By Isobel Dennison - Archive Intern

January 2026

This year, I was offered an incredible opportunity: to undertake an internship in the archives of the Vindolanda Trust. When most people think of Vindolanda, I imagine they hear the ghostly march of Roman armies, the drama of excavation work and the excitement of carefully, painstakingly unearthing buried treasures. All of this is true of course. Leather shoes emerge from the soil bringing to life Romans with muddy boots, writing tablets reveal human voices from centuries ago and ordinary everyday objects such as combs, brooches, and a wooden toilet seat are often the most revealing about humanity. What strikes me most every time I enter Vindolanda is the tingling sense of constant discovery – Vindolanda is a story still unfolding with new, exciting finds lurking beneath the surface, almost magical in its ability to make Roman Britain feel startlingly close.

Yet there is another side to Vindolanda – where the sense of discovery doesn’t stop but happens away from the hustle and bustle of visitors to the site. In the quieter spaces, behind the scenes, I have been working with the archives to safeguard the memories of such discoveries; specifically cataloguing the paper archives of Charlie Anderson and John Peter Wild whose work has had a lasting impact on Vindolanda and Hadrian’s Wall. Away from the digging, in a tiny corridor, I have been helping to correctly catalogue and preserve their legacies through photographs, reports, correspondence and even textiles – all of which play a crucial role in how we understand the site because they provide context to the moments of discovery and finds we see on display. If excavation reveals the past, archive work makes sure it is not forgotten.

Charlie Anderson (1909–1998) spent almost fifty years working as a stonemason for the Ministry of Works, dedicating much of his career to the preservation and restoration of Hadrian’s Wall. His work helped protect the Wall at a time when its archaeological significance was becoming increasingly recognised and his archive mostly consists of photographs taken along the Wall, showing excavations in progress, consolidation work being carried out, and changing landscapes. 

Once the photographs have been edited and physically rehoused, they can be added to the online database. I found this cataloguing to be one of the more interesting aspects of the internship, as it was a chance to look at each photograph individually and, in more depth, than before. During this, each photograph is given a description and any text on the photograph is transcribed. By adding these photographs and all the information for them to this online database, it means that when the time comes for the archive to be published, everyone can have access to them!

Handling these photographs offered a unique perspective on Vindolanda’s past and brought home to me how essential careful documentation is to the long-term understanding of archaeological sites. 

Alongside Anderson’s material, I also helped with the archive of John Peter Wild, an archaeologist and former professor at the University of Manchester. Wild specialised in Roman archaeology and specifically the history of textiles, and his research has played a key role in interpreting finds from Vindolanda and other Roman sites.