Eynsham Heritage Day was on Saturday 19 March 2022. It was organised by Angie Bolton and her colleagues at the Oxfordshire Museum Resources Centre based at Standlake, with the help and support of representatives of Eynsham Museum and Heritage Centre (Tim Jordan and Steve Parrinder), Fr Martin Flatman, Paul Hughes and Victoria Thomas.
It consisted of exhibitions in the Bartholomew Room, the Library and Evenlode DIY, tours of the site of Eynsham Abbey, St Leonard’s Church and historic Eynsham, a ‘finds’ identification table, handling of artefacts and activities for young people. It attracted enormous interest, not just in Eynsham but from other villages too, and was widely regarded as a huge success (photos © Julia Parker).
The Oxfordshire Museums Service submitted an application to the Society for Museum Archaeology Awards for Excellence 2022 for its ‘engagement and/or collaboration project’ category and the Eynsham project won! The judges were all very impressed with what we had achieved together and the following quotes were typical of their response.
“This project demonstrated both a significant and in-depth engagement with audiences through the archaeological collections and a contribution to the support and longevity of archaeological collections management. The 3D models, pop-up exhibitions, and heritage open day tours highlight the wide reach of the project.... It represents an excellent model to trial at other institutions on similar sized projects”.
“This application demonstrates a multi-faceted project that has thoughtfully and successfully engaged a local community with its heritage in innovative and engaging ways. The range of activities designed showed a commitment to reaching different demographics within a community, creating a mix of one-off events as well as elements with legacy benefit”.
The Society for Museum Archaeology presented the awards at its annual conference held at Nottingham University on 15 September - SMA © photo below.