Vindolanda 2010
Year 4 spent a fascinating morning at Vindolanda where the children met archealogists and looked round the museum. After a picnic lunch, the children went up to the Roman Wall and walked along a section as far as one of the milecastles.
VINDOLANDA – 2010 - Report of the trip
When we arrived at Vindolanda, the first thing we did was to meet an archaeologist called Justin. He told us about the site: who lived there and what it was used for. It was a fort as well as a village. He also showed us some of the things that the archaeologists have found at Vindolanda like a cow’s skull that was used for target practice. He told us all about the fort and the village and we discovered that we were standing beside a butcher’s shop.
After the talk from Justin
we went to look at the bath house and the commanding officer’s house which had
its own mini bath house.
Then we went to explore the stone and wood reconstructions of Hadrian’s Wall
and went up the turrets.
After that we went into the fort but we had to say a password before we could enter through the gates. In the fort we watched some archaeologists working and they showed us some pottery they had just found. Then we went to the Headquarters’ Building and the Commanding Officer (Mrs Solly) told us that the standard had been lost and lined us up and every tenth soldier was to die as a punishment. This is called decimation.
After surviving that we went down to look at the reconstructions of Roman buildings. These were a shop, kitchen and temple. The kitchen belonged to a lady called Materna and she told us about her life. In the shop we saw lots of kinds of food that the Romans could buy. Then we went to the temple and heard people praying to different gods.
The museum was full of lots of things that have been found at Vindolanda. We saw lots of the shoes that were found there, and even a baby’s sock. There were lots of other things made out of leather, as well as pottery, tools and jewellery. We watched part of a film that told us about the Roman writing tablets found at Vindolanda and then we saw the one inviting Lepedina to a birthday party.
We then went back to the mini bus and had our picnic lunch. In the afternoon we drove up to Steel Rigg and walked along the top of the Wall. We walked as far as a mile castle.
We would like to thank Mrs Solly for organizing the trip; Mrs Knight, Mrs Sale and Miss Wallace for all their help for and the kitchen ladies for making our packed lunch.
Report by Georgina M, Emily T, Alasdair MacL, Amy C, Harry R, Dominic K, Kitty R.
