Part of a series of bulletins from the BAS excavations at Wickham House
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Attendees: Zoe, Katharine, Peter B, James P, James C, Philip, Jill, Julian, Tony, Doug, Judy and Keith

The day started overcast and damp – but was perfect weather for spotting the variations in soil colouration which enabled our ‘eagle eyed’ archaeologists (Judy, Zoe and Katharine) to identify two post holes and two midden deposits in the surface of Trench 2 that had just been cleaned. This context lies directly underneath the deposit of large flints has already been shown to be rich in dateable pottery sherds such as the likely 1^st century Samian pottery sherd featured in yesterday’s blog update. These post holes represent the first evidence of structural settlement remains from the Roman period. The two postholes were 50% excavated and the sections recorded, as were the two midden deposits. 

At the other end of Trench 2 James P, Peter B and Martin continued with their efforts to locate the northern ditch of the Roman road. This got off to a good start with another ‘in context’ discovery of a Roman coin, although the coin was heavily corroded. The deposits reached by the end of the day were becoming increasingly rich is pottery sherds of a likely Roman date as seen elsewhere at this level in Trench 2 which are likely to lie above the roadside ditch.

In Trench 4 Jill, Doug, Tony and Julian continued their hard work to dig through the pebble/flint deposits seen elsewhere across the site to locate a further area of possible Roman period occupation that geophysics survey results suggest may lie beneath. Elsewhere on the site James C and Philip undertook further geophysics surveys across crop-mark anomalies identified during the drone survey carried out last week.