A Busy Heritage Open Week

Every October Half Term, Museums, Galleries and Heritage organisations in Bath and North East Somerset Council take part in Heritage Open Week, taking the opportunity to engage a wider audience with their sites. At The Roman Baths our Learning and Programmes team run family activities on site every weekday, this year’s it’s ‘Fabulous Feasts or Meagre Morsels’ looking at Roman food. They’re also running a family activity at Keynsham Library, ‘Marvellous Mosaics’, where you can investigate the fantastic mosaics from Durley Hill Roman Villa which are displayed there.

The Collections team will be busy as always, with not the usual two events, but three. This year Bath City Farm received funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund’s ‘Sharing Heritage’ strand, which will enable them to produce a history trail around their site. As part of this, they are holding a number of open days, tied in to school holidays, centred around different periods of history. For Heritage Open Week  on Monday 26^th October, 11-2, they are running ‘Medieval Madness’ which will give visitors a fantastic opportunity to learn all about the medieval period, try Medieval food and make a gargoyle. The Roman Baths Collections team will be there with Medieval objects from our collections to show off the splendour (and functionality).

Medieval cistern with an amazing stag decoration

St John’s Store, our offsite store on the Upper Bristol Road, houses our collection of oversize local history objects. These include everything from equipment from the Victorian spa of Bath, through historic furniture and even shop signs! Visitors young and old (and everywhere in between) can come along on Tuesday 27^th October, 11-3, and learn all about how we care for these collections. Find out about the pests that might want to damage our objects, and how we protect our collections against these potential invaders…

A weighing chair from the Spa Treament Centre

At our Archaeology store at Pixash Lane, Keynsham on Thursday 29^th October, 11-3, we will be running ‘Patterns at Pixash’, a chance to explore the amazing collections from Roman and Medieval Keynsham, as well as archaeological material from Combe Down Stone Mines. Keynsham Medieval Abbey, would have been a highly decorated building, from intricately carved stonework, to beautifully decorated tiles.  You can come and get a glimpse of the splendour of this Medieval religious establishment with our re-imagining of a Medieval tile floor. Kids (and grown-ups too) can take part in a number of activities based around these tiles, including making a two-tone tile.

One of the many floor tiles from Keynsham Abbey

If you want to know more about these and other events going on during Heritage Open Week, all the information can be found here at the following link, where you can also download a brochure: heritage open week

Verity, Collections Assistant, Roman Baths