Week 4
Wow, things are really hotting up now…both temperature-wise and with everything happening on site. But we have survived the heat and the thunderstorms and have had another excellent week.
In addition to all the usual evening activities (film, quiz, lecture), we had a very lively evening last Friday with Hugh Lupton, followed by the John Preston Tribute Band. The marquee was full to the brim for the entertainment, which included a fantastic buffet laid on by our catering team. Hugh Lupton's collection of tales from East Anglia had everyone spellbound and the night was topped off with another excellent performance by The John Preston Tribute Band.
On Saturday we had the unveiling of the Airfields of Britain Conservation Trust memorial at the ex-RAF Airfield in Sedgeford. The memorial was dedicated by former Air-Vice Marshal the Venerable Robin Turner, and the service was attended by the Mayor of Kings Lynn and West Norfolk, Nick Daubney, and landowner William Barber. A wreath was laid by Grace Richardson of 42F Kings Lynn Squadron of the Air Cadets.
The ceremony was followed by an exhibition and book signing by Gary Rossin, at Sedgeford Church. Gary's book Sedgeford Aerodrome and the Aerial Conflict over North-West Norfolk in the First World War. It is a detailed account of this West Norfolk aerodrome, both through archive research and archaeological excavation carried out by the SHARP team. Gary's book is available from Poppyland Publishing
This week was very busy on site too. As well as a large number of volunteers working on Trench 23, we have Basic Excavation and Recording Techniques and Human Remains courses running. These courses are proving to be very popular! The former provides an excellent introduction to archaeology, and the latter focuses on osteo-archaeology. These courses will be running next season so why not come and join us? For details of these and the other opportunities to get involved, please see our website.
We also enough people to have opened some exploratory trenches in Saggy Horse Field (near West Hall), over some anomalies picked up by magnetometry surveys undertaken at the end of last season and the beginning of this. We are hoping to get a complete stratigraphic record that will link the excavations that have been ongoing in Chalkpit Field with the settlement area to the north of the Heacham River. To date, the most significant finds are a horse shoe and a clay drain, we clearly have more digging to do here!
The significance of what we have in Trench 23 has now been made public to a wide audience, the Eastern Daily Press The Lynn News and Radio Norfolk.
We have also been enjoying our time off. We had our annual cricket match against Snettisham, and thanks to our brilliant team (including star player Harry Taylor) we finally came away with the trophy! Well done team!
So there’s loads of really important things happening this season, come down and see it all for yourself at our Open Day this Sunday 29 July 10am - 4pm.
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