Mel Roxby-Mackey
@archaeoborders.bsky.social
Archaeologist of borders, Anglo-Welsh borderland and its folklore, digital humanist, University of Birmingham. Archaeologist in Residence, Offa's Dyke Association. All ops my own. archaeoborders.wordpress.com
Reposted by Mel Roxby-Mackey
Storytelling, it’s what archaeology is for. Telling stories about people, different ways of being, strangeness, the diversity of the human condition - that how we organise our world, our societies, our relationships with people, places, animals, plants, things, & time have not always been like this
New landmark research out today: We've just launched Trowel and Error, the most in-depth look in 25 years at how audiences want to engage with archaeology. The findings are clear: people want human, accessible, story-led archaeology.
Read the report here 👉 www.archaeologyuk.org/our-work/tro...
Read the report here 👉 www.archaeologyuk.org/our-work/tro...
November 29, 2025 at 4:25 PM
Storytelling, it’s what archaeology is for. Telling stories about people, different ways of being, strangeness, the diversity of the human condition - that how we organise our world, our societies, our relationships with people, places, animals, plants, things, & time have not always been like this
Our #SevernTreescapes team works with land managers to plant trees in places that are right for their land. This #NationalTreeWeek, see how one farmer is adding lines of trees to shelter crops from the wind & creating ponds to hold water 🌳
@gloswildlife.bsky.social & @herefordshirewt.bsky.social
@gloswildlife.bsky.social & @herefordshirewt.bsky.social
November 29, 2025 at 6:09 PM
Reposted by Mel Roxby-Mackey
"Stories of the Stones explores how ancient monuments... have been reimagined across the centuries in folklore, literature, art & popular culture. From medieval myths to Romantic fascination & from folk-horror cinema to Julian Cope..."
Independent publisher alert!
H/t @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social
Independent publisher alert!
H/t @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social
If you live in the UK, you can now pre-order 'Stories of the Stones' directly from Reaktion Books or your favourite bookseller. Publication date is 1 February, 2026!
Pre-order here: reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/stories...
Pre-order here: reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/stories...
November 29, 2025 at 11:09 AM
"Stories of the Stones explores how ancient monuments... have been reimagined across the centuries in folklore, literature, art & popular culture. From medieval myths to Romantic fascination & from folk-horror cinema to Julian Cope..."
Independent publisher alert!
H/t @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social
Independent publisher alert!
H/t @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social
Thank you for sharing @peterreavill.bsky.social - sometimes I really boggle at what I manage to miss in the @theguardian.com 😂 A very powerful piece on the Severn indeed.
A powerful piece from Paul Evans, heard through @nicwilson.bsky.social this morning.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Country diary: The river has risen to meet the trees. This is Storm Claudia’s work | Paul Evans
Welsh Marches, Shropshire: All the ditches and drains from the hills of mid-Wales to here burst with rain. The Severn has a deadly seriousness now
www.theguardian.com
November 28, 2025 at 10:07 AM
Thank you for sharing @peterreavill.bsky.social - sometimes I really boggle at what I manage to miss in the @theguardian.com 😂 A very powerful piece on the Severn indeed.
