Our adventures in Fordham

Metal detecting. One young archaeologist, who was excited to discover part of a plough, saved up his pocket money and enlisted relatives to buy a metal detector for his birthday.

 Apart from open days at Roman Circus House in the summer it was not until September 2021 the club started to meet again. By that time, the Council of British Archaeology and English Heritage had started a series of initiatives to encourage clubs to engage with research and projects in their locality. Months of school and club meetings via zoom had resulted in young people being "zoomed out" it was time to get them out and about. The projects were named "Youth Voice", "From the Ordinary to the Extraordinary" and "Shout Out Loud". Encouraged and helped by the CBA, we applied for funding and started discussions on delivery of our project "Caught in a Treacherous Tudor Web" at Fordham.

Find identification of artefacts discovered in the village

Hosted by Colchester Archaeological Group (CAG), which supports the club in so many ways. We had find washing and identification, with many artefacts from the extraordinary Roman site in Fordham the CAG is engaged in excavating. This was the ideal way to follow a series of links sent by the British Council of Archaeology which explained how to interpret clues in the landscape. The CAG had provided vintage maps of the area to make this easier for us.


Ground Penetrating Radar operated by YACs under the guidance of the CAG member who devised it.

Perhaps the highlight of our Fordham visit was the ground penetrating radar exercise, which had been adapted to allow the young people to use it. They could study the ground resistance on a computer screen as they ran the equipment over the field.

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