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Anglo-Saxon Watch

The Chester Watch Group meets at the Nature Park on Tuesdays during school holidays and half term.

The theme for summer 2005 has been the Year 1000. What would it have been like if you were an Anglo-Saxon family living in the park? It was two or three degrees farenheit warmer then than today, and there was 1 Anglo-Saxon for every 50 who live here now.

Our first meeting was about food. Their diet a thousand years ago was really quite good although they did get hungry especially at the end of the winter. They were as tall as we are but did not live much beyond 40 or 50. They had no idea about hygiene. No trouble with tooth decay - they had no sugar. You can imagine how they treasured their bees, in fact they knew all their animals well; the pigs, cattle oxen, horses, sheep, chickens, geese and ducks were all free range with very little fat on them, probably very tasty.

Spelt is an acciant relative of our wheat which was widely grown by the Romansa and is still grown in Italy. Pam made some read using spelt flour which tasted very different - the adults took to it better than the children.

Life was pretty tough in the Year 1000 but they really enjoyed having a feast. So we had a feast under the willow tree by the car park. We had not fasted the day before and we did not all bring our knives with us but we only ate what would have been available in those days. Pork sausages were our treat, plus cheese, bread and nuts with carrots and apples. We haven't mastered the art of making mead, their ale was rather thick and sweet so we just drank apple juice.

Which of these foods were around 1000 years ago? Which of these vegetables do you think went into their daily pottage or stew?

Onions, potatoes, leeks, celery, runner beans, radishes, tomatoes, sprouts, carrots, parsnips.

Can you imagine life without tea, coffee and chocolate?

Natural Shelters at Caldy Valley

Menna Watkins tells us about the second meeting

It all started when my mum, Tina Watkins, went down to the valley and built the frames. She did this by trying to force the sticks into the ground; it took a while because the ground was hard as rock. After doing that she tied the sticks together to make the shape. Mum collected the children from the car park and explained what we had to do, then we all got stuck in.

To create the shelter we first had to weave willow branches in between the sticks. We could also make hoops that we tied on in between the sticks. Then we got the hang of it. All of the shelters looked good at the end and Bridie's grandfather said he would use the shelter with most grass on it for the winter, the one with a few gaps in if for the summer and the one I helped make he would use for a wedding.

Someone else said it looked like a harvest festval though everyone agreed that none of them were waterproof. I enjoyed taking part in this an I hope everyone else did.

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