Yesterday (5th January), Trust volunteer Wendie started working in the large room at the Roman circus centre, where the café is during the summer season. Wendie will sit here and process archaeological finds and chat to our visitors while the café is closed for the winter. Wendie will be here every day (Monday-Saturday, but not Wednesday) from 12 noon till 4.30pm and happy to talk about what she’s doing.
Wendie came to volunteer at the Roman circus centre because she thinks that the Colchester Roman circus is great and she wanted to support the circus centre. She is one of the Trust’s team of archaeology volunteers and she helps to process the finds and material from the sites of our archaeological investigations. Wendie has now got very interested in archaeology, especially Roman archaeology and pottery. Her daughter Hannah volunteers at the Roman circus centre and one of her sons is an archaeologist. Wendie also has an interesting personal connection with the Roman circus centre building – her husband worked here on removing the fittings for scrap or salvage on behalf of the Army, and he remembers that the NAAFI cooking-range had to be taken out through the kitchen skylight!
In summer 2015, Wendie started to process finds in the ‘archaeology in action’ room here at the Roman circus centre, where she chatted to interested visitors and showed them what she was working on. She will now be doing this in the large room of the circus centre. Wendie also provides free guided tours of the circus centre and site to visitors on request. Today, Wendie was working on Iron Age pottery fragments from our recent site in Long Melford, and piecing them together to reconstruct partial vessels, when possible, so that their profiles can be drawn and included in the site report.
The circus centre is now open Monday-Friday, 10.00am-4.30pm and, on Saturdays, from 12 noon to 4.30pm. Admission is free and the circus centre and site are wheelchair accessible. The circus centre café will re-open on Monday 21st March 2016. For more information on the Roman circus centre and site, please go to www.romancircus.co.uk/ .
With thanks to Wendie and, as always, to all our dedicated volunteers.
The images show Wendie working in the large room at the Roman circus centre today, with our circus super-model in the background, and three partial Iron Age pottery vessels which Wendie has reconstructed.
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