The Long Bredy Summer Event Sat. 25th & Sun. 26th July
Over the weekend of July 25th -26th Long Bredy's past was on display throughout
the village - in the church, on Friday Lane, along the road and in the village hall.
The archaeological event was a great success both for those participating and
those visiting. Over the weekend we opened up nine test pits and found plenty of
pottery and various other items of archaeological interest. A big surprise find was a
flagstone floor of a cottage and with it an early window frame and oven door. We
also found the original cobbles of Friday Lane when it was the main street through
Long Bredy and in another test pit we found the street again with foundations of
what is believed to be ‘The Bottle’ pub. The geophysical surveys have also come
up with some excellent results including a possible area of Roman occupation.
As well as the test pits, we had an exhibition in the village hall both of
archaeological finds from different places, and of the social history of the village.
This included amongst other excellent artefacts and photographs, an original
painting by Jo Jones, kindly loaned to us by the Dorchester Museum. The museum
also allowed the ‘Beaker Man’ to come out on show under the care of Barry
Fitzgerald whose knowledge of the skeleton enthralled many. Many thanks to Peter
Northover for his help with this event and for leading the two fascinating walks on
the Sunday. Peter is now busy identifying all the finds made, collating all the
results and doing more research to identify areas where future test pits could yield
more knowledge of our past. He will be coming back to give a talk on the findings
later in the year, and we hope this will also interest many of the visitors we had
from other villages in the Bride Valley. Sincere and grateful thanks to the many
people who helped with this weekend in so many varied ways; we could not have
done it without you all.
Elsewhere in the village, Ancient Wessex Networks provided further insights into
the lives of lost generations through their demonstrations of flint knapping, bronze
smelting and pottery making, activities which would have taken place on the
downs around us in the past. Their sophisticated results from very rudimentary
tools intrigued and surprised many of us. Children also had opportunities to be
'archaeologists' in various ways through metal detecting, and treasure hunting in
their own 'test pit'.
Floral Display and Flower Arranging Competition
The flower arranging competition in St Peter's church attracted a range of styles
and we hope that this may become an annual event. The winners were:
1st prize: £25 Groves gift voucher - Lisa Sims
2nd prize: £15 Groves gift voucher - Lavinia Barbour
3rd prize: £10 Groves gift voucher - Sue Taylor
Lisa (nee Elliott) made the entry in memory of her mother, Margaret Elliott, and shows that she has the same
talent for flower arranging that her mother was well-known for in Long Bredy. Well done, Lisa.
Such events don't happen without a tremendous amount of thought, organisation and commitment. We are very
grateful to the many local businesses which sponsored us and to everyone who lent and prepared ground for the
event, gave their time and expertise, prepared refreshments, baked cakes, provided artefacts, ran a stall, grew
plants and sold programmes. Without that help we would not have had such a financial and archaeological
success. A total of £1855.56 was raised, which will be shared equally for the upkeep of the playing field, the
village hall and the church.