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

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Attendees: Kate, Claire, Julian, James P, Ben C, Geoff, Philip, Phil C, Martin, Stewart, Jill, John H, Phil C, Tim L, Doug, Nigel B and Keith 

We are now 1/3 of the way through this season’s excavation, and looking back we have already made a huge amount of progress. This has been partly due to the excellent weather, which has so far given us a 100% days of good weather for planned survey days – long may it continue! 

In Trench 15 Martin, Claire, Geoff, Stewart, Phil C, John and Nigel B continued to clean back the surfaces to the northeast of where the lane intersects the Roman road. Having reached the archaeological horizon for most of this area, Roman period finds of pottery and CBM quickly began to emerge together with nails and a few pieces of glass. Work will continue next week to better define the surface of the lane, the surface of the fill of the lane ditch, the occupation surfaces – and the southwest corner of the building identified in 2025 a few meters to the northeast.

In Trench 16 some great progress was made by James P, Tim L, Kate and Ben. Having established yesterday that the masonry feature was most likely a flue – probably of a corn drier, Kate continued to clean up the pit at the southwest end of the flue into which the flue had collapsed leaving a deposit of chalk/flint. Meanwhile James cleaned up the section through the flue opened in 2025 to remove the block sample shown in Figure 3 which clearly shows the collapsed mortar upper surface of the flue onto the bed of ash lying beneath. 

At the north end of the Trench 16, Tim was focusing on defining the possible beam slot on the same alignment as the flue to assess whether this was part of the corn drier built on top of the flue, or whether this feature was part of an unrelated building. The north end of the flue does not appear to have the commonly seen “T shape” of many Roman period corn drier flues, so Ben was exploring a possible return to the southeast to assess whether this flue has the “U shaped” morphology…

In Trench 17, having lifted the deposit of flints to reveal a midden deposit beneath, Julian continued with a sondage to establish how far below the surface of the midden natural can be found and to establish whether the anomalies seen on the Ground Penetrating Radar at a depth of 0.80m to 1.00m could be located. So far the bottom of the midden has not been located, but continued to reveal many items of pottery dating to the 2^nd-3^rd centuries AD, animal bone and slag.

It was the final day of the geophysics survey for this summer season at Wickham House, but Philip will continue working behind the scenes to process the huge amount of data that has been collected by “team geophys” and identifying further targets for us to investigate as we close in on our research objectives. The final day collected a highly respectable 14 grid squares, and the draft results are shown below in Figure 7.  Once again, the geophys surveys have proved invaluable in homing us in straight onto interesting archaeology – and it will be interesting to reflect on the additional benefits that Ground Penetrating Radar might add to the BAS geophys armoury moving forward…

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

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Attendees: Stuart, Julian, James P, Ben C, Gill, Emily, Sofia, Geoff, Carrollanne, Lindsey, Philip, Phil C, Martin, Andrew R, Peter and Keith 

In Trench 15 Martin, Keith and Geoff focussed on extending the horizon of archaeology across the northern end of the trench where the southwest corner of a Roman period timber framed building is projected to extend. The northeast corner of this building was discovered nearby in 2025,  and a key objective for this season is to understand the relationship between this building and the intersection of the lane/Roman road. Not only did this involve several hours of hard mattocking, but cleaning the surface revealed and sieving using a trowel. 

The volume of spoil created from Trench 15 also kept Julian busy during the breaks keeping up his regular “patrol” of the spoil heap looking for metal artefacts overlooked! Back in Trench 17 Julian and Carrollanne manged to removed the layer of flints lying on top of a deposit of “dark earth” containing Roman pottery, bone and slag. Tomorrow the plan is to remove the “dark earth” in spits to assess whether there further archaeology lying beneath as predicted by the Ground Penetrating Radar…

Today was a busy day in Trench 16! Ben completed recording the pebble layer revealed the day before and began a sondage to explore the deposits beneath the pebbles to assess how far features seen to the west of Trench 16 extended to the east. 

Stuart and Lindsey continued to explore the area of possible burning at the southwest end of the masonry structure, whilst James cleaned up the slot across the masonry structure excavated in 2025. Whilst the presence of a furnace in the southwest has still to be confirmed, James and Stuary revealed evidence of the collapsed flue in the section which now strongly suggests that the masonry structure revealed is part of a flue. The flint shown in Figure 5 not only has been exposed to heat but has a layer of plaster and a thick covering of ash – and may have been part of the now collapsed roof of the flue.

