KARU awarded Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service

Kent Unit volunteers were delighted to be awarded the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service on the 60th anniversary of the Coronation. The Unit, founded in 1971, has engaged hundreds of volunteers in its 42-year programme of work across the county.

The Unit’s main public role has been the long-term management and presentation of the Roman Villa at Orpington and the Roman Painted House at Dover. At both sites the Unit carried out rescue excavations, raised the funds and constructed the covering buildings over the Roman structures. Over the past four decades over 700,000 visitors, from here and abroad, have been given guided tours of the two sites by the Unit’s volunteers. Of special importance are school workshops, started nearly 20 years ago, which have seen some 80,000 children in activities led by volunteers.

Four volunteers from the Unit were invited to a garden party at Buckingham Palace in May. The event was hugely enjoyed by Gillian Bowes and Daphne Kettle from the East Kent team and Eileen Vassie and Liz Saunders from the West Kent team.

Brian Philp, Director of the Unit, said “We’re delighted with this prestigious award, for it stands as a signal tribute to the voluntary effort by so many of our members over the decades. This Diamond Jubilee award also coincides with the completion of my 60 years of rescue archaeology in Kent, which started with my first excavation as a schoolboy at Reculver in 1952”.