Mid September and the nights start to get chilly. 40 students
and staff returned to continue the work begun in July.The forecast
was poor to dreadful depending upon which channel you watched. It
is interesting how obsessed you become with the weather once you
start working outside with young people. We had more to worry about
for this event as we were all planning to sleep outside for the
first night, minding the reconstructed Roman kiln which was going
to take a full 24 hours to fire.
As the students arrived the clouds started to lift and apart
from a brief shower in the middle of our night stay the rain kept
away and we were even treated to some dappled late summer sun.
Our priorities for Monday were to get the kiln loaded and lit by
lunch time; get the kitchen running and enough food prepared to
feed 50 people that evening as well as pushing on with the
roundhouse in which some of the students were going to sleep that
night.
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On Tuesday , after a night in the open, breakfast
of porridge with honey, griddlecakes and fruit. Will Lord, an
extraordinary flintnapper was due to join us for a couple of days.
Although not strictly a Roman tradition flintnapping continued into
this period and was still being practised in the manufacture of
gunflints well into the 19th century. Food prep would continue, as
would the building of the roundhouse. Rob, our bushcraft specialist
would also be running a spoon-making workshop. |
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Wednesday was to be press day with the opening of the kiln, the
finishing of the roundhouse and a final meal from the kitchen.
Firing the Kiln
Beryl, our kiln expert oversaw the stacking of the kiln. There
had been a lot of discussion as to how the Romans would have done
this. Looking at the original excavation from nearby Barham quarry
there is no evidence for shelves to support the pots. The students
had suggested clay bars that could be removed and reused or small
shelves, which could be propped against the sloping sides of the
kiln. Others suggested simply bridging the gap between the middle
hump and the kiln sides with the biggest pots and then piling the
smaller pots on top. In the event we used all three methods to see
if there were any obvious advantages.
For the firing we were using very dry 75mm diameter hazel,
coppiced from the surrounding woodland. The initial firing kept the
heat low to allow the kiln to dry out thoroughly and as the hours
passed we were relieved not to hear any pops or bangs of pots
exploding.
For Beryl this was an anxious time. Stoking the kiln requires
dedication and concentration over many hours: Stoke too quickly and
the temperature rise will be too fast leading to broken or
misshapen pots; stoke erratically and you won’t get an even rise in
temperature which again may lead to poor firing. In the Roman
period this temperature control would have been a matter of
experience and judgement. Nowadays we have pyrometers to make it
easier but since Beryl discovered hers weren’t working we really
were firing the Roman way.
Fortunately she found several students who had a natural ability
to maintain their concentration and become engrossed in the task,
hypnotised by the flames, enjoying the warmth and relishing the
control over the elements. She had also brought along her
son-in-law, an experienced stoker, to cover the night shift.
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The other major consideration for success was ensuring that we
kept the woodpile stocked. Even a small kiln like this was uses a
lot of wood, which has to be seasoned and dry. Working within a
coppiced woodland made this a much easier task and presumably one
which the Romans would have considered. It seems likely that they
would have been managing their timber by coppicing to ensure a
ready and sustainable supply of fuel. |
By Tuesday morning the heat was intense and looking to be evenly
spread throughout the kiln. Beryl was experimenting with kiln
control by having small 'portholes' over the dome that could be
opened and closed with clay discs to increase and decrease the
temperature in different parts of the kiln. Other re-constructions
have used turf to achieve the same effect.
By lunchtime on the Tuesday a bright orange glow throughout the
kiln suggested that we had made it and Beryl supervised the raking
out of the embers, and banking up the stoke hole with earth to
close the kiln down. We would have to wait a further 24 hours to
allow the kiln to slowly cool before we opened it up in front of tv
cameras.
The Kitchen
Jane had the task of working with the students to prepare and
serve meals for the whole camp. Recipes were to be authentic, using
ingredients available within the Late Iron Age/Roman period and
cooked on open fires. Having worked at or two previous camps at
Lackford Lakes and West Stow she was getting pretty good at
managing this, so successful in fact that we have included a
separate link for this in
Camp Kitchen.
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For a number of the students the idea of cooking was a new
experience and over the three days it became clear which of them
was used to helping at home. What was encouraging was the number of
students who after the initial reluctance became very involved and
developed a pride and satisfaction in what they were preparing. You
could see in their approach an increasing level of confidence and
by Wednesday the cooking crew were designing their own lunch
menu. |
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Many were faced for the first time with the reality of where
their meat comes from. Seeing half a pig and having to butcher it
was a challenging task for many but we had agreed at the beginning
of the project that not only should the groups use authentic
materials they should source and prepare them wherever possible.
Whilst the pig was already gutted when it arrived the 12 pigeons
came complete with feathers and guts. A demonstration and biology
lesson from Jane, pointing out heart, liver etc. was viewed with a
certain fascination rather than disgust and several school staff
and students spent a happy hour or two plucking and dressing the
remaining birds and gaining huge satisfaction from their
courage.
Jezz spent the Monday morning building a bread oven and by
lunchtime we were already firing this up using bundles of dry twigs
(faggots) gathered from the woods. We had experimented at our other
camps with different fuel types and there is no doubt in our minds
that faggots are the most efficient and sustainable way of working.
We managed to heat the oven in just over 35 minutes and bake the
rolls in 10. Future oven builds will concentrate on the size of the
door (probably too big on our build) and the size of the flue
(chimney). Wood fired ovens still in use on the continent manage
several bakings on a single firing. We were finding that the
temperature of the oven was falling too rapidly to make this
possible, owing to the amount of heat escaping from the door
opening.
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Jane and the students also became very interested in how every
heat source should be used to its full potential. Why light a
cooking fire, involving the cutting, transportation and burning of
wood when you have a kiln roaring away in the background? As
consequence bread was proved next to the kiln, water heated from
the same source and meat seared on the flue of the bread oven. A
reading of the temperature of the soil surrounding the kiln
suggested there would be enough convected heat to cook a joint of
buried meat. This will be something for the future!
The Roundhouse
We were a bit worried about the roundhouse as the basic frame
seemed a bit wobbly when we left in July. At that point some of the
hazel wattling had been woven into the bottom section but there was
still a lot to be finished at the top.
Now that the summer was pretty much over we were able to go and
source our hazel straight from the wood, trim it up and feed it
straight into the wall. The effect was striking. As soon as the
wattling went into the top sections of the wall the whole structure
strengthened dramatically. Working in three teams we all became
pretty good at weaving the hazel lengths and after a while we were
even able to push and pull at the same time.
Thatching began on the Tuesday afternoon and again team working was
essential to get a firm fixing for the reed. Get it wrong and the
whole lot slides down the roof!
The house isn’t finished. In our enthusiasm (mine actually) an
extra metre was added to the diameter of the house. As anyone with
a basic grasp of maths knows this adds greatly to the overall
surface area and although I knew this I hadn’t quite grasped how
much until I stood in front of it. We will be back to finish the
job before it gets too cold.
Will Lord
Will provided the camp with the opportunity to experience the
art of flintknapping. He was obviously someone with immense skill,
experience and pride in his work. After a demonstration which had
the group spellbound (he talks through what is going on in his mind
whilst working so you hear him thinking) the students were able to
try things for themselves.
Throughout the two days that Will was on site students had the
opportunity to study the technology of people from the past for
whom the landscape around them was a treasure-trove of food and raw
materials with which to manage their lives. The materials are still
there but we don’t see them. Will does and it was quite a
revelation to borrow his eyes for a couple of days.
To find out more about Will Lords expertise
click
here to visit his website.