Part of a series of bulletins from the BAS excavations at Wickham House
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Attendees: Zoe, Katharine, Carrollanne, Gordon, Merrill,  Deborah, Jill, James C, Peter B, Nick, Nigel S and Keith

Another baking hot day – but with lots of interesting archaeology being revealed! In the new trench 3 a lot of effort was put in by James C, Nick and Gordon in mattocking through the pebble/flint deposits immediately beneath the topsoil. But by the end of the day this had been accomplished and the first contexts of archaeology revealed that were planned and recorded as seen in Figures 1 and 2.

In Trench 1A Jill and Merrill focused on recording the final sections/plans of the two ditches that have now been fully excavated. Once this work is completed work in this initial trench will have been completed.

In Trench 2 Peter B picked up the project started by Tim/Peter C to investigated the construction deposits revealed on the north facing edge of the N-S aligned 6m x 4m rectangular deposits of large flints seen on the geophysics and revealed within Trench 2A. Having recorded the clay/sand levelling deposit that is interpreted as the likely foundation for a beam-slot wall, the lower deposits were then investigated and recorded, but with very few finds being discovered.

At the other end of Trench 2A a few meters to the south however Zoe, Katharine and Carrollanne were excavating a dark organic deposit revealed beneath the large flints where a large amount of Roman looking pottery sherds and some animal bones were discovered as seen in Figures 5 and 6.

Nigel S and Deborah worked hard throughout the day to reveal the next context within Trench 2C (linking 2A and 2B) where newly discovered aerial photographs of the pasture suggest that the northerly ditch of Ermin Street is likely to have crossed. Discovery of this road ditch remains a key objected to locating the roadside settlement suggested by the occupation deposits seen in Trench 2.