Emily and Sofia cleaned up the surface to the north of Trench 16 revealing a linear cut of a possible construction trench aligned with the masonry flue, whilst Phil C explored a possible return of the flue to the northeast.

To the southeast of the excavation site, Philip, Andrew R, Gill and Peter continued with the high resolution (0.5m) earth resistance geophysics survey to assess the extent of roadside settlement to the southeast along Ermin Street.

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

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Attendees: Stuart, Julian, Thalia, Millie, Ben, Kira, Jean, Jill, Malcolm, Geoff, Carrollanne, Lindsey, Philip, Phil C, Martin, Debbie C, Jill, Tim L, Tim H and Keith 

In Trench 15 work again focussed on removing topsoil from the north end of the trench to reveal the occupation surfaces west of the lane. The mattocking/wheelbarrowing proved a useful means of keeping warm in the strong northerly wind! Keith and Martin updated the plans and context sheets so that the trench records were up to date, and Carrollanne discovered a beautiful Roman melon bead AND part of a Roman copper-alloy nail cleaner as seen in Figure 2. Both these finds are amazing – melon beads are particularly associated with military sites as they are believed to have been worn by soldiers as tokens of ‘good luck’. These finds not only emphasis the role of Ermin Street as a military supply route from Silchester to Carleon, but the nail cleaner also speaks to the large number of finds from the local civilian population of Roman Wickham.

Meanwhile in Trench 16 Stuart and Lindsey continued the excavation of the pit at the southwest end of the masonry wall to investigate if could have been an a area of burning that might indicate a possible industrial function of the masonry wall, however further areas of the chalk mortar were revealed together with Roman colour-coated pottery and a fragment of a shale bracelet – so further work is required to explain this complex series of deposits. 

At the north end of Trench 16 Jean and Tim L were looking for features identified on the GPR survey. At the other end of the trench Kira and Ben revealed a new horizon of archaeology that it is also hoped will shed further light on the structures being revealed in this trench…

In Trench 17 Millie, Thalia and Julian started to remove the upper layer of the flint deposits revealed last week, that now appears to have been sitting directly on top of the deposits of ‘dark earth’ rich in pottery/bone artefacts seen on the west side of this trench. Work stopped to record, photograph and take levels – and will continue tomorrow to identify archaeological features beneath to assess whether they correlate with the GPR anomaly seen at this depth and location when surveyed at the start of this season’s excavation. Millie also found her first Roman coin in context – an eroded 4^th Century AD numus! 

The geophysics phase of the project entered its final week of data collection. Today Philip, Malcolm, Tim H, Phil C and Jill captured an impressive 12 grid squares of data. Today’s results show the Roman road start to fade from view as it heads northwest, but there are further hints of new rectilinear roadside features emerging that will add new insights into the extent and possible functions of this roadside settlement…

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

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Attendees: Stuart, Julian, Lindsey, Philip, Doug, Nigel B, James P, Martin, Debbie, Carol, Phil U, Jill, Nick, Rod, Tim H and Keith 

In Trench 15 Debbie, James P and Martin  put in a huge amount of work, with Debbie patiently building on the work started the previous week to define the intersection of the Roman road with the lane branching to the north. By the end of the day the delineation between the two surfaces had been defined, with a clear interruption of the roadside ditch filled with building rubble seen to the southeast as seen in Figure 1. Nearby also in Trench 15, Martin and James P removed a significant amount of overburden in a quest to locate the surface of the lane to the northeast of where Debbie was working. By the end of the day this had been accomplished, and they were rewarded with the discovery of a (possibly “barbarous”) copper-alloy numus coin as seen in Figure 2. Having defined the Roman road/ditch and the lane, work will continue next week to determine if the lane ditch seen in 2025 extends to the south – and then to locate the horizon of occupation for the building discovered in this area in 2025…

In Trench 16 Stuart and Lindsey carried on with the first of the projects in this area to excavate a slot across a dark deposit discovered at the south end of the masonry wall. Their objective was to see if this was an area of burning that might suggest that the masonry structure was part of a corn drier or furnace. By the end of the day it was clear that this deposit was shallow, and further areas of chalk and large flints were discovered beneath – however work will continue in this area early next week to explore the newly revealed contexts in more detail…

Elsewhere in Trench 16 Tim H and Rod, and Susan, Phil U, Doug and Carol worked on opening up two new areas to investigate features as yet only partially revealed. Both areas were down to the archaeological horizon by the end of the day with many finds being discovered, mostly from the Roman period.

