Led by Eastbourne Museum Service, the community excavation is taking place until Sunday 31 July as part of the national Eastbourne’s first community excavation has already led to dozens of discoveries with a team of more than 60 volunteers digging for history at Grange Gardens unearthing Roman and Medieval evidence and a First World War Rifles Regiment Cap badge.
CBA Festival of British Archaeology being run in partnership with Eastbourne Natural History and Archaeology Society (ENHAS) and supported by the BBC’s learning project ‘Hands on History – Dig!’
The past 10 days have seen over 60 volunteers, aged from 5 to 80, uncover finds such as ancient pottery and World War One badges, plus evidence of how this part of Eastbourne has developed over the past 1,000 years including medieval fields, Victorian paths and evidence that has yet to be identified.
Eastbourne Borough Council Cabinet Member for Tourism and Leisure Cllr Neil Stanley said “What a fantastic start this has been to Eastbourne’s first community excavation! This is the first time we have done anything on this scale in Eastbourne and with the site not thought to have been excavated before, we really didn’t know what we would find, if anything at all. It’s brilliant that the volunteers have already made some brilliant discoveries and I hope there are some still to make over the final few days.”
Residents and visitors interested in watching the excavation in action can go along to Grange Gardens via the Grassington Road entrance between 10am-12pm and 2pm-4pm each day and watch as the volunteers go further into the trenches to see what they can dig up.
Museum Officer for Eastbourne Borough Council Jo Seaman, is leading the excavation and said “It has been a wonderful experience for me to work with so many enthusiastic and hard working volunteers and to see so much support for the work that we are doing within the Museum Service. The amount of interest that we have had from visitors and local residents also shows how important our heritage is to the people of Eastbourne and I believe that projects like this and the many others we undertake will continue to help this interest to blossom.”
The trenches at Grange Gardens will be filled on Sunday when the excavation comes to an end and the next stage will see Eastbourne Museum Service collating their results for a report later this year. Jo Seaman will present a talk about the excavation at the ENHAS meeting on Friday 9 September.
For more information and to find out about volunteering for the Eastbourne Museums Service and to be involved in future projects call 01323 415396 or follow them on Twitter.
