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Festival of Archaeology 2026
Festival of Archaeology 2026
In summer 2026, Kin by Nettie CIC took part in the Council for British Archaeology's Festival of Archaeology — the UK's annual celebration of archaeology, history and heritage.
Across three very different events, we explored what archaeology can feel like when stories, sensory experiences, creativity and connection to place sit alongside archaeological research.
From woodland archaeology at Wild Spirit Woods, to uncovering stories at Helsby's historic Gibbet Railway Inn, to transforming the industrial heritage of salt into a sensory apothecary at Catalyst Science Discovery Centre, each event created a different way to encounter the past.
Our Festival programme was also developed with support and guidance from the Council for British Archaeology as a case study in community archaeology — giving us space to experiment, reflect and learn from the people who took part.
What emerged has shaped how we think about Kindred now: archaeology not simply as something we tell people about, but something we can encounter, question, explore and make meaning from together.
Stories from the Gibbet
Stories from the Gibbet
Two brand new stories written by, our very own Writing Doctor - Dr Nicola Spooky Russell Johnson.
Nicola has taken a deep deep dive into the Gibbet's of Mickle Trafford and Helsby Hill.
This is brand new and available at our Festival of Archaeology event, 1st August.
Where Dr. Spooky, herself will be regaling us with the Helsby tale of harm, horror and hubris with a dab of huh!?! How?!?
As she treats our ears to this unique story, Matthew our friendly pub landlord will be treating us to scones and brews.
All part of our Stories from the Gibbet - walk up Helsby Hill to the Gibbet site and story in the Pub.
Remember we are hoping to live stream so that those who would rather snuggle up in the pub can watch on the telly.
Oh and a modest introduction from me.
Kindred: Stories in the Woods
Kindred: Stories in the Woods
Saturday 25 July 2026 | 11am–6pm
Wild Spirit Woods, Congleton
Part of the Council for British Archaeology Festival of Archaeology 2026.
People have been walking, watching and making meaning in this landscape for thousands of years. Come and be part of that.
Join us at Wild Spirit Woods for a gentle, family-friendly woodland experience celebrating the connection between archaeology, nature and community.
Drop in at any time throughout the day to:
🌳 Listen to stories of Congleton's bells and bears
🌳 Leave a wish, thought or memory on the Blessing Tree
🌳 Step into the tipi for a moment of guided rest
🌳 Enjoy a cuppa and time to simply be in the woods
🌳 Explore displays and hands-on activities inspired by the history and heritage of the local landscape
There is no set start time and no need to rush. Stay for as long or as little as you like.
Free event. Family friendly.
Parking is limited, so please consider car sharing where possible.
Stories from the Gibbet
Stories from the Gibbet
Stories from the Gibbet is a new Festival of Archaeology event exploring the landscape, folklore and hidden history of Helsby Hill and the local area.
Join us for a guided walk to the historic gibbet site, followed by a specially commissioned storytelling performance in The Railway Inn.
Whether you choose the walk, the story, or both, we'd love to welcome you. The walk will be Live Streamed to the pub for those who wish to remain warm with a pint.
Salt of the Earth: A Sensory Story of Spike Island
Salt of the Earth: A Sensory Story of Spike Island
Created for the Festival of Archaeology 2026 theme “Archaeology and Nature”, Salt of the Earth explores the industrial, environmental and human stories of Spike Island through sensory and embodied activities.
Participants are invited to engage with the history of salt, industry and landscape through touch, smell, movement, reflective making and sensory exploration in a relaxed family-friendly environment.
The project encourages participants to consider how heritage can be felt as well as understood — connecting people, place, memory and environment through shared experience.
Venue
Venue
Catalyst Science Discovery Centre, Free Parking, cafe and children's play area.
Booking & Information
Booking & Information
Salt of the Earth is a free Festival of Archaeology activity. Please note that standard admission charges for Catalyst Science Discovery Centre still apply.
