Howard’s hands-on flints session at Wormingford

Today (27th July), Trust senior archaeologist Howard Brooks was at the ‘hands-on history day’ of the Wormingford Landmarks Project (WLP), at Wormingford in Essex. This is a community project, in which local people undertake or participate in research into the history of Wormingford.

Today Howard was leading a hands-on flints session for the WLP. He has recently been busy at Roman Circus House (the Trust’s building), compiling a flint catalogue, following two days of community archaeological fieldwalking which he led at Wormingford in April.

Howard says that it was great to give so many local people the opportunity to try fieldwalking. The fieldwalking produced a large quantity of flints – over 700! – but the ‘star’ flint was the very interesting, complete Neolithic axehead, which is a very rare fieldwalking find: read about the fieldwalking sessions on this web-site at http://www.thecolchesterarchaeologist.co.uk/?p=4795 .

Howard had about 30 keen flint-handlers at his session today, some of whom had also joined in with the fieldwalking sessions. The whole day seemed very successful. Other activities included flint-knapping, the ancient seeds project, building a round-house, and a mini dig led by the Colchester Archaeological Group.

Howard has been involved with local community projects for about ten years, including the WLP, excavations at Marks Hall near Chelmsford, and excavations at Beeleigh Abbey with the Maldon Archaeological Group.

The image shows visitors trying various hands-on activities today.

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