Archaeologists from Thames Valley Archaeological Services (TVAS) unearthed the grave of a warrior in 2008, who died at around the time of the Roman conquest in AD43.

Excavations, led by Andy Taylor of TVAS, have been taking place in advance of a new housing development on behalf of Berkeley Homes (Southern) Limited and Persimmon Homes (South Coast) Limited.  The archaeological work is took place as a requirement of the planning process with the archaeological officer (Mark Taylor) of West Sussex County Council advising the District Council as to what is required.

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The Archives Conservation team recently held a number of workshops for museum curators and volunteers on the care of paper and archive collections.

This was very much untried territory for the team, Paul Smith and Mervyn Grist, but was in response to requests for assistance from museums around the county. Three days (one in September and two in October) were arranged and numbers limited to six delegates per session. The programme for the sessions was devised by Paul Smith, Senior Archives Conservator. Staff and volunteers from Wiltshire Heritage Museum, Devizes, Dewey, Cricklade, Athelstan, Mere and Salisbury Art Collections attended.

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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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Preservation goes hand in hand with conservation and, as part of the Archive Conservation team’s overview and collections care, a box survey was implemented in 1991. Still ongoing twenty years later, we are gradually surveying the contents of every box in the county archive. This enables us to monitor the condition of the archive, discard or replace unsuitable packaging, pins and staples, to make sure the contents are not packed incorrectly and to check that boxes are not over full.

Besides the important preservation and conservation aspect of the survey, it is also a wonderful opportunity to discover ‘lost’ treasures and to investigate collections unopened for many years, and in some cases perhaps decades. Some are yet to be fully catalogued.

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Archive conservation staff are to be reunited with an ‘old friend’ with their latest project.

The letters of John Russell in the Eyre-Matcham archive document his career as a naval administrator at Woolwich, then Deptford, as Consul General in Lisbon and Consul in Morocco.

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Mere Museum is celebrating the start of 2011 with their new conservation themed exhibition entitled ‘Preserving the Past for the Future’ and staff from the Wiltshire Council Conservation and Museums Advisory Service teams were privileged to be invited to the opening on 4 January for a sneak preview.

A Gladstone Bag, c.1882

The exhibition shows the range of objects conserved by the Conservation team for the museum over the years with photographs showing the objects before treatment alongside the actual objects after treatment, together with informative panels about the conservation treatments used.

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My name is Beth Werrett and I am a conservator for the Wiltshire Conservation Service. I recently treated an extremely unusual table, which was inlaid with fossils; the object was so popular in our building it seemed like an excellent candidate for discussion on our blog.

 
Condition of the table before any conservation work was carried out

Background

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The Objects Conservation lab at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre is an exciting and consistently intriguing place to be with the diverse range of unique objects that come through the doors.

 
Detail during treatment of Indian talwar sword shown with silver and gold inlay from the Rifles Museum. The cleaned surface, right side, shown in contrast with the left side’s yellowed lacquer coating.

            My name is Drew Karnoski, and I’m a student of conservation at Cardiff University, currently completing a work placement in the Objects Conservation Laboratory at the WSHC. To find out more about the objects I have had the pleasure to work with, please 'read more'...

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Wax visible inside the skull before treatment

Background

The 2009-2010 project to conserve 300 items for the new display at the Roman Baths Museum included a variety of materials from Roman earthenware ceramics to bronze statuettes. Some of the larger objects were made of lead and included lead piping from the baths themselves and a Roman coffin. The coffin was the feature of our last blog and we’d like to follow on from this with details of the conservation of the coffin’s contents.

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The coffin lining was discovered in 1999 at the St Swithuns' Yard site on Walcot Street, Bath. The original excavation and conservation work was undertaken by the Museum of London and the project was filmed as part of the BBC series ‘Meet the Ancestors’ with Julian Richards.

Two coffins were found at the site. They were buried by the side of an alley way in the late 4th century. One coffin belonged to a male, 45 years of age and a height of 5”8. He was buried next to a female who was local to the area. She was approximately 25 years old and had been buried in a wooden coffin. Unfortunately the female skeleton was not well preserved.

Coffin lining before treatment

The coffin lining and the skeleton were taken to the Museum of London where a number of tests were carried out. Analysis revealed that there was no obvious cause of death. DNA results showed that his maternal ancestors came from the eastern Mediterranean and further analysis of his bones and teeth suggested he had probably spent his youth in Syria.  Please 'read more' to find out about the conservation work taking place...
 

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