Excavations at the Olympic Park site by Museum of London Archaeology Service (MoLAS, now MoLA) and Pre-Construct Archaeology working as a joint venture (MoLAS-PCA), and RPS Planning and Development and AOC Archaeology Group produced a number of waterlogged finds of wood and leather, some of which underwent archaeological conservation at the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre as part of the post-excavation programme undertaken by Wessex Archaeology.

As a conservator working on the collections of Wiltshire museums I have worked on a variety of objects dating from the bronze age onwards but it is not always the oldest items that are the most difficult to deal with. One of the more challenging objects I have had to deal with was a model of a pig from Warminster Museum. Dating from the middle of the 20th century it would once have stood in a butcher’s window.