday and on the Sunday morning and then invited the public in to have a go and to see what had been found and to see a display of the society’s current projects and enjoy tea and home made cakes in the Village Hall. See images!

More coverage over the weekend:

Friday 23 July 2010

Hampshire and Wight Trust for Maritime Archaeology Pirates event 7 days into the Festival and it has gone very well so far! We have had a lot of media exposure and that appears to be translating into good visitor numbers for the events! With the middle weekend of the Festival coming up, we have lots and lots of events to entice you out of the house on what is looking like a glorious weekend for weather… Check the events listings to see what is on near you!

Here are some more links to coverage of the Festival online:

Do contact me with your stories and pictures from events!

Wednesday 21 July 2010

Following the discovery of a ‘secret’ passage under Redgrave church (see news story) Bob Hayward reports:

Excellent 2 days at Redgrave with approx 400 total visitors and almost all want to come back when we open the passage to the vault. They were enthralled with the video camera projection from down the hole to the passage to a large screen and the geofizz plots.
The media coverage was as complete as we could ever have wished and we would not have been able to handle more visitors. It was very well syndicated with people telling us our foot in the hole find had been seen in press as far away as Netherlands and Bulgaria!

A very successful event was held by the Friends of Kings Clipstone for the official re-opening of the King John’s Palace site. Read about it here.

More coverage online:

New event to announce – Forensic Archaeology Workshop at Derby’s Museum of Industry and History – places are limited though so please book in advance! For information, search for ‘Forensic’.

Tuesday 20 July 2010

2011 date reminder The British Archaeological Awards ceremony took place yesterday as part of the Festival. All were deserved winners, and the Thames Discovery Project and Longstone Local History Group who were winners are also Festival event organisers so a special well done to them! A book published by the CBA, ‘Europe’s Lost World, the rediscovery of Doggerland’ took best archaeological book prize so everyone in the CBaAoffice is thrilled with that! Its well worth a read!

DCMS Minister for Tourism & Heritage, John Penrose MP, attended the event and said

This two-week festival highlights so much good work from all over the country. 750 events in just two weeks is a massive achievement, which gives thousands of people a chance to muck in, discover and appreciate the heritage around them – it is a unique and wonderful opportunity.

Oxburgh Hall reported an excellent weekend of events with tours full to capacity and they were eager to book next year’s Festival dates into the diary asap – so just a reminder, the Festival 2011 will take place between Sat 16 – Sun 31 July 2011!

Peter Liddle, Community Archaeologist at Leicestershire County Council who coordinates Leicestershire and Rutland’s fantastic contribution to the Festival each year reported a good start to the Festival in Leicestershire over the weekend. Their event in Kibworth was crowded on Saturday. Evnets at Jewry Wall and Great Bowden on Sunday both went well too.

Monday 19 July 2010

CBA stand Anglo-Saxon So the Festival kicked off on Saturday with loads of events all over the UK and feddback so far is looking like it was a really great weekend with thousands turning out for the events.

A team from the CBA headed to Northamptonshire to English Heritage’s event at Kelmarsh Hall, which we used as an opportunity to talk to the massive audience (c 20,000) and tell them about the Festival and encourage them to find out what is going on over the next 2 weeks and to visit lots of events! It certainly went down well, with people really excited about the opportunities available during the Festival, so i’m sure they’ll be flooding to events over the next fortnight!

It was a great opportunity too to talk about the work of the CBA and tell people why our work is so important. By encouraging them to join the CBA and so lend their voice to our membership base we hope to encourage funders to take note of the huge public support there is for the work the heritage sector carries out and of the importance of the work we do in protecting the historic environment.

Much coverage of the Festival over the weekend, here is a sample:

Thursday 15th July 2010

Thursday and only 2 days to go until the start of the Festival! Everything is now ready and everyone is ready and raring to go! Lots more coverage of the Festival on t’interweb, here are a few of the links:

… and the list goes on!

More events were registered today – 3 lunchtime lectures at the Royal Cornwall Museum – search for ‘Cornwall’ in the Listings.

CBA and YAC have stands at English Heritage’s Festival of History this weekend, so we’ll be promoting the Festival of British Archaeology to all the visitors and encourage them to plan a fortnight packed full of exciting archaeology events over the next two weeks!

Wednesday 14th July 2010

Facebook and Twitter fans and follows of the Festival are growing, helping to spread the news about all our wonderful events over the next fortnight – do join if you haven’t already!

Great news for Regrave Church, which a news article on our news pages reported had found a new underground passage last week – they report ‘We seem to have hit the media with Eastern Daily Press (full page), EDP 24 website, East Anglian Daily Times (double page), Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail website, Radio Suffolk (8 minutes), Radio Five Live today some time after 4pm, and Anglia TV tonight 6 pm news so could not have asked for better cover.’ Excellent to see the media picking this story up.

