Cirencester YAC
Cirencester YAC is open to everyone aged 8–16 years. YAC clubs get involved in all sorts of activities, including visiting and investigating archaeological sites and historic places, trying out traditional crafts, taking part in excavations, and lots more.
Cirencester YAC is based at Corinium Museum. The club usually meets once a month. It is an affiliated club of the YAC network, and is YAC is run by Corinium Museum staff and volunteers.
If you’d like to get involved with Cirencester YAC, or find out more about how the club is run, get in touch with the team using the details below:
Contact: Michaela Lennox
Tel: 01285 655611
Email: michaela.lennox@freedom-leisure.co.uk
Corinium Museum, the home of Cirencester YAC.
Cirencester YAC is grateful for support from the Friends of Corinium Museum.
News from Cirencester YAC
February 2026 – Fossils!
At the end of the February half-term we ran our first official session of the Young Archaeologists’ club at the museum. Many of our members were keen to explore fossils and so this decided our February Theme.
We started off the session with a timeline of geological periods including things like the Jurassic and Devonian. Michaela did a great job explaining what they were and just how many millions of years ago many of them were created. We then split them up into two teams and got them to look at some fossils that we had stuck on some card and then guess whereabouts on the timeline the creatures which had become fossils had lived. They did a pretty good job overall of working out everything’s relative ages and impressed us with how well they were able to grasp just how long ago these creatures lived.
Next, we got them to make some moulds of fossils out of Sculptamold, in order to show the process of how fossils sometime leave behind casts. Our casts included a few dinosaur bones and shells of various marine creatures. Once we’d cleared up all the mess (and there was most definitely mess!) we laid out some fossils for handling. Michaela and Phill raided the stores to see what we had that would work. Despite being an archaeology museum, we do have a small collection of fossils. We had everything from echinoids to ammonites, and even a mammoth leg bone and tooth! It was a bit smelly though but that just added to the experience.
One member, Chloe had even brought along some shark teeth she had found herself down in Dorset which we were able to show to everyone. These were amazing to show off! Thank you very much Chloe for bringing them in!
Next time, Bronze Age finds from Lechlade…
