An archaeological training day at Formby beach was a great success
Screaming wind, racing sand and the moodiest of moody skies formed the perfect setting for a superb archaeological training day down on Formby beach a few days ago.....
Our volunteers battle the wind to record Formby lifeboat house
On Friday CITiZAN had the great pleasure of training members of the public in how to record some of Formby’s beautiful coastal archaeology.
CITiZAN is the Coastal and Intertidal Zone Archaeological Network; we are an England wide Heritage Lottery Funded community archaeology project with our North of England office based in York.
Megan teaches our volunteers how use a handheld GPS
Andy and Megan form the Project’s North of England team, and our aim is to teach members of the public how to identify and record the archaeological sites on the coast, which are being continually uncovered and destroyed by coastal erosion.
In the morning we were based at St Luke’s church where our volunteers learnt about CITiZAN’s interactive map on the Project’s website, which enables you to see what archaeology has already been recorded on the coast.
Our volunteers also learnt how to take archaeological photographs and draw uncovered features to scale. We also discussed the feature that we were going to record in the afternoon, Formby Point lifeboat station. This was the first purpose built lifeboat station in Britain, constructed during the 1770’s at a time when Liverpool was the second busiest port in the country.
The volunteers also had the opportunity to practice their archaeological drawing indoors using our portable foreshore.
The remains of Formby lifeboat house, the first purpose built lifeboat house in Britain
After lunch we set out for the beach where our volunteers could put their classroom training in to practice. As soon as we crested the top of the sand dunes it became apparent that the afternoon’s conditions would be challenging with the wind howling along the beach, blowing sand into everybody’s face. Our volunteers dealt with the sand storm brilliantly, stoically recording the remains of the lifeboat station with great good humour.
We would like to thank our volunteers for all their fantastic hard work throughout the day. Megan and I had a fantastic time and we hope that our volunteers enjoyed themselves as much as we did. We are looking forward to coming back to Formby in the near future to further help record the wonderful archaeology of Liverpool Bay.
By Andy Sherman
Above and below photos: by Sefton Coast Landscape Partnership Scheme on training day