Marcham The staff and students from the University of Oxford this year are celebrating our 10th season of Excavations at Marcham-Frilford. This year the focus moves from the Roman evidence to that of the Iron Age. Although it is a University organised dig, they have a ‘community trench’ where local people can come and have a go. They range from former police staff, doctors and local business people to work-experience students. Schools, colleges, special schools and people from abroad studying at Oxford Summer Schools also visit. Read this article about the excavations!

BBC Cornwall are covering events at The Arthurian Centre and Slaughterbridge dig in Cornwall and there is interest from ITV too… watch this space!

Royston and District Museum held an Archaeology Family Fun Day as an early event for the Festival at the end of June – read about it here!

The preparations for the Trent Valley Time Travel event at Newark Castle have taken off, turning what was originally planned to be a small event into something much bigger! They’ve got more reenactors than ever, storytelling, combat displays, dungeon tours, music, stalls, activities, and ostrich burgers (of all things!)

Tuesday 13 July 2010

BBC Radio are eager to cover the Festival, with interviews today arranged with BBC Radio Sheffield, BBC Radio Cambridge and BBC Radio Bristol – it’s great to know that the Festival will gain such great coverage reaching a huge audience via their programmes.

Web coverage of the Festival continues apace as well!

Monday 12 July 2010

Guided walk in Cornwall Sennen Cove pillbox Only 5 days to go! Another 12 events have been added to the listings, taking our total events to 750 now – one hundred more than last year, which is a great achievement and blows our targets for next year out of the water! The latest events are in Cornwall, and led by local archaeologist Paul Bonnington on behalf of the National Trust - guided walks of National Trust land and farms looking at the anicent monuments and land use in this area. There will also be talks relating to the archaeology of the area – for more information search for ‘Bonnington’ in the Whats On listings.

New Forest National Park have also just got permission for an archaeological investigation of a Salt Production Site on the New Forest National Park coast to go ahead and are planning guided walks and excavation experience on the dig – search for ‘Pennington’ to see the listing or look under the Hampshire events.

And you have a chance to visit a Roman excavation on Anglesey, North Wales, where early indications suggest a trading community existed linking Anglesey with the mainland. Search for ‘Anglesey’.

Friday 9 July 2010

With the mailings now out of the way, Festival HQ is focusing on PR coverage for the Festival. More events have been added to the listings throughout the week, and consequently we have already reached next year’s target for number of events!

The Young Archaeologists’ Club is busy preparing activities for their event next weekend, the opening weekend of the Festival, at the Festival of History in Kelmarsh, Northants – children will be able to have a go at dissecting and analysing ‘ancient’ poos and determining where they came from, based on the seeds found inside them!

Knights Salisbury Museum have announced that Time Team’s Phil Harding will be attending their event on Saturday 17 July and will be talking about his experiences on the programme including his recent chance to finally excavate within his home city at Salisbury Cathedral – sure to be a popular event!

Wednesday 7 July 2010

Thousands of CBA and YAC leaflets are winging their way around the UK as we speak – final destination: 740 Festival events – and the aim is to spread the word about the CBA and YAC and the important work that we carry out, and to encourage people to find out more about us by becoming a member and help us in our aim to encourage everyone to understand and protect our historic environment!

Much stuff yet to do and not much time to do it so I’ll keep you posted! Follow the Festival on Twitter – search for @FestivalofArch

Monday 5 July 2010

Another week has flown by and I’ve not had a chance to update the blog, being busy with last minute mailings, press releases etc for the Festival! Have been carrying out a mailing of Festival posters to Tourist Information Centres today, so hopefully we will reach a huge new audience through that and encourage people to look at what events are going on locally…

Another 17 events have been registered today and are now live on the web listings! There is a full 2 week programme of events at the Weston Discovery Centre in the World Museum Liverpool - from looking at ancient poos to talks from the experts on the Egyptians, Vikings and conservation techniques used in the museum, hands-on activities for families and meeting the local Young Archaeologists’ Club leaders! We also have a special day at St Katherines in Lincoln where you can have finds identified and look at the local Historic Environment Record and a day out at Skipwith Common, North Yorkshire where there will be tours of the air field, a sand pit dig for children, WWII finds, a quiz and archaeological measuring with York’s Community Archaeologist Jon Kenny… yet more choice for what to do during the Festival fortnight!!

