Lesley McFadyen
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lesleymcf.bsky.social
Lesley McFadyen
@lesleymcf.bsky.social
1.1K followers 430 following 140 posts
archaeology, art, heritage ecologies, drumadoon, ardeer
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lesleymcf.bsky.social
Not-Rothko for @richardmortimer.bsky.social.
A band of iced over pond and a band of concrete, outside Churchill College, Cambridge.
January 3, 2026 at 3:58 PM
lesleymcf.bsky.social
Last day of term @bbkhistorical.bsky.social, but look what's coming up next term! The Carena Institute of Sustainable Archaeologies seminar series on Collaborative Archaeologies in (Post)Conflict Contexts!! Come join us: www.bbk.ac.uk/events?tag=1...
Archaeology, it's important!!!
Poster with the titles and speakers of the five seminars that are coming up at Birkbeck in 2026. Click on the link for more details and booking - https://www.bbk.ac.uk/events?tag=1200
December 12, 2025 at 10:35 AM
lesleymcf.bsky.social
Couldn’t grab them all for a staircase photo, but it was BA graduation day @bbkhistorical.bsky.social! Archaeology, it’s important!!
BA students from the archaeology programmes at Birkbeck on the fancy staircase at Senate House in their fancy graduation gowns!
December 2, 2025 at 8:47 PM
lesleymcf.bsky.social
@bbkhistorical.bsky.social first year students channelling their Keiller energy and love of the Neolithic today at Avebury! Thank you @nationaltrust.org.uk!!
Happy Birkbeck students at The Cove in the weak Autumn sunshine. A trapped Red Admiral butterfly with Neolithic animal bone and worked flint in the museum display. Photograph of the excavations of Windmill Hill showing Veronica and Dorothy Liddell excavating with the workmen (what are their names?). Students at the front door of The Manor with their best Keiller poses.
November 15, 2025 at 6:41 PM
lesleymcf.bsky.social
Cracking poster by Ana Vale and Lidia Baptista on studies of care and kinship #NSGKinship. I miss the attentive archaeologies of these amazing Portuguese colleagues, and here they are in London!
Poster display on how to approach the question of kinship through a study of care and attention to the details of context.
November 3, 2025 at 7:42 PM
lesleymcf.bsky.social
First week of term, first year of study, evening teaching, from Birkbeck to British Museum, from gallery to study room, from Neolithic Cumbria to Bronze Age Cambridgeshire through the connection of Langdale stone, from gold cup to gold-makers hoard.
Birkbeck students in gallery 51, hearing (and seeing in materials) stories of deposition and things with Neil Wilkin. Birkbeck students around a table watching and listening to Petra Jones describe the objects (their connections and biographies) that she brings out of small plastic boxes onto the table.
October 3, 2025 at 7:16 PM
lesleymcf.bsky.social
All set for another year! We teach archaeology modules 6-9pm in the evening in central London, and teach daytime intensive modules, and look at that skyline!! Archaeology, it’s important @bbkhistorical.bsky.social!!!
Screen showing archaeology of the Thames for our BA archaeology programmes at Birkbeck. It’s a clear evening outside the window with a great view of the London skyline.
September 23, 2025 at 4:41 PM
lesleymcf.bsky.social
Special lecture for Thames through Time - Tarpaulins and Sail Cloth by MA Archaeology & Heritage student Christopher Snary @bbkhistorical.bsky.social, complete with every model he has built!
Christopher showing his title slide ‘Tarpaulin and Sail Cloth’ at Birkbeck, and standing behind all of his models of ships and dockyards on the Thames. These are laid out on a blue cloth to mark the river itself.
July 2, 2025 at 7:10 PM
lesleymcf.bsky.social
Last lunch break photo on the Thames through Time field school Birkbeck/MOLA/TDP.
The Thames at high tide from Deptford with the renovation of a jetty in the foreground and the city in the background.
May 30, 2025 at 7:36 AM
lesleymcf.bsky.social
Thames through Time is back in Birkbeck for the 2nd week, and the MA Archaeology & Heritage student Christopher Snary @bbkhistorical.bsky.social has brought in a new model! This one is a scaled model of The Admiralty Dockyard. Archaeology and model-making, it’s important!!
Scale model of The Admiralty Dockyard and the ships it built.
May 19, 2025 at 7:30 PM
lesleymcf.bsky.social
Thames through Time is back in Birkbeck, but the MA Archaeology & Heritage student Christopher Snary @bbkhistorical.bsky.social only brought in a scaled model of the Thames historical dockyards that he has made! Archaeology and model-making, it’s important!!
Scale model of historic ships on the Thames, a working foreshore with slipways and their associated dockyard.
May 12, 2025 at 7:28 PM
lesleymcf.bsky.social
We finished our field school Thames through Time today with photogrammetry and a talk on archaeology of social value! Field schools are created through team work!! Thank yoh to the amazing @drclaireharris.bsky.social, Helen Chittock, Cat Gibbs, Kate Peacham @laraband.bsky.social, Louise Fowler..