Thank you to @oneeyegrey.bsky.social for the prompt to pick up this year's Reith Lectures and for this terrific quote from @rutgerbregman.com "The Roman elite fiddled while Rome burned. Our elites live-streamed the fire and monetized the smoke." www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
November 27, 2025 at 4:59 PM
Thank you to @oneeyegrey.bsky.social for the prompt to pick up this year's Reith Lectures and for this terrific quote from @rutgerbregman.com "The Roman elite fiddled while Rome burned. Our elites live-streamed the fire and monetized the smoke." www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
Sometimes the evidence from the past really speaks to you across the centuries. It's really hard not to look at the evidence from Shropshire in the later Roman period and not to sympathise with how some of its residents must have been feeling when the main heated rooms in the baths at Wroxeter were
November 27, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Sometimes the evidence from the past really speaks to you across the centuries. It's really hard not to look at the evidence from Shropshire in the later Roman period and not to sympathise with how some of its residents must have been feeling when the main heated rooms in the baths at Wroxeter were
I'm a big fan of the work of @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social and he's now donating one pound from sales of the paperback of Is a River Alive to @riveractionuk.bsky.social. It's published in March next year, but available for pre-order uk.bookshop.org/p/books/is-a... Pre-orders count as presents, surely
November 27, 2025 at 2:07 PM
I'm a big fan of the work of @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social and he's now donating one pound from sales of the paperback of Is a River Alive to @riveractionuk.bsky.social. It's published in March next year, but available for pre-order uk.bookshop.org/p/books/is-a... Pre-orders count as presents, surely
Working on archaeological landscape regional studies and looking at the evidence over millennia really makes you appreciate the significance of how rivers form and inform how we live in the world. It also makes you passionate about not passing them on to future generations as abused open sewers
November 27, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Working on archaeological landscape regional studies and looking at the evidence over millennia really makes you appreciate the significance of how rivers form and inform how we live in the world. It also makes you passionate about not passing them on to future generations as abused open sewers
“It’s gripping, if despairing stuff.” The rinse and repeat of civilisational collapse. Happy days.
Civilisations: Rise and Fall review – TV that will make you despair for our own plummeting society
The mightily stressful and incredibly close-to-the-bone BBC show traces the demise of four ancient worlds – and it’s wildly prescient stuff. Will we never learn?
www.theguardian.com
November 25, 2025 at 9:42 AM
“It’s gripping, if despairing stuff.” The rinse and repeat of civilisational collapse. Happy days.
This piece of mean spiritedness by @ryanairofficial.bsky.social really deserves some publicity. Ba humbug, Scrooge would be proud
Ryanair expects me to take the financial hit for helping others
As a doctor I stepped in to tend to an elderly passenger … but it won’t waive £100 transfer fee to rebook
www.theguardian.com
November 24, 2025 at 10:18 AM
This piece of mean spiritedness by @ryanairofficial.bsky.social really deserves some publicity. Ba humbug, Scrooge would be proud
I have just seen The Choral by Alan Bennett. Unsurprisingly, it’s outstanding. For anyone seduced by the rhetoric of those who seek to cause division and hatred the film covers its real world consequences for working class communities with gut-wrenching accuracy. Lives, limbs, lovers all lost
The Choral - Official Trailer - Only In Cinemas November 7
YouTube video by Sony Pictures Releasing UK
youtu.be
November 20, 2025 at 2:34 PM
I have just seen The Choral by Alan Bennett. Unsurprisingly, it’s outstanding. For anyone seduced by the rhetoric of those who seek to cause division and hatred the film covers its real world consequences for working class communities with gut-wrenching accuracy. Lives, limbs, lovers all lost
Reposted by Mel Roxby-Mackey
The row over who is responsible for repairing Ludlow's medieval wall continues.
A Shropshire town council has been ordered to disclose withheld information about a collapsed wall
A town council in Shropshire has been ordred to disclose information about a collapsed wall amid a long-running saga by the Information Commissioner's Office
www.shropshirestar.com
November 18, 2025 at 11:47 AM
The row over who is responsible for repairing Ludlow's medieval wall continues.
“Why Herefordshire was the perfect stand-in for Shakespeare’s Stratford in the new film of Hamnet”
Why Herefordshire was the perfect stand-in for Shakespeare’s Stratford in the new film of Hamnet
Crooked buildings, welcoming inns, ancient woodlands … it’s easy to see why the location scouts chose this idyllic corner of England
www.theguardian.com
November 17, 2025 at 10:00 AM
“Why Herefordshire was the perfect stand-in for Shakespeare’s Stratford in the new film of Hamnet”
Update from @digventures.bsky.social on their dig diary for 2026 featuring a call for crowdfunding work at Wrexham’s Rossett Roman Villa. More details to follow, but it's on their events listing at digventures.com/calendar/
DigVentures Dig Calendar
See all the digs, talks, courses and other events coming up at DigVentures.
digventures.com
November 15, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Update from @digventures.bsky.social on their dig diary for 2026 featuring a call for crowdfunding work at Wrexham’s Rossett Roman Villa. More details to follow, but it's on their events listing at digventures.com/calendar/
A place on one of @pottedhistory.bsky.social ‘s would make a great early Christmas present for any heritage enthusiasts.
