ACTIVITIES
Archaeology Projects (external)
Clovelly, 6 March 2005 Derry Bryant recounts
her experience manning (personning?) the NDAS stall at the AONB exhibition.
(Newsletter No 9 2005)
See also The walk at Clovelly Dykes & G.E.L.
Carter's report of 1927
NDAS was recently invited by the AONB (Areas of Outstanding
Natural Beauty) Project Team to ake
part in an exhibition at the Clovelly Visitor Centre.
Various organisations involved with the environment, heritage, coastline,
etc would be present, also the Portable Antiquities scheme. Jim Knights
gallantly volunteered to man a display stand for NDAS and entioned it
at a Committee meeting. I offered to help, so we turned up early at the
Visitors Centre on Saturday 6 March. Jim had created a brilliant stand,
with photos of NDAS activities, graphs of resistivity surveys and pottery
sherds found on a field walk at High Bray –
grouped in chronological order, from early medieval to 18th Century.
On the day there was to be a lecture by Mark Horton, who often appears on ‘Time Team’, on Landscape Archaeology, and Jim had ordered the tickets in advance. On arrival, we were given two tickets for the lecture, which included a VIP lunch for the stall holders, which sounded great. From the start, we were quite busy, with the general public coming through and asking questions about the artefacts.We handed out lots of the Society’s new publicity leaflets, and did our best to promote NDAS. When it was time for the lecture, we were so busy that I suggested Jim go to the lecture while I manned the display stand. I am no expert in archaeology or anything much historical, just interested and enthusiastic!
Nevertheless, I managed to deal with most enquiries. The children particularly enjoyed touching the pottery and feeling the difference in tempering/glazes, etc.
However, I was a bit flummoxed when a farmer from Clovelly
approached me with an object which he placed in my hand – it was
very heavy, and round. “Aha” I said knowledgeably, “that’s
a cannon ball”.(quite pleased with myself). “Yes I know”,
he said, “ but can you tell me who fired it, and when?”
Regrettably, I had to tell him I didn’t have a clue – I think
he was quite disappointed. He had read the newspaper article about the
event and thought the experts on the day would be able to help him.
I was relieved when Jim came back from the lecture and kindly offered that I should be the first to go to lunch. I took my VIP ticket to the cafeteria and offered it to the cashier, who said she had never seen one before and didn’t know what it was, so I paid for my lunch. When I got back it transpired that lunch was being held in the Red Lion pub at the bottom of the hill and included a ride back in a land rover, so Jim toddled off for his.
He returned with a beaming smile and recounted the experience – glass of wine, sea bass, large prawns, oysters, mussels; a veritable feast, followed by a comfy ride back in the land rover. Guess what I had? A pasty and a bag of crisps! I was slightly mollified by getting to meet Mark Horton, so the day wasn’t totally wasted!
The afternoon was very busy - people had brought in
quite a few artefacts – after looking at them we directed them to
Nicola Powell from the Portable Antiquities scheme, who at one stage was
identifying a nice series of buckles brought in by a metal detectorist.
All in all, it was quite a successful day. I hope that we raised the profile
of NDAS, but we could have done with a couple more helpers.
Copyright © 2007 North Devon Archaeological Society