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Wickham House Blog – Day #5 (8th April 2025)

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

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Attendees: James, Andrew H, Martin, Debbie, Jill, Philip, Tim and Keith

Figure 1. High resolution earth resistance image (within green border) superimposed on the gradiometer survey image.
Figure 2. Andrew and Philip doing the high resolution earth resistance survey on day #5.

In trench 1A topsoil was removed from the extended area to the northwest to locate the far side of the ditch revealed on day #4. Jill and Debbie managed to reveal the pebble/flint deposit seen elsewhere in this area ready for recording on day #6 as shown in Figure 3. Also in trench 1A Tim extended the sondage opened on day #4 further to the south to reveal more of the SE edge of this feature. Finds of CBM, pottery and nails continued to be recorded.

Figure 3. Tim, Jill and Debbie excavating in trench 1A on day #5

In trench 1B Martin and Keith started to peel back the pebble/flint deposits in the north of this trench with the objective of revealing the second trench at 90o to the trench in 1A shown on the high resolution earth resistance survey. Meanwhile James focused on setting up the total station theodolite kindly loaned by MMAHS so that it can be used for locating the position of small finds, trenches and test pits relative to the site TBM . 

Figure 4 . Martin excavating in trench 1B whilst James sets up the total station theodolite.