In Trench 17 Nick and Julian were excavating two contexts of “dark earth” rich in Roman period pottery and bone deposits as seen in Figure 5. So far the large flints seen in the trench appear to be placed directly onto the “dark earth”, whereas the Ground Penetrating Radar  is predicting a rectilinear feature some 0.2m beneath the current limit of excavation… Work next week will hopefully reveal the archaeology  and hopefully correlate with the geophysics anomaly identified in this location. 

At the end of week #4 of the excavation the size of the spoil heap in Figure 6 speaks of the progress made so far in each of the three trenches opened, and the research objectives for this season’s excavation are already being addressed. The earth resistance survey to the southeast of the excavation also continues to make great progress as shown in Figure 7, where Philip, Nigel B, Geoff and Jill added a further 11 squares to the survey grid.  So far rectilinear features can be seen on both sides of the Roman road adding considerably to our knowledge of the extent and morphology of this roadside settlement.

Not only is work continuing apace in the three trenches and the geophysics survey, but our trusty team of volunteers from Marcham have started work cleaning and sorting the finds made in the first four weeks of excavation. This team have many years of experience of post-excavation analysis of the Roman settlement at Frilsham, so it is a privilege to have them working with us (albeit remotely) on the excavation at Wickham. Figure 8 shows Sheila, Ricky, Carol, Simon and Murray hard at work cleaning and sorting our finds, and Figure 9 shows a number of the finds made to date post cleaning. The team will be sorting finds by context/type ready for post-excavation analysis to begin in earnest later in the year…

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

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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.

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

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Attendees: Stuart, Julian, Lindsey, Paula, Chloe, Jill, Malcolm, John H, Geoff, Philip, Millie, Thalia, and Keith 

In Trench 15 it is looking like the fill of the Roman road ditch with large flints/building rubble underlies the entire length of the intersection of the area where the lane joins the road from the north. This rubble is covered by a thin layer of gravel. This suggests that the lane was constructed in the 4^th century AD as in 2025 a coin of Magentius (AD351-351) was found beneath this rubble fill. This prompted a change in strategy, so Paula, Millie and Malcolm moved to the north end of the Trench 15 to clean up the cobbled surface, record it and get ready to excavate a slot across it to evaluate how the southern end of the lane relates to the slot across the lane excavated in 2025. Good progress was made, but there is still plenty to do later in the week as seen in Figure 1.

In Trench 16 the focus for today was to define the northern end of the masonry wall discovered in week #1 which was undertaken by Lindsey, Geoff and John H whilst Stuart completed the recording of contexts excavated  to date in this trench. Good progress was made in the defining and cleaning this feature as well as finds of glass from a storage bottle, a small fragment of glass from a fine vessel, pottery and a small piece of wall plaster. However it is still not clear whether this a a ‘return’ of the wall heading to the southeast or just the ‘end’ of the substantial masonry structure to the south of Trench 16. Figure 2 shows the progress made by the end of the day, but again more work is needed to before a comprehensive interpretation can be made.

Trench 17 again got off to an exciting start with Thalia discovering a Roman coin as seen in Figure 4. Early comparisons suggest that this coin is a copper-alloy numus showing an “Emperor standing with globe’ (SPES REI PUBLICE) on the reverse which probably dates to the mid-4^th Century AD. The focus in Trench 17 was cleaning the surface of flint/sarsen rubble ready for recording, which also revealed an area rich in pottery and bone deposits in the west of the trench. 

To the southeast of the excavation site, the earth resistance geophysics survey continued with Philip, Jill, Chloe and John H. The results from today’s work reveals further details of the roadside building identified last week on the north side of the Roman road. Work will continue to complete this survey grid during by the end of this week.

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

Attendees: Nigel R, Janet R, Stuart, Julian, Philip, Phil U, Martin, Tess, Alessa, Kate, Millie, Thalia, Carol, Stewart and Keith 

Day 9 got off to an exciting start in Trench 17 with the discovery of a bone hairpin by Nigel shown in Figure 1. Initial comparisons suggest that this may be a ‘Crummy Type 3a’ hairpin dating to the early 3^rd century AD which aligns with the radiate coin found nearby within Trench 17 by Julian. Once these finds had been recorded, work in Trench 17 continued to reveal a spread of large flints at 0.60m depth consistent with the Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) anomaly at the same depth. Once this surface has been recorded work will continue next week to explore the stratigraphy below and compare with the GPR anomalies identified. 