Monday 29 June 2010

The Festival is creeping up on us fast! Final preparations are taking place in the Festival HQ, with a mailing of CBA and YAC leaflets planned for all event venues - and with over 60,000 leaflets to bundle up and send out, its quite a large task! The annual mailing to Tourist Information Centres is also taking place, so that they all have a poster about the Festival to display and booklet events listings for interested members of the public to consult.

An interesting event to highlight at King Edward Mine Museum, Troon in Cornwall, which is not listed in the events booklet is South Condurrow Mine – is it important?: Using the collection of material relating to the South Condurrow Tin Mine it is intended to see how this can be utilised to understand how the mine developed and the significance of the remaining archaeology on the ground. The event free. Visit their website.

Thursday 24 June 2010

Note a change of date from the booklet listings for the event at Lewes Castle - it is on Sunday 25 July 11.30-16.00 - Find out how people lived in the past, with hands on archaeological and craft activities! We now have even more events added to the already massive events listings for the Festival fortnight - Bury Art Gallery and Museum is opening a new exhibition showing the finds from excavations at Bury Castle in the late 1970’s; Lancashire Adult Learning is holding two free ‘Introduction to Archaeology’ taster courses; and Honeywood Museum in Surrey is holding an archaeological excavation, which is part of the boroughs summer festival ‘Take Part, Take Pride’.

There are so many different types of events this year, catering for everyone from complete novices in archaeology, to seasoned excavators, people with specific interests in a certain period and those who would just like to give everything a go!

In other news, our Young Archaeologists’ Club is attending a Youth Festival in Rowntree Park in York this weekend, so if you’re in the area, do pop along, find out what YAC is all about and pick up some Festival events listings!

Monday 21 June 2010

EH event Lets hope the weather stays this good for the Festival in 4 weeks time! We’ve had some pretty bad weather during the Festival in past years - several years ago many events had to be cancelled because of flooding in museums, and of course, events that are held outside are at the mercy of our rather tempramental UK weather. Though there’s a good chance you’ll get wet anyway if you go to the English Heritage ‘From Caves to Cohorts’ event at Fort Cumberland - children can have a go at scuba diving (an essential skill for underwater marine archaeologists!), which I think is a first for the Festival… Sounds great!

Whilst event organisers are busy preparing their Festival events, the Festival HQ is busy, as ever! I’m making sure all the events listings are up to date with all the correct and current information, and with over 700 events, its not a quick task! I’m also planning the annual mailing of Festival information to Tourist Information Centres across the UK, to ensure they can help us to promote all the amazing events locally and encourage visitors to their area to take part in something a bit different…

Tomorrow I’m attending SAVE Britain’s Heritage’s book fair in London and I’m hoping to talk to lots of people about the Festival and encourage them to join in – there will be lots of other heritage conservation organisations there, so I’ll be recruiting them to the Festival cause… fingers crossed, anyway!

Friday 18 June 2010

A month to go until the start of the Festival and it’s officially going to be huge! Over 700 events registered now… THanks to all our event organisers without whom the Festival just would not be possible!

Even more events have gone live on the listings today - several are organised by Wells & Mendip Museum, as part of the Mendip Hills Festival of Archaeology - this is being organised by the Mendip Hills AONB Festival Coordinator Jane Hill and is made up of 25 events across the Mendip Hills area in Somerset, organised by local societies, museums, interest groups and other heritage bodies. Search for ‘Mendip’ in the search box to see what is going on!

Posters and booklets are currently winging their way around the UK now, so all event organisers will be able to promote the Festival and their events locally and hopefully attract lots of attention! If you are an event organiser and would like to order more posters and/or booklets please contact me.

Thursday 17 June 2010

Some exciting new events have been registered for the Festival over the last few days, including tours of the Roman Ruins at Dover Library - a rare chance to see them up close (search for ‘Dover’ in the Search box ) and Gory Tours at Leeds City Museum! Watford Museum have announced they have a special event with TV archaeologist Julian Richards (of Meet the Ancestors fame) - which involves recreating a roundhouse - search for ‘Watford’ to find out more!

Our Festival events have gone live on the Where Can We Go website today - events on WhereCanWeGo.com are automatically also featured on the Daily Telegraph’s Family Activity Planner too, guaranteeing us lots of extra exposure for our events and reaching audiences that might not otherwise come across the Festival website - great news!

Wednesday 16 June 2010

Mesolithic Microliths Taking place as part of the Festival this year will be The British Archaeological Awards ceremony, on Monday 19 July. There are some great archaeological projects, discoveries and books up for awards this year and we’re particularly proud that one of the CBA’s recent books ‘Europe’s Lost World; the rediscovery of Doggerland’ is up for the award of Best Archaeological Book. It’s a fascinating read which reveals the secrets of a hidden land beneath the North Sea, home and hunting ground of our ancestors only 10,000 years ago, in the Mesolithic period, but later inundated by rising sea levels… If you’d like to read more about it, pcik up a copy from your local bookshop or order from our website!

