Introducing our newest After-School Young Archaeologists’ Club: Northamptonshire YAC

YAC-HQ is pleased to announce that we can now add Northamptonshire YAC to our growing number of UK YAC branches.

Northamptonshire YAC is based at The Chester House Estate, near Wellingborough, and usually meets on the first Saturday of each month. It is an affiliated club of the YAC network and is run by staff and volunteers at The Chester House Estate.

Georgina Clipstone, one of the leaders at Northamptonshire YAC told us:

We are very excited to announce that the Northamptonshire YAC branch is now up and running! We have been so keen to open up a YAC branch at The Chester House Estate so that we can use the site and our collections to help young people develop their own archaeological skills and connect with their heritage!

We have a whole team of branch leaders whose jobs include archaeological curators, field staff, archaeological illustrators, small finds specialists and finds and environmental processors. This means we already have a really exciting and varied schedule of activities planned for the year to get our young people involved and provide hands-on experience in as many aspects of archaeology as possible.

You can see our schedule for the year here Northamptonshire YAC 2024 schedule. These activities may change slightly from month to month depending on staff availability but our aim as a club is to make each session as hands-on and interactive with the archaeology as possible and make sure every young person has a chance to dig! 

As part of our first session, our YACs had a tour of the Roman Town of Irchester as well as the Archaeological Resource Centre (ARC) which stores all of Northamptonshire archaeology. They have then all created their own unique Northamptonshire YAC logo based on what inspired them from these tours and our county’s archaeology. We are going to be holding a vote of these logos to decide on our favourite, here are just a few of the amazing logos that have been designed so far:

Our next session is going to be all about Roman Pottery. The YACs will work with Adam, a Roman Pottery specialist, who will talk about why and how we look at archaeological pottery, using pottery from the ARC’s collection to start identifying different styles. Then there will be chance to have a go at making their own pot that they can take home with them! 

If you would like to join Northamptonshire YAC, please email us at northamptonshireyac@outlook.com for an application form.

YAC-HQ are really pleased to add Northamptonshire YAC to its network of branches and encourages anyone in the local area, who wishes to participate, to contact the club: Northamptonshire YAC