Despite the wet weather last month’s Open Day was a great success with a good number of visitors throughout the day. There was also some emotion for one or two of the locals on seeing the road for the first time, knowing of its existence over the years – and, reminiscent of scenes from the Life of Brian, souvenirs stones from the site were going like hot cakes. More details here
Great turn out last Saturday for our Historical Graffiti survey of St Wilfrid’s Parish Church Standish. It was a great success and dozens and dozens of marks were discovered. 
The Church was built in the late 16th century and is the only Grade 1 Listed building in the Wigan Borough. You can see more details of our surveying activity here.
Wednesday 7th March. Talk on Bolton’s Egypt – Yesterday – Today – Tomorrow by Ian Trumble. There will also be information about this Saturday’s Historic Graffiti project at St Wilfred’s Standish and also volunteering for excavations on the Bryn Roman road site in the coming weeks (contact the Society for more info).
Last Sunday, despite the wind and rain, three brave members of our Society (plus Debbie the dog) ventured up on Heapey Fold Lane to see if they could find where Chorley Society excavated in the early 1960’s. Overlooking the Anglezarke reservoirs, this track is thought by many to be the Roman road to Ribchester (you can see more details of the trip here…).
Just a reminder it’s quiz night tonight in the Brocket – in the Standish Suite starting around 8.00pm. Hope to see you then BA (btw latest newsletter is on line here – http://www.wiganarchsoc.co.uk/content/News_Letters/news208.htm ).
Just when we though we had finished our work on this site more features turn up (see the details here).
Wednesday 4th October. John Pendlebury was an egyptologist, archaeologist and war hero. While fighting in Crete in the Second World War, he was captured by the Germans and legend has it that he was executed as a spy. He was born in London but his father was a Wiganer, the son of the owner of the famous Pendleburys department store on Standishgate. John worked for many years in Egypt at Amarna and Knossos in Crete where he enlisted when war broke out. John Johnson has been researching his fascinating life story and I’m sure his talk will be very interesting.
Sunday 20th August. Ian Trumble has kindly arranged for us to visit Hall i’th Wood and Smithills Hall – both grade I listed buildings on the outskirts of Bolton. Please contact me direct on bill@wiganarchsoc.co.uk if you interested in going.
Hall i’th Wood is 16th century and famous for being the home of Samuel Crompton, who invented of the Spinning Mule. The oldest part of Smithill’s Hall dates to the early 14th century and was probably moated.
Ian will be opening Hall i’th Wood specifically for us in the morning but for Smithill’s Hall we will be joining a regular tour in the afternoon. Ian is also seeing if he can get us access to the Bolton Museum archive store which has over a million items in store.
Some more photos of our recent trip to the Orkneys here
Over the last few weeks there has been much activity at our Toddington Lane site (Mrs Pendlebury’s Milestone), including the GM Festival of Archaeology where volunteers from the general public were invited to join in. We’ve even had 3D models made of our trenches, kindly produced by one of our volunteers, Lee McStein, who is a specialist with this sort of thing (3D-Trench 1 – 3D-Trench 3).