Visit to Chester House and ARC – report by Chris Rowe

On 23rd May, over 30 members of the Local History group visited the Chester House Estate and the Archaeological Resource Centre (ARC) - I found it all quite remarkable - the storage rooms with rows upon rows of boxes of artefacts found in Northamptonshire and still to be catalogued were quite mind-blowing - as were the many artefacts we were shown. There are some 20,000 boxes of artefacts stored in the ARC, some 200 of which are full of material from Brixworth. I loved the tiny Roman metal (bronze?) frog we were shown which might have been a votive offering - now turned a very froggish shade of green - and who can forget the leg bone of "Wollaston Woolly", the
10,000 years-old woolly rhinoceros. Amazing.

We were also shown the skeleton of a young Brixworth man and the two volunteers who are specialising in bones said we could learn so much about him from his remains. He was found amongst other skeletons in the grounds of All Saints Church - but they couldn't yet tell how he died as his bones show he was quite healthy - with most of his teeth intact. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to photograph him!

The two guides that took us around the site, Georgina and Natasha, were incredibly knowledgeable, enthusiastic and entertaining. John Nicholson has already sent our thanks to them for their tours.

All members of our group are fully aware that Northamptonshire is rich in history – but we had no idea quite how much history that is still waiting to be unearthed on the estate when we were guided around the vast site that contains some 10,000 years of history (the next dig is in June/July if you are interested in volunteering or just going along to watch).