Hello Everyone!
It really has been a long time since we all caught up, hasn’t it. My apologies, but we’ve been very busy this past wee while getting ready for the re-opening of our littlke site in Drewett’s park for the 2026 excavation season.
You might have noticed the fences back up in the park with some lovely new posters in JAM’s signature colour; ‘Autumn’. You might also have noticed a big muddy hole as we slowly unveil the extent of last year’s excavations. We were joined earlier in the month by our friends at SAGE who, among other much needed jobs around the museum, helped us to open our excavation.
Caption: SAGE volunteers help us de-turf and remove last year’s backfill.
Caption: Ellie from Collections keeping a keen eye-out for any artefacts hiding in the backfill.
We’ve been working with our dedicated team of volunteers since to slowly remove more, weather permitting.
Caption: a beautiful day to shift backfill.
But that’s not all we’ve been doing. You might have spotted a table recently in Asda Boldon with a few of the finds from last season, just to let even more people know we’re here.
Caption: Just a few of our most interesting finds for Asda Boldon.
We’ve also been working with other groups in the community like Escape Intervention and Harton Grange so that everyone gets a chance to enjoy JAM, not matter the age.
“But how can I get involved with JAM?” I hear you all ask your phone screens. Well, you’ll be pleased to know that the volunteer sign up is now open! Just follow the link by clicking ->HERE<- to go to South Tyneside’s Community Page on Inspire. You’ll be able to find the sign-up’s for excavation and finds processing, which we’ll be running simultaneously on site this year, so if you don’t fancy hefting soil, you can enjoy a much more civilised day washing and categorising the artefacts as they come out of the ground.
Expect a return to usual broadcasting as the weekly JAMCam will be revived for the excavation season, with all of the freshest updates on our progress.
But wait, there’s more!
Don’t forget to join us for our monthly JAM Lecture, this month’s topic ‘Encountering Early Medieval Rome’. Dr. Gianluca Foschi will guide us through the Rome those Anglo-Saxon pilgrims found themselves emersed in all those centuries ago, and how it affected the British Christian landscape. We’ve joined up with Jarrow Hall’s Museum LATES to make the lectures more accessible, so please join us on Sunday the 31st of May, 18:00. Tickets can be purchased on the Jarrow Hall website.
