News and events
News
Images of St Benet’s Abbey – an exhibition
2019 marks 1,000 years since the establishment of St Benet's Abbey. Situated between the Rivers Ant and Bure, this icon of the Norfolk Broads is a magical site, and one that has attracted artists for many centuries. Come and find out more about the history of the site...
Seahenge: A Journey
Most of human history is, in fact, prehistoric. That is, before the Romans, our ancestors lived in societies that did not write things down. To find these ancestors we have to look across our landscapes, gather data, and use our imaginations. Sky widens, and the chain...
Back to the Anglo-Saxons
As NAT members will know, as part of the Heritage Lottery funded Imagined Land project last year, people living near Burnham Norton friary came together and dug test-pits, which produced all sorts of material, from medieval pottery through to pennies from the 1980s!...
St Benet’s Abbey: 1000 years!
2019 is the 1000th year since the foundation of St Benet’s Abbey – quite an amazing thought, and well worth celebrating. The Friends of St Benet’s Abbey (TFoSBA) are taking forward an ambitious Heritage Lottery-funded project this year which will explore the long...
Onwards and Upwards
Norfolk Archaeological Trust celebrates National Lottery grant to create a sustainable future for monuments in its care. Norfolk Archaeological Trust has received a National Lottery grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). Made possible by National Lottery players,...
The bigger (and better) picture
One of the most enjoyable parts of my work is inspecting our sites, which Natasha and I do on a regular basis. On these visits we look out for any health and safety issues which might affect our visitors – such as eye-level branches and twigs across paths (I always...
Burgh Castle Boardwalk improves access for all at the Roman Fort
The new boardwalk - officially opened this week by Mark Cocker, locally-based author and naturalist - is an impressive 600metres long and runs alongside the reedbeds adjacent to the River Waveney at Burgh Castle Roman Fort. Previously, a wheelchair audit for Norfolk...
Events
Heritage Open Days September events at NAT sites
We have events running at three of our sites in 2019, supported by local volunteers. No need to book – check the Heritage Open Days website for details Caistor Roman Town: Who made Caistor great? Family fun Sunday 15 September, 10:00-16:00 Family fun day with...
Burgh Castle Almanac Project at the Waveney Valley Sculpture Trail
The Burgh Castle Almanac group has created an installation which will be on display at the Waveney Valley Sculpture Trail opening on Friday August 2. Burgh Castle Almanac is an archaeology and mental health project where a group of local people walk with intent at...
St Benet’s Abbey 1000 years! events in August
Celebrations of 1000 years of St Benet’s Abbey continue during August with a free exhibition at St Catherine’s Church Ludham. After your visit to the exhibition, don’t miss a visit to the Abbey where you can see larger-than-life willow sculptures of monks hurrying...
Tide Jetty – Theatre at Burgh Castle
Eastern Angles Bring Theatre to Burgh Castle Fort 22nd – 25th May After a successful tour across the East of England, Eastern Angles Theatre Company are bringing their production of The Tide Jetty by Tony Ramsay to Burgh Castle Fort this May. The show is a love story...
Caistor Roman Town tours
Guided tours 2019 Free guided tours take place at Caistor Roman Town at 14:30 on Sundays from 28 April – 29 September. Additional tours on Wednesday afternoons (14.30) during August. Meet at the shelter in the Car Park. The tours are free but donations are welcome –...
Burgh Castle Tours
Free tours are led by NAT volunteers throughout June, July August and September, 14.30 pm on Sundays, weather permitting. No need to book: meet your volunteer guide at the interpretation shelter next to the main car park. Tours are free but donations are welcome -...
Norfolk Archaeological Trust blog
Monuments and Climate – exploring change
‘Some day it looks as if the priory is rising out of the ground!’ At a recent meeting at Binham Priory, a member of the Local History and Archaeology group commented that when they walked across the fields to the priory, it seemed like the remains of the old...
Excavations at Caistor Temple Field 2019
A few hundred meters to the northeast of Venta Icenorum - Caistor Roman Town - lie the remains of an extraordinary ‘Romano-Celtic’ temple site. In 2018, the Caistor Roman Project (CRP) community group undertook their initial investigation of the site, opening up three...
From brass key to short story award in Burnham’s Imagined Land
This time last year the community around Burnham Norton Friary and Burnham Market school was preparing itself for an intense week of rehearsal for the Imagined Land pageant performance. This was the culmination of NAT’s project - led by Simon Floyd and funded by the...
Seahenge: A Journey
Most of human history is, in fact, prehistoric. That is, before the Romans, our ancestors lived in societies that did not write things down. To find these ancestors we have to look across our landscapes, gather data, and use our imaginations. Sky widens, and the chain...
1000 years of history
Katie Phillips, NAT's Volunteer Co-ordinator, reports on a unique event at St Benet's Abbey: On Sunday 9th June The Friends of St Benet’s Abbey held two of five performances of their HLF funded community play – A Time to Gather Stones – in honour of the 1000 year...
‘…very special sites, both the visible, and the ones safely asleep beneath the turf…’
On June 10th we will be launching our new branding and website – an exciting moment! In the first of a series of occasional guest blogs the locally-based designer Nick Stone tells us why he enjoys working on heritage-related projects such as ours: A lot of the time,...
Re-discovering St Benet’s
Last month the Friends of St Benet’s Abbey continued their celebration of the 1000th anniversary of the founding of the Abbey with a ‘Discovery day’: we welcomed an audience of around 100 to a series of talks, and a trip to the site with leading experts, to find out...
On connecting through time and place
Looking back over the previous year, as one inevitably does in early January, the stand out event for me was definitely the village pageant at Burnham Norton Friary in late September, when the audience was immersed in the stories of the Friary. It was a real pleasure...