Our Collections and Learning Departments have recently collaborated on an exciting venture with the living history group ‘The Thegns of Mercia’ to help bring history to life for school groups attending educational courses here at the Trust.
A few months ago, The Thegns of Mercia visited the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust to look at the fragments from a shield boss that had been uncovered in the excavations at Bidford-on-Avon where a large Anglo-Saxon cemetery was located. The Thegns took photographs and detailed measurements, which they took back to their workshops and used to successfully reconstruct a replica shield.
Emily Millward, Museums Collections Assistant, was so excited by the recreation that she suggested that the Learning Team might wish to get in touch with The Thegns to see if they could contribute to our new Key Stage 2 educational course, ‘A Time and Place’, which focuses on the fascinating Anglo-Saxon artefacts in our collections.
Happily, The Thegns were keen to be involved and agreed to create a light-weight, replica shield and boss, based on their findings here at the Trust, for the children to handle in their workshops. Emily Millward said, “It is fantastic for the collections team to see our items made accessible through other means and also wonderful to gain an idea of how all the various fragments came together to form such an object.”
The Learning Team are looking forward to working more closely with Collections to continue to develop ‘A Time and Place’, where children will discover the amazing Roman and Saxon finds in our collections, solve the mystery of grave goods and take part in engaging, hands-on activities.
Find out more about educational courses at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.