new store room doors

Today (22nd November), the doors for our new external store room were delivered by Collier & Catchpole to Roman Circus House. Trust archaeologists Ben and Mark carried the doors into Roman Circus House and stowed them on the stage for safe-keeping, until they can be finished and installed. The footings for the new store room were excavated on the 11th June. On the 30th July, Collier & Catchpole delivered the building materials and, on the 2nd August, our builders began to build the building. Now we’ve got the doors!

The new store room is not just important to the Trust as an archaeological field unit (archaeologists need lots of storage!), but also in that it will free up another large ground-floor room in Roman Circus House for use by visitors to the circus centre. We hope to finish the new store room by the end of the year, and then we can transfer all our stores from our current store room. This was originally the kitchen for the NAAFI canteen in our building, which was built as the Regimental Institute of the Artillery (Le Cateau) Barracks in the old Colchester garrison. The Trust’s renovation volunteers will then completely renovate and refit the room so that our team of archaeology volunteers can move in. Here they will be able to process our finds in a much larger space, and visitors will be able to go into the processing room and see some archaeology in action, and also chat to the volunteers and any passing archaeologists.

The building materials for the store room were generously supplied to the Trust by local builders’ merchant Collier & Catchpole at a discount or free of charge, for which the Trust is very grateful. Collier & Catchpole is an independent builders’ merchant, with premises at Stanway, Colchester and also at Ipswich. Their web-site is at www.colliercatchpole.co.uk/ .

The images show the new store room so far; the Collier & Catchpole lorry; unloading; Ben and Mark carrying one of the doors into Roman Circus House; and the doors on the stage.

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