A Town Unearthed: the story continues
Much time and effort goes into planning and executing a major project like ‘A Town Unearthed, Folkestone before 1500’ and feedback from ATU volunteers and audiences shows that many people are benefiting from its activities. The project is now in its final year and come the end of the project, what will be the ‘legacy’ of ATU?
Long term benefits are likely to be the growth of interests and friendships through the experience of people working together (a number of volunteers have even set up a local archaeology and research group) and of course there will be the dissemination of significant new knowledge, particularly about Late Iron Age activity in the south-east, resulting from recent excavations at East Cliff. A publication will tell the story of the area’s early development and in due course finds will be available for exhibition in Folkestone.
Interestingly, new students to Pent Valley Technology College this year will practice design skills by planning a new community space for Folkestone. ATU volunteers will be playing a part in this so I’m pretty sure local archaeology/history/ heritage would be on the wish list if the ‘space’ became a reality!
One tangible result of the ATU project is its newest set of Archaeological Resource Kits, just completed. Based on the original CAT KIT of resource materials, the ARKs have Late Iron Age and Roman finds from East Cliff and other Folkestone sites, a CD of East Cliff discoveries from the 1920s, 1980s and 2010-11 and an enhanced Teacher Guide. The ARK Guide can be downloaded at http://www.canterburytrust.co.uk/learning/resources/ark_teacher_pack/
With the start of the new term, we will be working with St Mary’s CE Primary School on a mini project involving children exploring a series of test pits in their school field and using the ARK in the classroom. The test pitting is being organised by Annie Partridge (CBA Community Archaeology placement with CAT) and will be supervised by Annie, ATU volunteers and school staff. St Mary’s is a five minute walk from East Cliff and all the children have the advantage of having seen the recent excavations, so there is a chance they’ll be able to put the school pits into some kind of context. Teachers are pretty excited about all this and it should be a good opportunity to learn from each other over the coming weeks, with useful experience for Annie. Following on from this, we will be promoting the ARKs to other Folkestone schools.
The A Town Unearthed project is largely supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. The schools activities are further supported through the Society’s grant to the Canterbury Archaeological Trust Education Service.
Marion is Education Officer for CAT and Hon.Sec. KAS Education Committee
What is the story of the East Cliff? What has been found?
A Canterbury Archaeological Trust curriculum pack to support the A Town Unearthed Community History and Archaeology project