Wildlife mosaic challenge
Within the mosaic floor of the Roman building, there are a series of five roundels, based on the design of the nearby Hurcot mosaic. These would often be filled with […]
Category Archives: Roman
Wonderful volunteers
As its National Volunteer Week here in the UK, here is a slideshow of the wonderful Hands on Heritage and Lost Island Detective volunteers in action. Nothing would have been […]
Tesserae totaliser
One of the advantages of the lockdown period, that has been overlooked by Number 10, has been the fact that Martin and Richard have been heriocally undergoing hard labour on […]
Yellow test
To prove that yellow ochre is a natural colour Terry covered himself in cut up Doulting stone and became a human colour swatch. When standing next to the the yellow […]
The final countdown
Only 147,840 tesserae left to make!
Starting at floor level
The top coat of the rammed earth floor is being developed in the longhall. Recipe: 2 barrows of sieved clay subsoil, one barrow of sand, 2 buckets of lime, an […]
Monty Python 50th celebration
In honour of the 50 years of Monty Python silliness, and of one of the best films ever made. Thanks to Richard Barwell for the painting. Needless to say, he […]
Sprucing up
A big push was made to tidy up the site for the July open day. The longhall was fitted out with the new furniture and the ceiling in the Roman […]
How to close a hypocaust flue?
We are experimenting with a hypocaust system in our Roman dining room. We have 8 flues which take hot air from under the floor, up the wall and out under […]
Hardie but no Laurel – how to make Roman tesserae
Trials have begun on making tesserae for the mosaic floor in the Roman building. Stone (recycled from a Roman building) and tile are cut into rods by a tile cutter […]
'Hands on Heritage' in the Avalon Marshes 