My SHARE with Schools Experience: Volunteer Blog Post – Jasmine Cooper

This Valentine’s we forwent the chocolates and flowers in favour of Roman pottery sherds and swords – honestly, we were better off for it. We had a brilliant time winding back the clock on Trelai park with some awesome young people who asked all the most interesting questions, including “How did we find out enough about the original to replicate it?” and “How sharp would the real sword have been?”.

We peeled back layers of historical maps to get an idea of how the use of local land has changed since 1870, and chatted about artefacts excavated from the site. I hope the young people and their families who attended learned something new too, but I at least can add the word ‘sherd’ to my vocabulary (a piece of ceramic). Shout out to everyone who went straight for the replica bronze age sword on the table – it was definitely my favourite too. I also loved talking about the medieval green glazed pottery sherds, even if some of our pieces were a little more on the yellow side. The last activity of the workshop was making some bronze age style clay pots, which was as fun as it was messy – I think we all packed away with a new appreciation for the bronze age craftsmen who made them without any instructions!

10/10, would talk about excavated golf balls again.