AGM and Annual Talk Report
The 2017 AGM and Annual Talk
The annual AGM of the Friends was held on Saturday 11th February 2017 at Roman Circus House. The minutes of that meeting will be available in the next few days.
Later in the day about 70 members met as usual at the Lion Walk Church for the annual update on the previous year’s work of the archaeologists at Colchester Archaeological Trust.
Barbara Butler was first on the podium. She leads the Young Archaeologist Club which meets at RCH once a month on a Saturday morning. She was very appreciative that the YAC now have a permanent ‘home’ at RCH for their varied activities. Although she has a team of adult helpers , she is keen to co-opt more, and also requested assistance of anyone who might have a skill/experience that could be shared with the group.
Howard Brooks (standing in for Adam) took us (not literally) to a site just off Brentwood High Street, which was originally planned to be an evaluation only, but became a full scale excavation. Being situated opposite the ruined Chapel of St.Thomas, there was reason to expect something ‘interesting’.
They found the remains of a mediaeval house which from the finds appeared to have been in multi use for various trades. It appeared that this had been built over an original timber framed 15th century house.
Philip then spoke about the Antonine Itinerary – this is a collection of Roman route maps – 15 of which relate to Britain – one of them from London to Caistor St Edmund in Norfolk. He showed the known Roman towns along this route demonstrating the average distance of 16 miles between each town. He said that modern names always relate back to part of the Roman name.
Laura then spoke about the Roman food items that were discovered from the Williams and Griffin site and other sites in and around Colchester.
Thanks to Boudicca burning the town down, food ie dates, figs etc which normally would rot away remained in a charred condition , which modern techniques can now identify. The Romans enjoyed a varied diet of fish, beef, lamb, pork and fruits, nuts etc. (Read more about this in the current issue of the Colchester Archaeologist Vol 28) .
The members enjoyed tea and home made cakes and were able to see a display of some of the burnt food items found in Colchester .
Report by Brenda, Photos from the various talks given on the day.