MUNCASTER CASTLE Jane Poss, St Anne’s College, Masters-level student, MSc, Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology, A misture of in-person and remote working Work Projects I worked on a project called Muncaster Castle Through the Ages, which aims to describe how the castles architecture has changed over time. Muncaster Castle, in western Cumbria, is a privately-owned stately home that has been occupied since the 1200s and has been significantly remodelled in the last eight hundred years. My task was to go through all known originals and copies of architectural plans and drawings of the castle, referencing them against past research and other sources like accounts and journals, to describe how the building has changed over time. There are many gaps in the documentary record and some documents were mis-filed or even missing, so I ended up learning how to photograph, catalogue, and organize all the original documents so they can be found again. I added to this with my original research to describe what parts of the castle were built when, resulting in material that can be used to tell the story of the castles history to the public. I produced a comprehensive list of all known plans of the castle with attached images, listing information like where on site they were stored and associated forms. I then digitized these plans and prepared a report, both of which can be used in the castle’s public facing material. Daily Life My internship was a mix of both on-site and remote work. Due to travel time, since the town closest to the castle is six hours by train from Oxford, I came to the castle in short trips, ranging from a week to a few days in length. I’d take my notes and photographs back to Oxford, and work there on tracking down other sources and preparing my final materials. While I was in Cumbria, I stayed inside the castle, which was a unique and super interesting
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