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Wickham House Blog – Day #4 (7th April 2025)

Part of a series of bulletins from the BAS excavations at Wickham House

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Tools kindly loaned by BARG were collected from Lindsey and brought to site, and with the fine weather continuing excavation quickly picked up where we had left it on Friday. The priority for day #4 was to locate archaeological features identified by the high resolution earth resistance survey.

The high resolution earth resistance image shown in Figure 1 (within the green boundary) suggests that the two trenches opened should both contain rectilinear ditches passing across them. In the westerly 2m x 2m trench(1A) a sondage was excavated by Jean and Jane through the pebble/flint deposit revealed on day #3. Beneath this pebble deposit the ditch predicted to lie in a NE-SW orientation could be seen as shown in Figure 2. This not only represents the first significant archaeological feature discovered, but it also proves that features seen in the high resolution earth resistance survey images can be located. This result also suggests the depth that similar features are likely to be found elsewhere across the site .

The northerly end of Trench 1A will be expanded on day #5 so that both sides of this ditch are visible along a sufficient length for the ditch to be excavated in section so that the stratigraphy of fills can be recorded. It is hoped that the morphology of the ditch, its function and evidence indicating its period of its usage may also be revealed .

Figure 1 – Location of the initial 2m x 2m trench and the second 2m x 3m trench to the east
Figure 2. The darker fill of the ditch revealed in Trench 1A can be seen on the left side of the sondage.
Figure 3. Jean and Jane recording their discoveries in Trench 1A.

In the 2m x 3m Trench 1B to the east work continued to remove the topsoil revealing a deposit of pebbles/flints similar seen in Trench 1A. Recording of this context was started as seen in Figures 4 and 5 which will be further progressed during day #5.  A further sondage the north of Trench 1B will be excavated to locate the second ditch identified by the high resolution earth resistance survey. 

Figure 4. Tony and Geoff excavating Trench 1B.
Figure 5. The pebble/flint deposit revealed in trench 1B being planned.

Also on day #5 further high resolution earth resistance survey will be conducted to the south and east if the initial two trenches to identify further archaeological features to be investigated in the coming weeks.