Part of a series of bulletins from the BAS excavations at Wickham House
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Attendees: Zoe, Katharine, James P, Tony, Doug, Judy, Lindsey, Tim H, Bob, Nigel B, Jackie, Charlie, Martin and Keith

The highlight of today’s achievements was further evidence that we have located the northern ditch of Ermin Street just in front of where Tim is excavating in Figure 1. Excavation of this feature within Trench 2 was undertaken by James P, Martin, Tim H and Peter B during the course of this week and yielded a large number of pottery sherds shown in Figure 2. A further Roman coin was found in context (by Martin again) within the ditch feature he was excavating as shown in Figure 3. At the other end of Trench 2 Lindsey, Judy, Jackie and Charlie continued to record the post-holes and pit discovered earlier in the week, excavate the occupation deposits present and started to reveal a cobbled surface of stone/flint beneath.

In Trench 3 Bob and Tony completed the cleaning of the features discovered and started recording, planning and taking levels. Whilst this trench has yielded few finds compared to elsewhere on the site, it has revealed a possible surface within a rectilinear anomaly seen on the earth resistance survey. This likely surface will need to be explored in more detail next week before a definitive interpretation can be reached.

In Trench 4 Zoe, Katharine, Nigel B and Doug continued to extend the depth of this  trench above the one of a rectilinear alignment of possible ditches highlighted by the gradiometer survey that align with and are adjacent to the newly located ditch of the Roman road. Having progressed through a deposits of pebble/flint seen across the site, a more compressed deposit of larger flints/pebbles with an increased incidence of pottery sherds was revealed after a day of hard excavation. This new surface will be recorded before being explored further in the coming week.