Finchale Priory and the Cult of the Ruin

Last Friday morning, I went on a field trip to Finchale Priory on the outskirts of Durham. It was a short fieldtrip, only a couple of hours, which was enough time to explore the ruined building and yet not anywhere near enough time at all. There was so much to learn about such a small site. There were numerous phases of occupation at the priory from the 12^th to the 16^th centuries, represented in the fabric of the walls and the alignment of the different rooms. There were more recent buildings with their own features, all set into a beautiful river valley, as well as the twisting and turning structural remains of what was once a sizeable building. Each part of the structure told a story and we had a lovely time unpicking and discovering them.

New Opportunities and Achievable Goals

This week was the week that I began my postgraduate degree at Durham University. Even typing that last sentence makes me feel excited and faintly sick from nerves. As a student fresh from graduation, it feels like the last three years have been spent studying with this week in mind. The thought of entering the academic community as a postgraduate researcher has kept me going through late night library sessions and endless bouts of freshers’ flu. I’ve certainly achieved a long term goal by being here today, but I don’t see this as a final achievement. I want this year to be a stepping stone to my future, a way of developing skills, meeting different academics and becoming a more professional archaeologist. In this blog post, I’m going to lay out my hopes for the year, and discuss why I think a master’s degree is so important to my personal development.

Palace Green Library and the Challenges of Archiving

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to spend five days volunteering at Palace Green Library. The library is home to Durham University’s special collections, the University’s most important books, manuscripts, files and other miscellaneous artefacts. There are numerous different collections at the library referencing a wide range of different periods and people, as well as a number of different teams making use of the site, so it was a wonderfully diverse week. I was able to try out lots of roles and everyone at the library went out of their way to ensure I benefited from the experience. Today I want to write about a few of the key positions that I was involved with, and the skills and perspectives that I developed.