Wickham House 2026 – Day #7 Blog (14th April)

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

Attendees: Thalia, Jill, Nigel R, Janet R, Stuart, Julian, Martin, Philip, Millie, Tess, Alessa, Celia, Paula, Jean, Doug, Geoff and Keith 

The initial post-survey processing of the Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) data collected at the start of the project was completed over the weekend. Based on this initial assessment, Philip and Keith identified three areas on the site being excavated with rectilinear anomalies aligned with the Roman Road for further investigation. Today Alessa, Nigel and Julian opened the first of these trenches as seen in Figure 1. The GPR suggested that the archaeological horizon in this area begins at a depth of 0.6m, which was almost reached by the end of the day. Work will continue tomorrow in this trench – and possibly in the other trenches to correlate the GPR survey anomalies with archaeology present in these selected areas.

Figure 1. Alessa, Nigel R and Julian opening Trench 17 over a GPR anomaly

In Trench 15 Jill, Paula, Doug and Jean continued to reveal the surface of the fill of the northly ditch of the Ermin Street Roman road close to where it intersects with the lane branching from Ermin Street to the north. By the end of the day the first hints of the agger of the lane were emerging, so tomorrow promises to see the intersection fully revealed. As seen in Trench 4c in 2025, the fill of the road ditch in this area appears to be full of building rubble containing Roman period pottery and CBM. Figures 2 and 3 shows the Trench 15 team hard at work – and relaxing during a well earned tea break!

Figure 2. Paula, Jill, Jean and Doug revealing the surface of the  fill of the Ermin Street road ditch…
Figure 3 …and taking a well-earned rest!

In Trench 16 Stuart, Martin, Tess, Millie and Thalia started by recording, planning and photographing the surfaces revealed to the north of the masonry wall footings as shown in Figure 4. Having completed this recording, this surface was began to be removed, but as yet the continuation of the masonry footings (or the cut of its construction trench) have yet to be identified. Work will continue tomorrow to determine whether a ‘return’ at the north end of the masonry wall can be located…

Figure 4 Careful cleaning at the north end of Trench 16 prior to recording by Stuart, Millie, Martin, Tess and Thalia

Despite many interesting sherds of Roman period pottery, CBM and metal objects being discovered during today’s excavation, the “find of the day” was once again made by Julian within the overburden of Trench 17 – well preserved radiate coin of Tetricus II!