We put our paddles to one side and set about undertaking a new mission for this week’s Hands on Heritage volunteer day. Sitting inside the roundhouse at the Avalon Marshes Centre one blustery day, we suddenly realised it was gurt draughty in there, what it needed was a lovely set of solid oak-planked doors.

We had the technology! We knew from archaeological remains found at Glastonbury Lake Village that Iron Age carpentry was actually very sophisticated, utilising a whole range of joinery techniques.
We had the tools! Axes, adzes, chisels, knives and augers…
We had the manpower! All our lovely volunteers…

So on Wednesday the 12th of June we got stuck in and set about chopping, chiselling, drilling, digging and bodging our way towards the target. There were some quite complicated issues we had to solve (straight lines in a roundhouse are quite hard to find!), but by the end of the day we had most of the pieces ready to slot, peg and piece together to form a portal any Celtic Chieftain would of been well jealous of. The next session (Thursday the 20th) will hopefully finish things off with both the doors and the paddles.

The wooden pivot pads

Everyone hard at work with Richard D ‘facilitating’

A very useful modern compromise in the form of a panel saw

In the shadow of the roundhouse

Freddie marrying up the lap joint

Our team earlier in 2013.

Claire taking out one part of a lap joint

Zeke and Freddie utilising our new drawhorses

Stuart and Bob work in unison

Amy gets a little distracted with a spoon…

Andrew chiseling out a slot for the door panels to sit in

Making trennels (tree-nails)