Hello, my name is Terry Bracher, Archives and Local Studies Manager and along with my colleague Laurel Miller, who is our Heritage Education Officer, one of my favourite jobs is to help co-ordinate one of the History Centre’s big annual events, which is our Open Day. It takes place on Saturday 1st October from 10am – 4pm. Last year we had over a thousand people visit the History Centre at our Open Day participating in a range of family fun activities and this year looks like being as popular.

The Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre

Of course, a lot of planning goes into the event, but did you know that we start almost once the previous Open Day has ended? First we have to review the activities that took place and look at your wonderful and informative feedback to see what was successful and if anything worked less well, so that we can make improvements the following year.

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As you may know, Wiltshire is one of the richest counties for archaeological monuments. There are over 2,000 monuments in the county which are scheduled, or considered to be of national importance.  As part of our work the Archaeology Service of Wiltshire Council works in partnership with English Heritage to implement a monument management programme. Every year we target a small number of scheduled monuments in need of a little “TLC”. Over the six years the programme has been running we have carried out work on over twenty sites including, scrub clearance on Neolithic long barrows and Iron Age hillforts, masonry conservation at a Roman bath house and a medieval castle keep.

The Archaeology team on a site visit to Oldbury Castle Hillfort at Cherhill

Our programme for this past year has focused on three sites in particular. At a Roman bath house near North Wraxall, 2,000 year old walls had been exposed a few years ago and were suffering damaged caused by the extremely cold winter last year. We employed a specialist masonry conservator to re-point and consolidate the walls prior to their backfilling. At the Iron Age hillfort at Fosbury we completed a three year programme of work involving scrub clearance on the ramparts by the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers (BTCV). We also completed a five year programme of work on a Bronze Age barrow cemetery near Beckhampton which focussed on trying to exclude badgers from the burial mounds with the insertion of badger-proof fencing and artificial badger setts. 
If you spot any monuments in need of our help, please let us know!
[Additional images available, please 'read more'].

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10 am - 4 pm, Free Admission

Hello, my name is Terry Bracher and I am the Archives and Local Studies Manager at the History Centre. This month some of my time has been spent preparing for our annual Open Day on Saturday 26^th September. This will be our third Open Day; the first two saw over 1300 visitors come to the Centre to enjoy looking behind the scenes and take part in our family activities.

 
This Deed of Properties given to Jane Seymour by Henry VIII will be one of those on show 

So what is happening this year? Well, there will be lots of fun activities with a Tudor theme. Find out about life on Henry VIII’s flagship the Mary Rose. Members of the crew will be on hand to tell you about life onboard and there will be lots of objects and costume to see (and try on!).  Will you hit the target at one of the king’s favourite pastimes, shooting with a longbow? (Small charge for this activity). See real Tudor documents from our archives, including the marriage deed of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, and a family tree of the Seymour family twenty feet long (Steve, one of our archivists, has the job of unfolding this!). How much do you know about Henry’s Wiltshire connections? Try our quiz and find out. Can you identify Tudor objects with our Museums Advisory Team?

Take a behind the scenes tour of our strong rooms to see how the archives are stored. Visit the labs to watch objects and archives being conserved. Have a go at glass painting or writing with a quill pen, or some of our other craft activities for children. Read on to find out what else is happening....

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