On Tuesday 1^st May the History Centre teams were invited to join our colleagues from the Wiltshire Victoria County History (the editors are also based at the History Centre) in their promotional tent on The Close, Salisbury Cathedral, for the celebration and the visit of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on her diamond jubilee. Each community Area, plus organisations like us, had a jousting tent in which we displayed and presented the best of our county’s heritage.

 
The team tent

We decided to add the occasion by delivering a series of ten-minute talks entitled the ‘Salisbury Tales’, curious tales from Wiltshire’s History, which were repeated throughout the day. It also encouraged us to see how many people we could fit into our tent!

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I am Helena Cave-Penney the Assistant County Archaeologist. I have been dealing with the residential development on the south-eastern side of Amesbury for well over ten years. Over these years the site has produced some the spectacular finds including the ‘Amesbury Archer', a large timber circle and a woman and child in a stone sarcophagus, complete with shoes. Prior to each phase of houses being built a team from Wessex Archaeology has been examined the areas striped of topsoil and excavated any archaeological features found. The most northern phase of the housing was nearing completion last year when the announcement was made of the economic crisis in America. Overnight the development at Amesbury stopped which had an immediate effect on the archaeological team. Since September of last year work has now continued, but only at a slow pace leaving insufficient work for the archaeological team. However work is continuing on the post-excavation analysis of the site.

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