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Sink or swim: Bronze Age-style boats to be launched

Rockingham Forest Trust A volunteer and James Dilley putting the end board into a replica log boat, Stanwick LakeRockingham Forest Trust
Experimental archaeologist James Dilley (right) said "there's every chance we could end up in the water... it could be fun to watch"

Volunteers who helped make two Bronze Age-style log boats by hand will discover whether they float during a celebration event.

The team at Stanwick Lakes, Northamptonshire, spent 700 hours over two years carving out the boats using replica 3,000-year-old tools and fire.

The effort was part of a £250,000 National Heritage Lottery-funded project to connect the nature reserve with its ancient past.

Experimental archaeologist Dr James Dilley said: "While we hope they will work, there’s every chance we could end up in the water... it might be funny to watch."

Rockingham Forest Trust Six volunteers working on or discussing a log boat, Stanwick LakesRockingham Forest Trust
A team of 10 spent more than 700 hours creating the boats from a fallen lime tree donated by Boughton House, near Kettering
Rockingham Forest Trust A log with pieces of wood lying in its hollow on a bed of ash and fire fickering around its hollowed edges, Stanwick LakeRockingham Forest Trust
They also used fire to burn out the centre of one of the log boats, before finishing it off with hand tools

Dr Dilley, from AncientCraft, has supported the project from the start, first by helping the volunteers cast their own Bronze Age tools.

“The boat launch will be a spectacle - these boats haven’t been fully tested to this extent before," he said.

He will cast a bronze tool, as a "ritual sacrifice", ahead of the launch on 21 July, and then provide commentary as volunteers try to take to the water and stay afloat.

The event will include a range of activities, including some of the archaeologists who discovered "Britain's Pompeii Must Farm, a Bronze Age farm settlement about 30 miles away (48km). A wealth of preserved artefacts including nine log boats were unearthed there.

Rockingham Forest Trust A woman looking towards the camera with her hair slightly blowing in a breeze, Stanwick LakesRockingham Forest Trust
Nadia Norman said the launch event will be the first of its kind at Stanwick Lakes which she hoped would become a "destination for heritage"

A Viking longship and medieval-style coracle boats will also be on site and a regatta of historical and modern water craft will join the log boats on the lake.

Log boats would have been a common sight on the waterways more than 3,000 years ago.

Nadia Norman, Stanwick Lakes' heritage co-ordinator, said: "We’d love to see the lakeside lined with visitors cheering the boats on and supporting the huge efforts of our volunteers."

Neolithic tools, Bronze Age barrows, an Iron Age settlement, a Roman villa and Saxon hamlet have all been discovered at Stanwick Lakes, making it one of the largest archaeological sites ever excavated in the UK.

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