In Trench 16 Stuart, Stewart, Millie, Thalia and Tess continued exploring the masonry wall and the surfaces revealed to the north. By the end of the day Stewart had revealed what promised to be the return of the masonry wall to the southeast – and many finds were made to the north of this feature including pottery, bone and iron slag.

In Trench 15 Janet, Martin, Phil, Carol and Kate continue the definition of the northeast facing ditch of the Ermin Street Roman road and exploring the stratigraphy of its intersection with the lane branching to the north that was excavated in 2025. 

Work continued with the earth resistance geophysics in the southeast of the pasture led by Philip. This high resolution (0.5m) survey is starting to reveal new rectilinear features aligned with the Roman road previously unseen in past low resolution (1.0m) surveys. These new insights into the extent of this roadside settlement and the morphology of structures not only adds context to interpretation of discoveries within the trenches, but facilitates planning for future phases of excavation.

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

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Attendees: Nigel R, Janet R, Gill, Tony, Stuart, Julian, Philip, Ben, Tess, Alessa, Paula, Jean, Kate, James P and Keith 

With rain forecast for the afternoon, work in the trenches got off to a brisk start. In Trench 15 Paula, Kate, Jean and Janet continued to define the fill of the Roman road ditch, and by the end of the day appeared to have identified the intersection of the lane adjoining the Roman road from the north as shown in Figure 1.

In Trench 16 James excavated the northern extent of the masonry wall that has so far been revealed, and in the process discovered a copper alloy ‘barbarous radiate’ coin. Keith started the detailed planning of this horizon of archaeology, which will be completed tomorrow with levels and photographs once James’ area has been cleaned. At the northern end of Trench 16 Stuart and Tess continued to explore the ‘dark earth’ deposits where the masonry wall is no longer to be seen, and in the process discovered a nice sherd of Central Gaul Samian pottery featuring a leaf motif.

Philip, Ben, Tony and Gill carried on with the high resolution earth resistance geophysics survey of the far southeast of the pasture where it is hoped new light will be shed on the extent of roadside settlement to the southeast of where excavations are taking place. In Trench 17 Alessa, Julian and Nigel continued to explore the archaeology of a rectilinear geophysics anomaly identified by GPR a couple of weeks ago. So far this has revealed a horizon of large flints that today was cleaned, recorded and photographed.

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.

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!

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…

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!

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

Attendees: Lindsey, Dee, Debbie C, John M, Thalia, Nigel, Carol, Phil U, Stuart, Stewart, Julian, Martin, Susanne, Philip, James L, Chloe L, Doug and Keith 

The day started with cleaning at the south end of Trench 16000 to begin the process of recording and planning for the archaeological horizon revealed over the past two week of the excavation. The results of the detailed cleaning were impressive with some different contexts being identified  in this area of the trench, as can be seen in Figures 1 and 2. These include the two faces of the masonry wall and its lime/chalk mortar core that can clearly be seen (in the section across the wall excavated and recorded in 2025), a large pit, gravel fills of the construction trench and a number of gravel surfaces.

The overcast weather was ideal for photography, so this element of the recording process was prioritised. However, John, Thalia and Susanne began the process of planning and completion of context sheets. Completion of this recording will be continued next week before further excavation is initiated.

At the northern end of Trench 16000 the alignment revealed to the south was projected to where it is hoped the masonry footings continue, and possibly continue along a return heading to the northeast or southeast. The initial GPR survey images of this area of the site have not yet been able to offer a clear indication of the morphology of the wall in this area – so tried and tested “old school” methods were applied by Martin and Stuart as seen in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Martin and Stuart project the line of the masonry wall  northwards in Trench 16

In Trench 15000 Lindsey, Dee and Debbie continued to clean the gravel surface revealed earlier in the week. A sondage revealed the level of the fill of the Roman road’s ditch which was extended towards the likely agger surface of the road in the south of the trench. Now the level of the archaeological horizon has been established, work will continue to the west to define the rest of the Roman road, its northerly ditch and the lane which will be planned and recorded in the coming week. The extent of the spoil heap after only two weeks of excavation in Figure 4 shows the energy that has been brought to bear by the team of volunteers during the past six days of excavation. Now that the first objective of revealing the archaeology is within sight, projects will be assigned next week to address the goals of the research questions for this site in the week’s head.

In addition to the excavation work, Philip, supported by Phil U, James L, Nigel and Stewart, undertook high resolution earth surveys to assess the archaeological potential for further settlement alongside the Roman road to the southeast of the site. The planned surveys will add further insight into the full extent of this roadside settlement and the functions taking place during different periods of occupation.