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

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Attendees: Philip R, Nick, Stuart, Lindsey, Martin, Andrew R, Phil C, Jill, Julian, Tony, Stewart, Geoff, Fay, Margaret, Nigel B, Eric, Ben, John S, Tim H, Thalia, Garry and Keith 

Day #2 and Day #3 both saw amazing progress, but were also very similar – so I have combined the two updates. As for Day# 1 we had “team GPR” led by Philip collecting geophysics survey data using the Mala Ground Penetrating Radar, this time on the pasture we surveyed before Christmas with an earth resistance survey. Figure 1 shows “team GPR” in action. Philip will processing the data collected during this week over the long weekend, which will give us more information on where to open trenches to address our research questions. Watch this space…!

The earth resistance survey of the excavation site collected on day #1 didn’t reveal any new anomalies relating to the masonry wall discovered in the last week of season #1 – so we decided to revert to the “old school”/tried and tested method of re-opening Trench 4e and the test pit from 2025 where the masonry wall was recorded. This involved a lot of digging to remove the infill, but good progress was made by the end of Day#3 as can be seen in Figures 2 and 3. 

The layer of Terram fibre placed over the masonry wall prior to filling in Trench 4e provided a clear marker protecting the archaeology revealed in 2025. This will allow us to quickly pick up where we left off last year. New archaeology, possibly associated with the wall, was also revealed in the south of the trench where it was extended. Depending on the new insights revealed by the GPR survey, this trench will be further extended in the coming week to reveal more of the wall and nearby features associated with it.

In Trench 15 located across the intersection of the Roman road/lane next to “building #3”, good progress was also made. By the end of Day #3 the first hints of the surface of the Roman road were starting to appear, and the overburden revealed three late Roman nummi coins. As these artefacts were found in different locations and recorded as “small finds” within Trench 15, they were not thought to be associated (i.e. part of a single deposit), but part of the wide spread of Late Roman period coins found by metal detectorists across this pasture over many years as recorded on the Portable Antiquities Scheme. Work will continue next week to carefully expose the archaeological horizon using the sections recorded nearby in 2025.

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

Follow the project on our YouTube channel

Attendees: Philip R, Phil C, Eric, Andrew H, James, Geoff, Eric, Garry, Thalia, Tasha, Millie, Sophia, Fay, John S, Julian, Jill, Martin and Keith

The nine month since were last on site excavating at Wickham House have flown by – a blur of post-ex analysis of artefacts and drafting the interim stratigraphic analysis of the archaeology revealed in the 2025 season. As many of you will have seen from presentation given, the site we are working has phases of occupation dating to the Early/Late Roman and the Medieval Periods, with at least two Roman period buildings – and a large Medieval building location on top of the Roman road. The initial focus of the 2026 season excavation are to better define the morphology, function and dating of the Roman period buildings and how they interacted with the nearby Roman road, the lane heading to the north and the industrial areas discovered to the north on the site in 2025. A secondary focus will be to better understand the morphology, function and dating of the Medieval building.

Once we had arrived on site, work soon got underway after Philip had used the GPS device to mark out the first of the two trenches to be opened this week on top of the intersection of the Ermin Street Roman road and lane branching to the north. The turves were removed and work started on removing the overburden as can be seen in Figure 2. Work progressed during the day as can be seen in Figure 3, but by the end of the afternoon the archaeological horizon had not reached, so work will continue tomorrow…

Elsewhere on the site two teams of volunteers were busy undertaking geophysics surveys. Geoff was leading a team working on repeating the high resolution earth resistance survey in the east of the site as seen in Figure 4 to see if ground conditions were moist enough to reveal details not seen the survey taken in 2025 when conditions were very dry.

Another team of volunteers was trying out the Ground Penetrating Radar survey device being trailed by the Society. Philip soon got the GPR device integrated with the GPS device and data was collected across a 40m x 40m area was surveyed using this new geophysics tool as shown in Figure 5. Work will continue into the evening to post-process both datasets to help site the next trench to be opened across the masonry walls discovered in 2025…