United Kingdom

A Celtic Summer

Date
-
Country
United Kingdom

Celebrate the summer Iron Age style! With ancient games, you won’t believe are this old, to fun crafts, competitions, and more- the site is teeming with life. Wolanski’s Pole and Aerial fitness will return for circus workshops by the Loch, including aerial hope, acrobatics, and more.

Little Woodham Living History Village (UK)

Member of EXARC
No

Within the parish of Rowner, surrounded by woodland, lies the 17th century village of Little Woodham. A visit here will allow you to step inside the pages of history books; to open the doors of real homes and immerse yourself in everyday life in a small village.

You may meet the seamstress embroidering elaborate decorations on clothing for the wealthy members of the parish, or she may simply be repairing her husband’s britches! You may find the weavers busily spinning wool or weaving beautiful cloths. There’s also the potter at his wheel throwing pots or firing up his kiln. You’ll often hear the chopping of wood at the sawyers, or the rhythmic banging of metal at the blacksmith’s forge, or you might just hear a mother telling tales of faeries to her children.

Duncarron Medieval Village (UK)

Member of EXARC
No

It started life as a drawing scribbled on a beermat. An image of a museum without glass display cabinets, without boundaries. A museum with fully interactive exhibits that would teach about Scotland’s past.

Fifteen years later that drawing is becoming a reality as Duncarron a fully fortified Medieval Village situated beside the Carron Valley Reservoir and the men sitting around the table that night have become a recognised charity, The Clanranald Trust for Scotland (The Trust).

Book Review: the Lifecycle of Structures in Experimental Archaeology – An Object Biography Approach by L. Hurcombe and P. Cunningham

Author(s)
Peter Bye-Jensen 1
Publication Date
This book is made up of 16 papers that are a collection of results from a European Culture Project (OpenArch) that ran from 2010-2015. It was edited by Linda Hurcombe and Penny Cunningham. This work is dedicated to the late shipwright Brian Cumby, who was deeply involved with making replicas of several prehistoric boats...

Museums as Good Places

Author(s)
David Anderson 1
Publication Date

It was a bold and challenging brief. The trustees decided to commission two alternative reports. They invited Patrick Geddes, the pioneering biologist, sociologist, environmentalist, social reformer and city planner, to produce one of these, and T. H. Mawson the other. For Geddes, this was an opportunity to bring together his life's work across many disciplines in one visionary scheme. He spent months, with the assistance of a photographer, recording almost every square yard of the city, before submitting his plan.

The Wilderness Trust: Out of Eden Project (UK)

Member of EXARC
No

The Wilderness Trust's project, Out of Eden, investigates the origins of farming and Neolithic culture in the UK through practical experimentation. This is in its early stages, carried out entirely with volunteer labour on a 50 acre site in mid-Wales.

The Wilderness Trust's project, Out of Eden, investigates the origins of farming and Neolithic culture in the UK through practical experimentation. This is in its early stages, carried out entirely with volunteer labour on a 50 acre site in mid-Wales.

Book Review: Management of Open-Air Museums. Workpackage 2: “Improvement of Museum Management” by Jakobsen, B & Burrow, S (eds).

Author(s)
Paul Edward Montgomery 1
Publication Date
The five year OpenArch project concluded in 2015. It was an effort to create a permanent partnership between Archaeological Open-Air Museums (or, AOAMs) in Europe. The project saw eleven participating organisations come together to – among other objectives – produce work packages that would be accessible to people with an interest in the workings of AOAMs...

Peat Moors Centre - Somerset Heritage Centre (UK)

Member of EXARC
No

The suggestion for the Centre originated from John Coles. The first roundhouses were built by Somerset County Council staff to celebrate the centenary of the discovery of the Lake Village.
They closed in 2009 and are now called Somerset County Council Heritage Service, Somerset Heritage Centre.

The suggestion for the Centre originated from John Coles. The first roundhouses were built by Somerset County Council staff to celebrate the centenary of the discovery of the Lake Village. They closed in 2009...

Recycled Flint Cores as Teaching Tools: Flintknapping at Archaeological Open-Air Museums

Author(s)
Matthew Swieton 1 ✉,
Linda Hurcombe 1
Publication Date
This article examines the art and craft of flintknapping and how the OpenArch project has influenced the way in which this specialized body of craft-knowledge can be most efficiently presented to the public, but additionally—and more importantly—how making the most of teaching opportunities can convey a deeper interpretation to the museum-goer...

Whithorn (UK)

Member of EXARC
No

Whithorn is famous as the site of the earliest Christian settlement in Scotland, with evidence of Christian practice dating to the early 5th Century. However, research is increasingly turning to the context for the arrival of Christianity and the sophisticated Iron Age culture which preceded it.

Recent excavation has revealed an important settlement of roundhouses dating to approximately the mid 5th Century BC at nearby Black Loch of Myrton; the boggy site has preserved the timbers and gives some of the best evidence for Iron Age construction anywhere in Scotland.