Wickham House 2026 – Day #4 Blog (7th April)

Part of a series of bulletins from the BAS excavations at Wickham House

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Attendees: Chloe, James L, Jill, Paula, Lindsey, Nick, John M, Thalia, Millie, Stuart, Julian, Tim H, Celia, Debbie S, Geoff and Keith 

Much progress was made in Trench 16000 revealing the masonry wall first discovered in 2025. A ‘return’ heading to the southwest was revealed in the south of the trench, but the wall was still heading north-eastwards in the northern end of the trench at the end of the day. However the photographs in Figure 1 and 2 show the wall when cleaned up and the progress made today. The find of the day in Trench 16 was the belt hasp found be Stuart shown in Figure 3.

Figure 1. John and Julian revealing the ‘return’ of the masonry wall in Trench 16

The masonry wall consists of an inner and outer facing of large flings with a white lime mortar core and is about 0.6m wide. To date approximately 8m of the wall has been revealed. Whilst there has been a number of pieces of Samian pottery plus grey-ware/black-ware pottery found along the wall, the dating of the wall itself has not yet been determined.

Figure 2. A close up of the masonry wall in Trench 16
Figure 3. The coppery alloy belt fitting discovered in Trench 16

In Trench 15 work continued to locate the archaeological horizon for the Roman road ditch and the adjoining lane. Whist another nice coin find was revleaed in Figure 5, a numus dating to AD348-350, the upper levels of the road and lane features have yet to be located. Figure 4 shows the status by the end of Day #4, but further work remains to be done…

Figure 4. Progress in Trench 15 by the close of Day #4
Figure 5. Coin found by Lindsey in Trench 15 on Day #4.