Community Involvement/Open Day

August Bank Holiday Monday 28th August 2006

And What a Day

Two thousand, five hundred visitors. Let me repeat that - two thousand, five hundred. That was our audience today. Absolutely brilliant. All our team did an absolutely excellent job and I cannot thank them all enough for their dedication and enthusiasm. It was such an eventful day, it could take a lot of text to do it justice, but I will try and keep it brief.

As always with these things, not everything was in place when the doors opened but there was so much for the visitor to see – finds displays, geophysics results, bookstall, Roman dress, repro Roman pottery, Portable Antiquities Scheme, tesserae washing, Roman re-enactors (Thanks Time Tarts), the site itself and a wonderful field to stroll around. To top it all, we had excellent weather for most of the day – a bit breezy, but nothing to complain about.

View our interpretation panels used to guide people around the site

[1: Excavations 1923-22] [2: Excavations 2006] [3: Gayton Thorpe Roman Villa] [4:Geophysics] [5:Atkinson's room L] [6:The mosaic in 1923] [7:The mosaic in 2006]
[8: South building] [9: Bathhouse] [10: New range]

What was a joy was discovering that so many of the local community had come out volunteering their anecdotes and stories about this site – we had one couple who came all the way from Doncaster to visit. They had seen the site on the BBC Radio Norfolk website (another indication of our successful press exercise) and the memories that the lady of the family had were marvellous. She played in the hut as a child during the 30s and then, as a teenager, she helped out in the fields during the war. Apparently the girls would have their lunch in the hut – and the lucky ones would get to sit on the mosaic rather than on the dirtier parts of the floor. We also had one visitor who remembered sliding down the concrete ramp that we found – of course, he said, it looked so much bigger when you were a ten-year-old. I could see his two thirty-year old sons looking at their seventy-year-old dad with amazement!

Mr Birkbeck, our landowner who has been out many a time and helped us enormously both in the run up to the excavation as well as over the last two weeks, seems to have mobilised his entire family. His mother came along on Saturday, his sister, daughter and grandchildren the day before that, his brother-in law earlier in the week and today he came a few times with various younger members of his family.

The day ended with dramatic weather again – almost on the dot at 5pm the heavens opened once again and massive hailstone showers swept across the site, making the last of our visitors run for shelter and exits.

All-in-all, an excellent day and, once again, thanks to everyone on the team – you all know who you are - for making it all such an excellent success. Also thanks to the Megan, Sue, the Norfolk PAS (who came at very short notice – thanks ever so much), the Time Tarts , the burger van (good stuff) and the guy who did the drinks (I never did catch his name). And those who feel they have been left out – well, I am leaving you for the end. A big thank you to you too!!!