The Snowball Effect...

This phrase is used when a story hits the media and then rolls and rolls beyond your wildest expectations. I have just been involved with that - alongside my collaborators at The Old Bell Hotel, Malmesbury Town Team, Malmesbury Town Council, Cotswold Archaeology and the team of volunteers who are running the Athelstan 1100 project.

The project celebrates the 1100th anniversary of Athelstan becoming the First King of All England in 924 AD and he had a close life-long love of Malmesbury and Malmesbury Abbey and chose to be buried there. There are many events taking place in the town throughout July and some great events have already happened. This last weekend was The Big Athelstan Dig, a community archaeology event across Malmesbury where 13 test pits were dug as part of a living history weekend. It was amazing, involved 100s of people including volunteers, visitors, children, students and many more.

As part of the event, and due to the fact that several archaeologists from Cotswold Archaeology would be in the town - the owners of the Old Bell Hotel, Whit and Kim Hanks gave permission for it to be revealed publicly for the first time that an excavation in early 2023 on their property had discovered 24 complete skeletons and the displaced remains of another 22 individuals. Four skeletons were tested and found to date from 600 AD to about 800 AD - the Middle Saxon period - a time before Malmesbury Abbey existed and before the time of Athelstan himself. An astonishing discovery providing the first physical evidence of an apparent community in that area of Malmesbury - although it's always been believed this was the case.

As the town was celebrating anyway there were also other wonderful voices willing to share their excitement about this find - established historians and authors who live locally and have an in-depth knowledge of the town's history. Once again the collaboration displayed by committed individuals within this community staggered me.

We knew this would be of media interest and having experts and historians readily available made this a perfect opportunity to put this information into the public domain. We held a press conference on Saturday attended by a local publication The Jackdaw and by a local BBC journalist Sophie Parker who attended on behalf of BBC Wiltshire and BBC Points West.

Given that we'd just had a General Election which had seen a huge shift in UK politics and Euro 2024 is underway - we were pleased with that and I informed other local media too although they didn't turn up to the press conference. We were ready for that though...

I should just say that Whit and Kim are now well known in Malmesbury for their love of the town and as the owners of The Old Bell Hotel. Whit is linked to the Hanks from the area - in fact from a small village called Garsdon and they have made the area their second home visiting several times a year from their other home in Dripping Springs, Texas. They have a successful hospitality business there.

Since Saturday the story has rolled on and on - all from local coverage, proving my mantra that the media watch what the media does and, a good story is a good story regardless where it starts to be told. The power is the story and the local media is often the place where a good story starts to be told and shared.

To date the story has been told in all local media outlets, radio and regional tv including commercial radio. It's been told by BBC news online nationally and ITVX, the Miami Herald, The Caterer, Raleigh News & Observer, The Post Hole, Yahoo News Canada, The Juice Liverpool, Ground News, and now Sky News.

These moments don't happen very often and finding remains of what appears to be a Middle Saxon community is unusual - I'm sure over time more study will be done to find out even more from the remains which were removed according to the rules of respect which govern such finds in the UK.

This 'snowball' effect is not something that can be predicted yet when it happens you have to go with it as best you can. I want to thank everyone who stood up and who organised being present and also being ready this week to tell this new part of Malmesbury's story. It's humbling to see this happening.