Time Truck Project Officer, Charlotte Mecklenburgh, shares her highlights of the Time Truck’s maiden voyage to the historic Barbican Estate.

This weekend saw the very first outing for the Time Truck, with a visit from school children from Prior Weston School and a teacher’s drinks reception on Friday and a pop-up exhibition of artefacts from the nearby and recently excavated London Wall Place on Saturday.

Pupils from the Prior Weston School, on the Barbican Estate, climbed aboard the Time Truck to take part in its first ever schools sessions, where we gave them a taste of what it is like to be an archaeologist, excavating for Roman finds in our custom-built dig boxes, as well as exploring  the food and diets of the Romans in Britain.

We had a great turn out of local teachers who braved the rain for a glass of wine and a closer look at the Time Truck. We  gave a brief tour of the Time Truck and  shared ideas of what to expect from our interactive classroom sessions.

We spent Saturday welcoming eager members of the public and local Barbican residents to the London Wall Place exhibition, which contained information and select finds from our recent excavations there, for Roman pottery graffito to complete post-medieval pots. The exhibition was very popular with over 100 people attending throughout the day, many of whom lingered to chat with me and the other community archaeologists on board, some of whom had dug in and around London Wall Place.

Whilst the weather was a little disappointing, we were very lucky to have a great turn out for the Time Truck’s first journey and some really bright sparks from Prior Weston School.

We’d like to thank  our founding sponsors Brookfield and  Oxford Properties Group, as well as our local project sponsors; Thames Water, Wates Giving, The Wates Family Enterprise Trust, Stanhope Plc, The Heritage Lottery Fund and TP Bennett LLP.

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