Part of a series of bulletins from the BAS excavations at Wickham HouseFollow the project on our YouTube channel

Attendees: Stuart, Julian, Lindsey, Philip, Ben, Doug, Mark, Sofia, Nigel B, Nigel S, Emily, Tim L, James P, Thalia, Carrollanne, Jean and Keith 

In Trench 15 Tim L and James focused on bringing the plan up to date, whilst Jean and Sofia continued to excavate the slot at the north of the trench to see if the northerly extent of the lane (predicted to be visible by the geophys) could be revealed. Jean quickly discovered a small fragment of the rim of a fine Roman glass vessel which was very much the “find of the day” and will be of much interest to our glass specialist…

In Trench 16 Stuart and Lindsey started work to excavate a slot across the dark deposit at the south of the masonry wall to investigate whether this could be an area of burning. The objective of this slot is to test whether this masonry structure could be a flue of a possible corn drier or furnace? Also in Trench 16 Emily excavated and recorded a posthole, whilst Ben, Nigel B, Mark and Doug opened a new area of the trench over another anomaly identified by the Ground Penetrating Radar geophysics survey in the first week of the excavation which it is hoped will provide further clues to the function of the features exposed to date in this area of the site…

In Trench 17 much of the day was also spent recording a detail plan of the deposit of large flints, pottery and bone revealed earlier in the week, completing context sheets and photographing. However Thalia’s and Julian’s patience was rewarded with the discovered of a radiate coin as shown in Figure 5.

The geophysics survey to the southeast of the excavation continued with Philip, Carrollanne, Nigel S, Nigel B and Mark with a respectable eleven new grid squares being added during the course of the day. The survey image now shows clear evidence of rectilinear structures along the Roman road in this area demonstrating the extent of the roadside settlement.