Avalon Archaeology: A new open air archaeological museum in Somerset

Our story begins in 2013, when what was initially just a small part of the Heritage Lottery-funded Avalon Marshes Landscape Partnership (AMLP) Scheme set out to give volunteers practical experience of traditional building and craft techniques through creating archaeological reconstructions. Operating under the management of the South West Heritage Trust, early projects included recreating prehistoric wooden trackways on the nearby Shapwick Heath National Nature Reserve, and making replicas of Iron Age dug-out canoes. By 2015, however, we were building on a more ambitious scale, with work beginning on reconstructions of a Saxon longhall and the dining room of a Roman villa. ‘Hands on Herita