GM Festival of Archaeology (& Brimelow Farm Open Day)

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The weekend Festival and Open Day was a great success with a good number of volunteers and many visitors over the two-day event. Friday volunteer numbers were down (probably as it’s a weekday) but, on Saturday, we were oversubscribed.

Saturday’s volunteers and crew. Left to right: Chon, Tracey, Al, Darren, Alex, Vanessa, Bill, Patrick, Andy and Mark. Front row: Lily, Indiana (Bones) the dog and Lucas.

Throughout the two days we had a constant stream of visitors, particularly from the local residence who were keen to have a look at the Roman road we had discovered on their door step (encourage to have a look by Trevor acting as gatekeeper).  It was particularly pleasing to see David Ratledge who hasn’t been too well recently – his Gazetteer of Roman Roads in Lancashire is quite comprehensive (and he’s currently working on roads in Cheshire – we all wish him well on this project).

Friday’s contingent: Left to right Patrick, Andy, Dave North, Mark, Dave Flanagan and Tony Boylan

Much Progress was made on searching for the Roman road between Wigan and Walton-le-Dale and you can see the details of our work here.

 

Landgate Excavation Open Day

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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

March Meeting

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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).

October Meeting

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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.

August Trip

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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.