…asks Brian Meredith with a twinkle in his eye. He’s holding up a fragment of an amphora [a narrow-necked Roman jug] that dates back some 2,000 years. “This piece, which does not look anything, was found on Windmill Hill and proves people were cooking with Spanish olive oil and using it for illumination at night. How on earth did it get here?!” Windmill Hill is the high ground outside the Howard Arms, where sheep still graze. “This is 300AD, the Romans are well established and the village of Ilmington doesn’t exist, but farming is improving, as is the wellbeing of the people. There was a flow of goods up the Fosseway to soldiers at Hadrian’s Wall.” For the next month in the Community Café, you can dip into 9,000 years of history in the Stour Valley. Brian, a trained archaeologist, has created a fascinating display from shards of stone and pots he’s found lying around. “People are simply unaware that, long ago, others used to inhabit this landscape. You can reconstruct their lives from the things that you find.” Brian volunteers for Shipston Museum and is producing a display on the Stone Age there soon. His Ilmington table-top exhibition is attracting a lot of attention, so next time you’re in for a coffee, come and see exactly what the Romans (and others) did for us!