Just one week to go until my Roman Lamps and Deities workshop at The Roman Army Museum part of the Vindolanda Trust, Hadrian'sWall. Still a few places left. 🏺#AncientBluesky #Archaeology www.vindolanda.com/Event/potted...
Potted History Oil Lamps and Deities Workshop - 22/11/2025 10:00:00
22nd November Roman Army Museum In this course, you will learn about the manufacturing methods employed by Roman craftsmen and create your own Roman goddess figurine and a fully functioning Roman oil ...
www.vindolanda.com
November 14, 2025 at 1:22 PM
A place on one of @pottedhistory.bsky.social ‘s would make a great early Christmas present for any heritage enthusiasts.
For anyone who’s interested in a career swap into archaeology and in travelling distance of Gloucestershire from @cotswoldarch.bsky.social 👇
Heritage Careers Workshop
Are you interested in a career in archaeology and heritage? Unemployed, or looking for a change of direction?
www.eventbrite.co.uk
November 13, 2025 at 10:58 AM
For anyone who’s interested in a career swap into archaeology and in travelling distance of Gloucestershire from @cotswoldarch.bsky.social 👇
Thank you to @nationalmons.bsky.social for the link to this excellent talk from @aidanosullivan.bsky.social on liminality in early medieval Irish landscapes. Also, solutions to the sticky problems of whose bees are these and disputes over dog poo
📹WATCH BACK from the recent 8th Annual @NationalMons Conference
#WithinWithout2025 The Archaeology of Partitions
‘Do fence me in: boundaries, liminality and transgressions in early medieval Ireland, AD 400–1100’
Professor Aidan O’Sullivan @experimentarchaeol.bsky.social
youtu.be/NQLhzY3pl0Y
#WithinWithout2025 The Archaeology of Partitions
‘Do fence me in: boundaries, liminality and transgressions in early medieval Ireland, AD 400–1100’
Professor Aidan O’Sullivan @experimentarchaeol.bsky.social
youtu.be/NQLhzY3pl0Y
Professor Aidan O'Sullivan - Within Without – The Archaeology of Partitions
YouTube video by National Monuments Service
youtu.be
November 11, 2025 at 3:49 PM
Thank you to @nationalmons.bsky.social for the link to this excellent talk from @aidanosullivan.bsky.social on liminality in early medieval Irish landscapes. Also, solutions to the sticky problems of whose bees are these and disputes over dog poo
What a fantastic event from Park in the Past at Wrexham. If we weren't otherwise occupied we'd be at Beowulf: a night of saga and song in a heartbeat parkinthepast.org.uk/events/beowu...
Beowulf: A night of saga and song - Park In The Past
In collaboration with internationally renowned storyteller Oswald the Great, step into the great hall for an evening where legend, music, and firelight meet.
parkinthepast.org.uk
November 11, 2025 at 2:12 PM
What a fantastic event from Park in the Past at Wrexham. If we weren't otherwise occupied we'd be at Beowulf: a night of saga and song in a heartbeat parkinthepast.org.uk/events/beowu...
If you're in the Anglo-Welsh borderland and are looking for opportunities to get involved with local heritage The Judge's Lodging Trust in Presteigne are looking for new trustees. As a trustee of the Offa's Dyke Association I can attest to how rewarding these posts can be
The Judge’s Lodging Trust - AIM - Association of Independent Museums
The Judge's Lodging's Trust is looking for people who are willing to roll up their sleeves and get involved in securing the future of this remarkable building.