One of our Festival organisers is also up for the award of ‘Best Community Archaeology Project’ - Fin Cop - Solving a Derbyshire Mystery is a project run by Longstone Local History Group and Archaeological Research Services Ltd. Good luck to them! For details of their Festival event search for ‘Ashford’ in the Whats On listings.

ONline coverage over the last few days:

Monday 14 June 2010

Become a fan of the Festival of British Archaeology Facebook Fan page!

Online coverage of the Festival over the weekend:

Friday 11 June 2010

There has been a lot of interest in the Festival by the press today - including the Independent on Sunday, Country & Border Life magazine and The Searcher.

New events have been added - a brass rubbing event in St John the Evangelist Church in Leeds, a Churches Conservation Trust church, the opportunity to take part in excavations at Staveley Hall, near Chesterfield, organised by Staveley History Society and a Roman Film Festival in Chichester!

Online coverage of the Festival:

Wednesday 9 June 2010

Poster The massive poster and booklet distribution to event organisers is under way! You should recieve any publicity material you ordered from the start of next week. If you already know that you would like extra booklets, please do let me know as I have a number of boxes of booklets looking for a good home! Why not deliver a pile to your local library, school or Tourist Information Centre?

You can download posters too and add your own event details.

Some people are experiencing problems viewing the event listings on Internet Explorer 7 - we are working to fix this problem, but do let me know if it didn’t work for you and you have now fixed the problem, any info gratefully received! It seems to be something to do with the settings on some people’s computers…

More events have been added to the listings over the last few days including ‘Try your hand at Dowsing’ with archaeological dowser John Baker at Peckover House, Wisbech in Cambridgeshire and a series of ‘Anicent resources, ancient skills’ events at St Fagans National History Museum, Cardiff, including string and basket making and wood working using a lathe.

New online coverage of the event includes:

Monday 7 June 2010

Search page You can now search for events on the searchable Festival listings! See what is going on in your area… It’s great that the listings are now live. We hope we have created a simple but effective search interface which will allow everyone to find what they want, whether they know what they are looking for or have no clue at all! Do feed back to us what you think of the searchable listings and let us know if you come across any problems.

Now half-term is out of the way everyone is inevitably looking forward to the next holidays and with the summer holidays comes the Festival of British Archaeology, so these listings give you a very good excuse to start planning a summer of archaeology!

Good to see plenty of articles, mentions and blogs about the Festival popping up online - I’ll post links to these articles whenever I come across them, starting with:

Thursday 4 June 2010

Talked to journalists from BBC London and the Independent on Sunday today. Both are keen to feature the Festival, which is great news as it helps us reach a huge audience and so will hopefully encourage lots of people to take part in the Festival whether they are completely new to archaeology or seasoned scholars!

Tuesday 2 June 2010

Downloadable shell poster templates have gone live on the website. Event organisers will be receiving printed poster templates in the post shortly, if they ordered them, but these downloadable templates are there incase anyone wants to get started on the promotion of their events now or if they plan to print out extra copies of the posters.

Monday 24 May 2010

St Mary's House The Festival 2010 is going to be the biggest ever and preparations are fully under way! Hundreds of organisations have already registered their events and these will be published in the Festival events booklet, due out next week! All CBA and YAC members and subscribers will receive one for free in their next mailing. All retail copies of British Arhcaeology magazine will also have a free copy - so pop out to WH Smiths next week and pick up your copy!

Events will go live online very soon so keep an eye out for them! Today I’ve been adding details of the Mendip Hills Festival of Archaeology to the events database - there are over 14 events being organised as part of the Mendip Hills initiative, an excellent contribution to the Festival and great news for people wanting to explore this fascinating area of Somerset.

Monday 17 May 2010

Sophie Welcome to the new Festival blog for 2010 from the Festival HQ. The Festival is coordinated by the Council for British Archaeology and we’re based in York, in this lovely building!

I’m Sophie, the event coordinator and it’s me that all event organisers have contact with when arranging their events and registering them as part of the Festival. I also deal with producing the events booklet that lists all events, and all the other promotional material, such as posters.

We have a lot of press enquiries about the Festival and so we field all those enquiries here, though we try to put the media in touch with local event organisers as much as possible so that they can get a local feel for whats going on in their area.

I’ll try to keep the blog up to date over the coming weeks and months and let you know what is going on during the only UK-wide celebration of archaeology, as we celebrate 20 years of this fantastic event!

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