Part of a series of bulletins from the BAS excavations at Wickham House
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Attendees: Louise, Thalia, Carrollanne, Nigel B, Gordon, Merrill, Julian, Paula, Stuart, Karen, Gary B, Gary A, Geoff, Gabby, Jim and Keith

The day got off to a busy start with a visit from the archaeology team at West Berkshire County Council in the form of Sarah, Beth, Phil and Ben who had a tour of the site and reviewed some of the finds discovered so far. For Beth and Ben who had participated in the project as volunteers, it was good to show them how the site had progressed in the weeks since they were with us. Phil was able to give us insights into some of the artefacts discovered and Sarah provided some useful suggestions on how to approach future seasons’ work.

No sooner had our visitors departed than we made the first of the day’s major discoveries in trench 4E where Merrill, Gary A, Gordon and Nigel B had been cleaning up the trench surface for recording and photographing, where it became apparent that we had discovered our first masonry wall as shown in figures 1 and 2. The wall is aligned SW-NE perpendicular to the Roman road, is 0.5m thick and is characterized by large flints on either side bonded by a chalk mortar core. As the gradiometer surveys of this, using the gradiometer and the earth resistance meter, had not shown any linear anomalies in this location this discovery generated much excitement by the team on site – especially Merrill, Gary A, Gordon and Nigel B who were athe sharp end of the trowel! Once recording had been completed work started to examine this visible portion of the wall in section.

Hot on the heels of this discovery was a chalk surface discovered by Julian  and Stuart on the south side of the ditch of the Roman road in Trench 4C shown in Figure 3. This surface was later interpreted as being possible demolition tumble from a building south of the Roman road. Not long after in Trench 4B Paula, Geoff and Karen discovered the southeast facing linear return of the building foundations shown in Figure 4, the back wall of which was first seen in trench 4A. Also in Trench 4B were finds of glass, animal bone and pottery within deposits outside this building which will give a good indication of domestic occupation activity near this roadside building. 

Elsewhere on the site the rest of the team focused on completing the excavation and recording of features within the other trenches in readiness for the final day of excavation the next day. A sondage in trench 2 showed that the final cobbled surface to be revealed was constructed on natural clay/gravel bringing work in trench 2 to a close.