aim-museums.co.uk
November 6, 2025 at 2:19 PM
If you're in the Anglo-Welsh borderland and are looking for opportunities to get involved with local heritage The Judge's Lodging Trust in Presteigne are looking for new trustees. As a trustee of the Offa's Dyke Association I can attest to how rewarding these posts can be
In another useful share from @museumsandheritage.com if you're involved in a heritage organisation that's using, or is considering using, augmented reality here's an invitation to participate in a survey run by the people behind the new virtual exhibitions at the National Museums Liverpool
The Next ‘Big Thing’? - Exploring Augmented Reality in the Museum - Museums + Heritage
Sector survey explores augmented reality adoption as museums trial X-ray analysis and video overlay technology.Retry
museumsandheritage.com
November 6, 2025 at 2:10 PM
In another useful share from @museumsandheritage.com if you're involved in a heritage organisation that's using, or is considering using, augmented reality here's an invitation to participate in a survey run by the people behind the new virtual exhibitions at the National Museums Liverpool
Thank you to @museumsandheritage.com for this post with good news for heritage and nature in Gloucestershire
£6.4m historic waterway restoration to reinstate ‘missing mile’ of canal - Museums + Heritage
museumsandheritage.com
November 6, 2025 at 1:53 PM
Thank you to @museumsandheritage.com for this post with good news for heritage and nature in Gloucestershire
Reposted by Mel Roxby-Mackey
✨ #RowvemberChester Day 6
37 Watergate Street. The OLDEST! Grade I with undercroft fabric from 1180-1280. The twist? Its undercroft extends under the Row walkway - showing this medieval building originally jutted into the street before continuous walkways existed!
Image: @Stuartrobphoto
37 Watergate Street. The OLDEST! Grade I with undercroft fabric from 1180-1280. The twist? Its undercroft extends under the Row walkway - showing this medieval building originally jutted into the street before continuous walkways existed!
Image: @Stuartrobphoto
November 6, 2025 at 12:15 PM
✨ #RowvemberChester Day 6
37 Watergate Street. The OLDEST! Grade I with undercroft fabric from 1180-1280. The twist? Its undercroft extends under the Row walkway - showing this medieval building originally jutted into the street before continuous walkways existed!
Image: @Stuartrobphoto
37 Watergate Street. The OLDEST! Grade I with undercroft fabric from 1180-1280. The twist? Its undercroft extends under the Row walkway - showing this medieval building originally jutted into the street before continuous walkways existed!
Image: @Stuartrobphoto
Updates on the sites added to and removed from Historic England’s Heritage at Risk register with #Gloucestershire featuring on both
Garden shed of vaccine pioneer Edward Jenner added to heritage at risk register
Shed where father of immunology trialled first smallpox vaccine among 138 additions to Historic England list
www.theguardian.com
November 6, 2025 at 10:11 AM
Updates on the sites added to and removed from Historic England’s Heritage at Risk register with #Gloucestershire featuring on both
And whilst we’re on the subject of stunning hillforts in our region - here is Old Oswestry in all its glory. We have some of the earliest, highest, most spectacular examples of these monuments in the Anglo-Welsh borderland.
What a photo of Old Oswestry Iron Age Hill Fort!
#AncientSiteSunday with Old Oswestry and What.A.Day.For.It !! 😳😳
Can't believe it, Shropshire is looking magical this morning
Can't believe it, Shropshire is looking magical this morning
November 5, 2025 at 10:26 AM
And whilst we’re on the subject of stunning hillforts in our region - here is Old Oswestry in all its glory. We have some of the earliest, highest, most spectacular examples of these monuments in the Anglo-Welsh borderland.
Thank you @forestcollectiv.bsky.social for these amazing images of the absolutely stunning British Camp hillfort. Definitely one of my favourite sites in the Anglo-Welsh borderland
This is where we finished up, a glorious sunset at British Camp, rounding out a long weekend with a lot of Hillforting across Wales & Shropshire
with that in mind thought today could use a 🧵 of the highlights for #HillfortsWednesday 👇
with that in mind thought today could use a 🧵 of the highlights for #HillfortsWednesday 👇
November 5, 2025 at 10:23 AM
Thank you @forestcollectiv.bsky.social for these amazing images of the absolutely stunning British Camp hillfort. Definitely one of my favourite sites in the Anglo-Welsh borderland