As part of the closing weekend of the Festival of Archaeology, the Council for British Archaeology (CBA) in collaboration with National Trust’s Corfe Castle present a skills training day exploring the Corfe Castle estate at Purbeck. The day will include exploring the landscape with activities, guided walks and workshops in landscape/map regression and geophysics.
Landscape Archaeology: Corfe Castle, the iconic English medieval castle, occupies the key gateway into Purbeck in Dorset perched on a chalk hill overlooking wide vistas across the countryside. People have used this strategic location for thousands of years.
This is a rare opportunity to better understand the Corfe landscape through the eyes of the Castle’s experts. In the morning there will be guided tours of the Castle and wider landscape. Learn how archaeologists use evidence visible in the landscape to peel off the layers of time and understand how the countryside has evolved, using aerial photography, historic maps and archaeological clues seen in the hedges, historic buildings and earthworks.
The car park opens at 8.30am and we ask you to arrive before 9.15am for coffee, this is followed by a Castle tour and a walk to the common. Lunch break will be at 12.45 please bring your own lunch. The afternoon session starts at 13:00 and there will be two workshops building on the knowledge you would have gained with the morning tours.
Workshop 1 : The Geophysical Survey is an opportunity to learn the basic techniques that can be used to carry out a geophysical survey. During this session you will learn how earth resistance and magnetometry geophysics works and how to create a survey grid and to take accurate readings. The session will take place on the site of Norden which is the Roman settlement overlooked by the Castle ruins, now just a grassy field but once the equivalent of Corfe Castle village. There will be an opportunity to take readings and look at results and interpret the survey data to understand the buried archaeological evidence beneath the turf of North Castle Field.
Workshop 2 : During the finds workshop we will look at what kinds of objects are recovered from excavations using real objects from the 12 years of excavations at the Castle. We will go through the whole post excavation process including conservation, recording and identification. You will be able to record your own finds or use the ones excavated from the Castle using professional archaeological methods. If you have any thing you have found and would like some advice or help with identification do bring them with you.
The event will finish at 5pm.
This is a free to attend event, but requires booking. There will be a lot of walking and the ground will be rough underfoot, please contact us if you have mobility issues and would like more information.
This is part of a weekend of activity at Corfe Castle, on Sunday 31st there is a family friend event "Journey Through the Past at Corfe Castle" which is our Festival of Archaeology Closing Event information can be found here.
This event is being delivered by the CBA and National Trust as part of the Festival of Archaeology.
