The University of Nottingham’s Caistor Roman Town Project has a long-standing community element focused around volunteer involvement in excavation and field survey in and around the Roman town of Venta Icenorum in Norfolk. To date volunteers have contributed over 27,000 hours to the research programme.
A meeting held at the Forum in Norwich 24 May 2012 was attended by members of the volunteer group and the trustees of Caistor Roman Project Ltd (a charity established to support the community aims of the Caistor project) and members of Norfolk’s professional archaeology community including David Gurney, Principal Archaeologist for Norfolk County Council. Will Bowden (UoN) outlined the opportunities presented by the HLF’s All Our Stories call. In the discussion that followed it was suggested that an application could focus on the twin strands of capacity building within the volunteer body and dissemination of the project’s methods and results within the wider Norfolk community with a particular emphasis on schools. These were both aspects that the project volunteers thought could be developed further and there was wide support for developing a bid with these aims.
Posted on Saturday 26th May 2012