Making Space to Feel: Embodied Heritage Practice
Making Space to Feel: Embodied Heritage Practice
Across Heritage and Community Settings
Across Heritage and Community Settings
Kindred is an embodied heritage practice that brings together material culture, sensory engagement, and community settings. Developed alongside my work in movement, education, and archaeology, it explores how people encounter the past through their own lived, sensing bodies rather than through interpretation alone. Kindred work takes place both within heritage institutions and in everyday community environments — from museums and heritage sites to support groups and informal spaces — creating opportunities to touch, make, move, and sit with material culture in ways that unsettle assumptions about who heritage is for and how women’s histories are encountered.One session took place not in a heritage space, but in the main foyer café of a community treatment centre, where the usual room was unavailable. We pulled tables together into a corner nook under slightly harsh lights, with mugs of tea and coffee, a plate of biscuits, and four clay replicas of prehistoric female figurines placed between us. Organic materials and tools sat alongside them. About eight women gathered — some sitting, some wandering in and out, the group familiar with one another to varying degrees. There was no requirement to stay.At first, there was hesitation. Hands reached toward the figurines, then withdrew. Side glances, small jokes: “Hope my body doesn’t look like that — oh, it does.” Laughter opened into conversation about what women “have to put up with.” Gradually, the tone shifted. Clay was taken up. Tools were tried without overthinking. Attention deepened; chatter softened. Women zoned into making, surprised at what they had crafted. Pride appeared, sometimes masked as nonchalance. “Wow, really prehistoric?” one said. “I’ve never really been interested. Museums are not for me. This has been lovely — making things.”This session grew out of conversation rather than institutional planning. I had shared my research interests informally with a friend involved in the centre and was invited by the group’s volunteer leader to facilitate. The group forms part of a women’s social and support programme within a treatment pathway; attendance is flexible and the group has a defined end point. The women already knew me through chair-based exercise sessions I had delivered there, so I entered not as a lecturer but as a familiar facilitator.Here, “embodied heritage” did not mean learning dates or historical facts. It meant creating space to look, touch, hold, and make. I modelled careful object handling and experimental engagement with materials, while avoiding closed questions or testing knowledge. The aim was not to produce accurate replicas, but to allow sensory engagement — with clay, weight, texture, form, and with one’s own bodily presence. The session held space for uncertainty, experimentation, and relation rather than correctness.Sessions like this respond to what might be described as an institutional hangover: a lingering sense that history, heritage, and museums are spaces for “other people.” Several participants expressed variations of “I’ve never really been interested” or “museums are not for me.” This was not indifference, but a relationship shaped by exclusion — by the feeling of not knowing enough, of being in the wrong place, or of getting things “wrong.”That sense of wrongness extended beyond knowledge. It touched the body. Jokes about the figurines opened into wider conversations about the pressures placed on women’s bodies. In many heritage contexts, women’s bodies appear as symbols — fertility, beauty, morality — rather than as lived, complex, ordinary realities. Contemporary body norms and hierarchies quietly shape how people feel they should look, move, and even think.As the session unfolded, the atmosphere in the nook began to change in small but noticeable ways. The initial social catch-up chatter softened and then thinned out. Voices lowered. There were moments of shared silence that did not feel awkward but settled. Attention moved between hands, objects, and the table surface rather than circulating anxiously around the group.Several women became absorbed in working with clay, experimenting without overthinking. Surprise surfaced at what they had made, often accompanied by understated pride. One participant, living with chronic pain, continued working steadily, adjusting her movements without drawing attention to discomfort. Another spoke very little but remained present, engaged through touch and making rather than conversation.Near the end, as time awareness returned — “Oh, we’d better get on and do X…” — the sense was of a brief hiatus from the pace of everyday life. The session did not remove difficulty, but offered a different rhythm: slower, more sensory, less evaluative. Within that shift, material culture was no longer distant symbol but part of a shared, lived present.Work like this matters because it shifts women’s history from representation to relationship. Rather than encountering historical women primarily as images, symbols, or case studies, participants engage through their own sensing, making bodies. This does not replace interpretation, but rebalances it. Historical figures — even prehistoric ones — become less like distant types and more like presences that invite comparison, curiosity, and recognition.In this space, women’s history moves away from being something done by experts in formal institutions and towards something that can be held, questioned, and felt in everyday settings. The session did not require prior knowledge, confidence, or the “right” kind of cultural capital. It created room for uncertainty, humour, discomfort, and pride. In doing so, it gently disrupted both the institutional hangover that tells people heritage is “not for me” and the bodily hierarchies that tell women their forms are wrong.Embodied heritage practice does not claim to solve these structures. But it offers moments where women can relate to the past — and to their own bodies — with less judgement and more possibility.
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