Another great weekend at the Parish Church with lots of stands on view from a wide variety of heritage groups and talks on many interesting topics over the two day event. We of course had our stand set up by Chris Drabble displaying the latest results and finds form our Aspull Ring Ditch Project. The event was opened by Wigan’s Mayor Jenny Bullen, the Rev Roland Harvey and St John’s Ambulance President Ian Bithell (background in this photo is Mervyn Reeves, the event organiser, always on hand to help with any issues). Chris was able to spend some time explaining our work to them. As well as showing them the finds Chris had a rolling video and 3D computer models of the excavations. Chris was also able to talk with the team from the Wigan Museum stand who showed great interest in our fascinating four year project (artefact from our dig will likely end up in the Museum).

Patrick was on the programme of talks on the Friday with a presentation of our project and on the Saturday I was able to join adding information about Roman Wigan. This included the huge Roman bathhouse found in 2005 when the Grand Arcade was developed and our long-term quest to find the Roman roads coming in and out of the town. This, together with a rolling presentation of our Parish Church Tower project, attracted a quite lot of attention to our stand in the afternoon.

Just across from us Phil Livesey had his Friends of Wall Hey stand showing off all the coal mining memorabilia they’ve managed to collect from around the area. The Friends aim is to try to get funding for the preservation of the large ventilation shaft located on Haigh Road in Aspull. It was originally the site of a pit shaft sunk by Lord Crawford of Haigh in the mid 19th century, initially to exploit the the cannel mine but later deepened to reach the King Coal and Yard Seam. Towards the end of the century it was converted to an up-cast ventilation shaft with a furnace at its base to draw fresh air through the mine working on the Crawford estate. It is a fascinating relic from the Victorian era and deserves recognition as a rare example surviving from our intense industrial past. Phil and his team deserve every credit for their efforts in trying to secure its future. You can find more details about it on the Buildings Preservation website here.

You can also find out more about all the other fascinating stands and talks on the Festival’s Facebook site 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).

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 ).

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.

Wednesday 5th July. In the 1600s Wigan was only second to London for its Pewter industry and supplied much of the North as well as trading abroad through Liverpool. Caroline Heaven has been studying the subject over the last year or so and will be presenting her findings (and some examples). We’ll also be reporting on our excavations at Toddington Lane (more details here).

Wednesday 7th June.  This month we have Karl Taylor from Oxford Archaeology North. Karl is their Geophysics expert and in his talk he will be demonstrating projects where geophysics has been used by the unit to detect the archaeology.  As you may have seen over the last few years, geophysics has proved a very useful tool for our Society, so it will be interesting to see how this essential tool is used by the professionals.

Wednesday 3rd May. Mark Fletcher from Matrix Archaeology will be giving our Society a talk about Manchester’s ‘Mythical’ Castle. It was first mentioned in the late 12^th and early 13^th centuries but nobody knows exactly where it was or whether it really existed – could it have been just a ring-work around a Saxon burgh. Mark has been carrying out extensive excavations around the Cathedral area where it is was supposed to have been, so hopefully he will be able to cast more light on the mystery.

Wednesday 5th April. This month we have invited Steve Baldwin to speak about his Kingmaker 1485 Project project. Steve has recently got permission to carry out extensive excavations on the site of the famous Medieval Lathom Hall. To fund the work, he is setting up a series of field-schools and inviting interested parties to come and help him dig there. The first of these schools is to be held over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend, i.e. Saturday 15^th April to Sunday 17^th April. Visit the website – http://www.kingmaker1485.org.uk/ to book a place. At our meeting Steve will be explaining the project in more detail and also answer any questions you have regarding the dig.

Wednesday 5th October. The Medieval Graffiti Survey project was first established in Norfolk in 2010 and was the large-scale survey of early graffiti inscriptions in the UK. Entirely volunteer led, the project changed the way we look at our medieval church heritage. Here in the northwest, the number of medieval churches is limited. Therefore the project has evolved and been developed into the NW Historic Graffiti Project. This will look at any building of interest up to and including the 17^th century.  The project is being run by Carolanne King from the CBA NW and at our next meeting, she has agreed to come along and  explaining how local groups can get involved. Project will include workshops and training session and already a number of groups in the northwest have had sessions and have carried out surveys. These include Middleton Arch Soc and the South Manchester Arch Research Team.  It will be interesting to hear whether there could be an opportunity for our Society to get involved in this very interesting project.

Wednesday 7th September. The speaker this month is Steve King whose talk is entitled ‘Historic Sites of Western Turkey’. Steve is a member of the Lytham U3A and once worked as an EFL teacher in Ankara and elsewhere. This enabled him to travel extensively, gaining many interesting experiences. Turkey certainly left its mark and Steve is keen to share his experiences and knowledge of this fascinating country.