The Jamestowne Connection

On Monday I had a day visiting Jamestowne. I had three scheduled visits, firstly to meet and do the 'In the Trenches Tour' with head archaeologist Dr Bill Kelso; secondly to meet with Senior Curator Bly Straube and thirdly to meet with Curator Melanie Piereira.
With great excitement and a bit of nervous intrepidation, I travelled from Williamsburg (where we were staying) to Jamestowne nice and early to get my bearings and hopefully have some breakfast there. There are 2 parts to the Jamestowne experience – the Jamestowne Settlement (see http://www.historyisfun.org/Jamestown-Settlement.htm) which is in essence a re-creation of the original settlement and Fort with tours led by costumed characters and reproduction Ships on the river (a good idea for Bideford to do this); the second part is Historic Jamestowne ( see http://historicjamestowne.org) and is the actual site of the original settlement with archaeological digs providing firm evidence of where the Fort was, the church, and other sites, including the original well. Both places have visitor interpretation and historical exhibits.

The In the Trenches tour was very interesting and a real insight into those early pioneers and early life on the Island. I was in a group of only 6 so it felt even more special (the tour can take up to 30 people)– Dr Kelso started digging, after he giving up his job to do so, and he really started off the detailed exploration of the site, keen to find answers to the puzzle. It was fascinating seeing the archaeological digs - when we were in there, one of the team dug up a piece of clay pipe and a black and white glass bead. We were told to look at the different colours of the earth which signified where possible structures may have been. What was incredibly pertinent was viewing lots of black crosses signifying graves – of the 106 original settlers, half died within weeks of arriving. Interestingly, the graves were within the Fort rather than outside it and Dr Kelso wondered if people were buried in the Fort so that the native Indians didn't see that the Community were sick as that would show a weakness and leave them vulnerable to attack. After the tour I went to meet Bly Straube and she had kindly got some sherds of North Devon Pottery Out for me to view – it was so exciting and felt a little weird being in Jamestowne and seeing pieces of pot that were made in Bideford or Barnstaple (the pieces couldn't be pin pointed). The three pictures of pottery here are reproduced by permission of Preservation Virginia, Jamestowne Rediscovery Project. There was a large piece of a dripping dish with a green glaze – used to catch meat juices during cooking – and a broken vessel that was vase shaped and Bly thought would have been used to transport dried fish (not a butter vessel as that was wider to pack the butter and layer it with salt to stop it spoiling). I also saw some smaller, but wonderful, sgrafitto sherds, with the yellow glaze that so signifies the North Devon style.There was an apparently unique small handleless cup that was used as a drugs cup, I held this one in my hand and took a photo of it. I was able to tell Bly about the RJ Lloyd collection at the Burton Art Gallery and she was very interested in that and will take a look at the website.

The last stop was meeting with Melanie (pronounced Me-lay-nee) and she had 'pulled out' 4 pieces from the millions of sherds they have that have been found on Jamestowne Island – yes that is millions!! That was pretty awesome too; there were 2 complete bowls (that has been pieced together) with a mix of geometric and swirly designs on and that signature yellow glaze; an almost complete mug and an almost whole vase shaped vessel with a rose design on it. She could have shown me all kinds of things and lots more but wanted to show me something to represent the collection. We also took a look together at Alison Grant's book on 17^th century pottery (kindly lent to me by Linda Blanchard at the North Devon AONB) and it was fascinating as she was looking through the pictures and pointing out all the things that there are in the collection.

Wow what a great day – I felt quite humbled by it all and although I am not here to research American history I felt that this is what I was learning a lot about too and the amazing resilience of those early British colonists in Jamestowne.

First post

Welcome to my blog! You are reading about me and this trip, courtesy of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. Without them I wouldn't be on this adventure, so thanks a lot WCMT. As Sir Winston Churchill said, 'with opportunity comes responsibility' and this is my big opportunity!
I applied to the Trust with a project proposal in October 2009 and heard that I was successful at the end of January 2010 and so have been waiting a long time for the journey to begin.

My proposal was to do 2 things – travel to Virginia and North Carolina to study the export of North Devon Sgraffito pottery to the Eastern seaboard of America and its colonies, to look at and hold in my hand pieces of 17^th and 18^th century pot which were shipped out of Bideford to service the ever increasing numbers of settlers there. The second thing was to make 'first contact' with the arts and local community in Manteo NC, Bideford's new 'sister City' twin town. We share so much history as Bideford mariners sailed out of the port in 1587 to set up a colony on what is now Roanoke Island and Manteo is the main town. This colony vanished and became known as the Lost Colony and the mystery has never been solved as to what happened to the 116 people who had landed, made a settlement and then disappeared 2 years later. So, I wanted to go over to Roanoke Island and the Outerbanks region to get to know some of the present day folks there and to hopefully ignite a 'special relationship' between our towns. The plan is for me to set up an arts and cultural exchange programme after my visit, to enable artists to travel from their town to the other, bringing their work, making new work and sharing stories about their home town and what inspires them to make the artwork they do. This programme will hopefully enable residents of and visitors to both Manteo and Bideford understand about everyday life and culture and encourage relationships to be built.

So where am I going? Well for the Churchill Trust I had to put together a detailed itinerary and send it to them before my grant amount could be finalised and therefore my flight be booked. This definitely focusses the mind and makes you get on with it, pluck up courage to call people and talk to them about ideas and establish if they are willing to meet, share what they know and generally be accommodating. So the first few days (starting September 20^th) go like this – First stop is Jamestown, to study old pottery shards (or sherds as they call them over here); then to Raleigh to meet with the Arts Council and visit museums and archaeological centres and on to Seagrove Potteries to see contemporary potters in what is an old traditional pottery area. From then on its making my way across North Carolina and over to Manteo and Roanoke Island for approximately half my time.
I am writing this in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, staying in a cabin very close to the Blue Ridge Parkway, near a town called Waynsboro – I managed to fly out 4 days before I needed to be here, which is great and very special. My husband Dave is with me and is accompanying me to all these special places. He is here officially, representing Bideford Bay Creatives – we set up the organisation a year ago and I applied for a 'Go and see' bursary from Networking Artists Networks (NAN). We got a grant of £500 and Dave is using some of that for his expenses. He will be taking a lot of time in Manteo to network with artists, get to know them, share some ideas about future projects together and generally break the ice. Dave is also here as a photographer and will be taking photos for his own artwork and is also interested in showing the similarities and differences between Bideford and Manteo.

The photo above is of me writing this post. More soon.....