Over the past
week, Katie Devlin (age 17) has been doing work experience with us here at the
Building Exploratory. It's been a pleasure hosting her, and here are her
insights about her experience:
During work
experience at the Building Exploratory has been a great way to learn more about
jobs involving history and to learn some London history on the way. Over
the week I’ve helped to research the mills of the River Wandle and Bangladeshi
immigration into King's Cross – which I’ve found easier said than done,
battling with conflicting sources and sparse information. I also had a chance
to meet their partner organization in the King's Cross Story Palace
project, HistoryPin who were very friendly and gave me a second perspective on
the industry.
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| View from my flat |
One project
I really enjoyed was documenting the King's Cross area from my perspective,
with a mixture of family photos and new pictures, which I’ve written about on
the Story Palace website. It was really interesting to examine my thoughts
about the area, and take a trip down memory lane to really think about why the
places I walk through every day matter to me, and why they should matter to the
public.
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| The outdoor gym which made a better playground than the one next door |
On Thursday I took a trip to Merton Archives, where they were very helpful in finding sources about the mills, which weren’t available online, giving me a chance to test my research skills outside of Google – well worth 20 stops on the Northern line! I was really impressed by the dedication of the Mapping the Mills project volunteers, who were giving up their own time to research because of their passion for preserving history, an approach which has inspired me to try volunteering in the future.
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| Snapchatting my way through the Wandle: Map of Amery Mills, Merton |
On my last day, I got to meet the
Senior BEEs and the Islington Eyes, the two older adult groups, when we went on
a guided walk along the Thames foreshore, finding lots of cool bits of pottery,
glass and bone. My favourite item was a huge ships nail I found which was very
impressive, although sadly not of great historical value.
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| Exploring the Thames foreshore |
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| Forgotten treasure on the Thames foreshore |
Overall my time at
the Building Exploratory has been really positive and I’m definitely not
looking forward to going back to school on Monday after such a great week.
