the big move: from store to store

Today (9th June), during a brief lull in our excavation programme, the Trust began to transfer all our boxes of finds from the store room in Roman Circus House to the new storage building which we’ve built in the garden. This will free up the store room for renovation by our team of dedicated renovation volunteers, and then we will be able to open it up to visitors as an extra part of the Roman circus centre. It will become the ‘archaeology in action’ room, where visitors will be able to watch our archaeology volunteers processing finds and have a chat with them. So, although moving finds boxes doesn’t sound very exciting, we are excited about expanding the circus centre into another room!

The Trust excavates a lot of archaeological material, which is all processed by our archaeology volunteers, studied, reported on, boxed, and stored. Every few years, we transfer a load of finds boxes for permanent storage by the Colchester Museums Service. The archaeological material includes brick and tile, pottery, and even human remains… The human remains are all, eventually, re-buried in the Borough Cemetery. The archaeological material in our store has only archaeological value; valuable finds are held by the Museums Service. Some of the most interesting finds get to go on display and, if you look round Colchester Castle Museum, you will be able to find some of the artefacts which have been excavated by the Trust in and around Colchester.

The images show the old store room and Trust excavator Stefania helping to move finds boxes into the new storage building, today, on the hottest day of the year so far.

.