In our last blog of 2021 Project Archaeologist Trevor reflects on our award-winning Bronze Age Roundhouse project! This project was recently honoured as a joint winner of the Council for British Archaeology’s Archaeological Achievement Award for Engagement and Participation, and as Trevor so poignantly describes below the project has had a lasting impact on all those involved…
The Winter Solstice sun seen from the entrance to our Bronze Age Roundhouse
As 2021 draws to a close so does our Operation Nightingale Bronze Age roundhouse project. For a stationary object, it has launched an amazing array of journeys. I was chatting with Richard Osgood, one of the founders of Operation Nightingale, during one of our Butser Plus roundhouse chats a couple of weeks ago. We were marvelling about the fact that, in a little more than a year, our roundhouse had gone from a series of 3200 year old postholes to a finished building. Quite an amazing achievement! In the process I think that everyone involved has had their own personal journey – gaining new knowledge of the Bronze Age, new skills and, best of all, new friends.
Project Archaeologist Trevor
My own journey during this project has, when I think about it, involved so many unlikely twists and turns I sometimes think this project must have been destined to be. In a way, it started in 1916 when my grandfather enlisted in the Australian Infantry during WWI. As a child I spent a lot of time with him, and he was very much a role model. He was gravely injured on two occasions while performing his duty as a stretcher bearer on the Western Front. Although he never discussed his experience during the war, I know that his injuries had affected the rest of his life.
Almost 100 years after the First World War, and 50 years since my childhood memories were formed, my wife, Sue, and I were watching an episode of Time Team at home, in Australia. The episode featured an excavation by Operation Nightingale at a very significant Prehistoric and Anglo-Saxon site called Barrow Clump. What really moved me was Operation Nightingale’s mission to help rehabilitate veterans and service personnel through archaeology. I thought it was an absolutely brilliant initiative, but I wasn’t working in archaeology at the time, although it was something I was passionate about, and I was 12,000km away. Beyond the immediate enjoyment, I wasn’t expecting the programme to affect my life in any way. How little did I know.
Fast forward a few years and, a bit unexpectedly(!), I emigrated to England to a village that happens to be 5 miles from Butser. By some singularly unlikely twists of my career trajectory, I began working here, as it happened, almost precisely one century after my grandfather had enlisted. After a while I took over the volunteer co-ordinators role, job-sharing with Sue. As a not-for-profit Community Interest Company, part of our mission at Butser is to engage our community in ways that will benefit others as well as our site. That image of Time Team, Barrow Clump and Operation Nightingale had stayed tucked securely in my memory and now Sue and I found ourselves working in archaeology and creating and managing volunteer projects… you can see where I am going here.
The Excavation of the Dunch Hill Roundhouse (photo: Harvey Mills)
Good intentions sometimes stay that, and so it was with that dream of collaborating with Operation Nightingale. That was until, sometime around August last year, our colleague Phelim mentioned that Richard Osgood was on site. Poor fellow, he was innocently sketching, enjoying a quiet afternoon at Butser when I set upon him! It took about 5 minutes and the project was born. In short order I found myself looking at the remnants of a Bronze Age roundhouse on Salisbury Plain, not very far at all from Barrow Clump.
I can break this project down into some impressive statistics: 26 veterans and 8 civilian members of Operation Nightingale involved with the project, both on site building and creating and off-site, doing background research. 12 workshops were conducted for participants, involving Ancient Skills like bronze smelting and casting, pottery making, construction techniques, thatching, Bronze Age cooking, tool making, basketry, archery and sheep shearing! 266 volunteer days and 1144 volunteer hours were spent on the project, which saw our roundhouse go from zero to hero in 8 months. That’s even more impressive when you realise that, at the beginning, we were only working on it a couple of days every two weeks. And then there was our launch… most of the Operation Nightingale Team were able to attend, along with a lot of other people who had involvement with the project, including representatives from South Downs National Park, The Ministry of Defence and Step Together Volunteering who, between them, provided the funding that made it all possible.
And to celebrate, Butser was visited by some archaeological luminaries, each of whom gave up their time to come along – a great recognition of the Operation Nightingale initiative and of our project’s significance. Dr Rachel Pope, who is a roundhouse authority, made the journey from Liverpool, where she is Senior Lecturer in European Prehistory at the University of Liverpool. Dr Stuart Prior, who visited us earlier in the year while shooting for a forthcoming episode of Digging for Britain (keep an eye out for that…), came over from Bristol University where he is Reader in Archaeological Practice. Professor Alice Roberts officiated at the launch, while Phil Harding shared in our big day and told some cracking tales from his own long and illustrious career - it wasn’t lost on me that I was standing by two Time Team stalwarts, Phil having actually excavated with Richard at Barrow Clump! And if that wasn’t enough, the project was a joint winner of the Council for British Archaeology’s Archaeological Achievement Award for Engagement and Participation, announced only two weeks ago!
The Bronze Age build team with Stuart Prior, Alice Roberts and Phil Harding. (Photo: Harvey Mills)
But this project is much more than the finished roundhouse. Actually, that is just a by-product ( a wonderful by-product) of a fantastic wellbeing project from which, I think it is fair to say, all of us involved have benefited. Yes, it’s been quite the journey, but it was never intended to be the beginning and end of the bond between Operation Nightingale and Butser Ancient Farm, so watch this space. The journey continues.
The Winter Solstice sun behind our Bronze Age Roundhouse