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Wickham House Blog – Day #31 (4th June 2025)

Part of a series of bulletins from the BAS excavations at Wickham House
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Attendees: Beth, Joanne, Geoff, Charlie, Stuart, James P, Lindsey, Philip, Nigel S, Peter C, Martin and Keith

Another showery day – but the upside was that the ground was much softer than it has been of late and the overcast conditions were perfect for planning, photographing and recording. In Trench 2 Martin and Beth focused on recording the details of the latest layer of fill of the Roman road ditch to be revealed, and started excavation of the new context by taking a bulk sample. This current fill has far fewer pottery finds compared to the fills already removed, but is definitely not the bottom of the ditch. Work will continue in this area tomorrow and next week until the cut of the ditch is fully revealed.

Elsewhere in Trench 2 Joanne, Lindsey and Peter finished removing the last of the dark organic deposits found beneath the N-S aligned deposit of large flints. The deposit below is orange/brown in colour and is showing animal bone on its upper surface. This surface was cleaned ready for planning, recording and photographing tomorrow.

Figure 1. Joanne and Peter cleaning the current level in Trench 2.

In Trench 4A Stuart and James revealed linear features running parallel to the Roman road together with a compacted gravel surface. In the newly opened Trench 4B, the level of archaeological deposits was reached by midday. Charlie and Geoff soon started to reveal linear features similar to those seen in Trench 2A, but perpendicular. Together these two sets of features align with the rectilinear roadside feature highlighted by the geophysics survey and suggest that they may be related to a roadside building. The material culture found within these contexts is Roman, and work will continue in this area to define the extent of this building and characterise its morphology. As well as finds of Roman period pottery a fragment of light blue glass (similar to that found in nearby Trench 2 last week) was also discovered.

Figure 2. Charlie and Geoff defining the linear features revealed in Trench 4B.
Figure 3. James and Stuart continue to define features revealed in Trench 4A.

Elsewhere on site Nigel and Philip continued with high resolution earth resistance surveys in the southwest of the site. Preparations also got underway for the site tour and lecture taking place tomorrow!