Photogrammetry of extension wall to the Royal Dockyard at Deptford, depicting the C18th brick work and contemporary graffiti.
May 2, 2025 at 7:22 PM
lesleymcf.bsky.social
A key part of the @bbkhistorical.bsky.social MOLA/TDP field school Thames through Time is the Archival work with Helen Chittock and Archaeological reporting with Louise Fowler!
Historical maps of the Thames.
May 2, 2025 at 12:25 PM
lesleymcf.bsky.social
Thames through Time @bbkhistorical.bsky.social with MOLA/TDP - morning was survey of the foreshore, afternoon was processing and collections tour and environmental archaeology at MOLA office by the canal. A very big thank you to @drclaireharris.bsky.social, Louise Fowler and Eduardo Machicado!
Office buildings and canal boat homes reflected on the water in the afternoon sunshine.
May 1, 2025 at 5:41 PM
lesleymcf.bsky.social
April 30, 2025 at 6:13 PM
lesleymcf.bsky.social
Wall Stories - Ballast, cobble and set. Closer brick. London stock brick. Handmade brick. Board of Ordnance marked brick. And a sardine can key. Standing building recording on Thames through Time with the incredible @laraband.bsky.social!
April 30, 2025 at 6:12 PM
lesleymcf.bsky.social
A Not-Rothko for @richardmortimer.bsky.social, with pigeon.
Thames river wall drying in the sun in various shades of green, yellow and grey.
April 30, 2025 at 9:30 AM
lesleymcf.bsky.social
From the river wall in the sunshine, looking down on the Thames at high tide. Sound recording equipment on the river wall.
April 29, 2025 at 3:53 PM
lesleymcf.bsky.social
Thames through Time @bbkhistorical.bsky.social and an archaeology of sound with @laraband.bsky.social and @drclaireharris.bsky.social!
April 29, 2025 at 3:53 PM
lesleymcf.bsky.social
Time in materials on the foreshore; from (19th broken tea cups embedded in the foreshore surface to washed up paper labels still to fulfil their use by date. Thames through Time @bbkhistorical.bsky.social with MOLA/TDP and @drclaireharris.bsky.social and Helen Chittock.
Fragment of china tea cup with a pink pattern embedded in rolled building materials and gravels on the foreshore. Paper label with 27/12/25 use by date that has washed up on the foreshore, gone with the next incoming tide.
April 29, 2025 at 1:20 PM
lesleymcf.bsky.social
First morning of the @bbkhistorical.bsky.social field school Thames through Time in partnership with MOLA/TDP! @drclaireharris.bsky.social and Helen Chittock!!
Thames foreshore in the sunshine with a series of old, and in the process of being renovated, piers.
April 28, 2025 at 8:02 AM
lesleymcf.bsky.social
I am so excited that @alexanderboyd.bsky.social is coming to @bbkhistorical.bsky.social on the 12th May! He will give the talk 'A Hidden History of Violence', Keynes Library, 43 Gordon Square - 1pm to 2:30pm.
Drone shot of the affects of bomb practice at Cape Wrath in the North West of Scotland, photograph by Alex Boyd
April 14, 2025 at 10:53 AM
lesleymcf.bsky.social
From Drumadoon farmland to the Iron Age hillfort, and the ruins of Jimmy & Jenny’s bothy on the shore, we foraged and tasted an archaeology of food and landscape with Wild Food Arran. Thank you so much @bbkhistorical.bsky.social for the strategic research funds!
Tasting hedge garlic growing at the edges of the farm buildings. Tasting scurvy grass next to the Iron Age hillfort at Drumadoon. Tasting egg wrack on the shoreline next to the ruins of a bothy. A Wild Food Arran picnic in the sunshine with emmer sourdough and wild garlic butter; ground elder, hawthorn, carrot, gorse flower salad.
April 6, 2025 at 8:07 PM
lesleymcf.bsky.social
Siggy Osborne and Emma Jenkins @buarchanth.bsky.social undertaking plant identification and ecological habitat studies in the Drumadoon landscape. @gavinmacgregor.bsky.social @urbanprehistorian.bsky.social @fossilbeetle.bsky.social
Siggy explaining to the volunteers about plant families using flowers they had picked from around the farm. In the Drumadoon landscape looking at the heathland and the Iron Age hillfort in the distance.
April 5, 2025 at 3:49 PM
lesleymcf.bsky.social
Saturday morning island life at Drumadoon, fieldwalking next to a chambered monument! Neolithic was found!! And one by me!!! @gavinmacgregor.bsky.social @urbanprehistorian.bsky.social @fossilbeetle.bsky.social
David standing on the edge of the field next to the chambered monument. People fieldwalking the ploughed field next to a chambered monument. Hand holding stone flake. Hand holding broken flint tool.
April 5, 2025 at 11:21 AM