{"id":13763,"date":"2026-05-13T16:43:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T15:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.berksarch.co.uk\/?p=13763"},"modified":"2026-05-14T08:57:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T07:57:23","slug":"wickham-house-2026-day-19-blog-12th-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.berksarch.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/wickham-house-2026-day-19-blog-12th-may\/","title":{"rendered":"Wickham House 2026 \u2013 Day #19 Blog (12th May)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Part of a series of bulletins from the\u00a0BAS excavations at Wickham House<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Follow the project on our\u00a0YouTube channel<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attendees:<\/strong> Julian, Geoff, Doug, Chloe, Debbie S, Paula, Michael, Millie, Merrill, Gordon, Nick, Jill and Keith <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Trench 15 Paula, Debbie, Millie and Michael continued excavating the two slots across the surface that were started the previous week, and by the end of the day were starting to see clear delineations in the surfaces revealed. These surfaces were allocated context numbers, recorded on context sheets, planned and photographed. There is still quite a bit of work still to be done to identify and correlate the features seen in this trench, but one again considerable progress was made\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Figure 1. Features being revealed by the team in Trench\u2026<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Building on the back of the \u201cheavy lifting\u201d in Trench 16 the previous week, Merrill, Gordon and Geoff set about cleaning the surfaces revealed, focusing on the flint walls of the eastern side of the corn drier\/malting shed. Finds discovered within the remaining parts of the surface above these features were carefully collected should they be needed for terminus ante quem<\/em> dating evidence. Jill spent the day carefully recording the section across the collapsed flue and updating the records of these contexts.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Figure 2. Jill, Geoff, Merrill and Gordon at work in Trench 16<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Just at the day\u2019s excavation was drawing to a close Julian discovered a silver denarius serratus close to the corn drier\/malting shed in Trench 16. This coin appears to date from around 82BC when it was minted by or in honour of the Praetor Antonius Balbus in Rome. The obverse shows the head of Jupiter (and the \u201cSC\u201d mint mark), and the reverse shows the goddess Victory driving a quadriga while holding a palm leaf. The coin is well worn, suggesting a long \u201cuse life\u201d prior to being deposited, but whether we will be able to determine how this Late Roman Republican coin came to be deposited in Wickham remains to be seen. However, this is the earliest find discovered on this site to date, and for this area of West Berkshire is an unusual artefact to be discovered in an archaeological context.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Figure 3. The silver denarius revealed in Trench 16<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In both Trench 15 and 16 much of the work today was spent recording, planning, sectioning and photographing the newly revealed features \u2013 and also completing\/correcting\/augmenting the records previously made to ensure the data collected is as complete and correct as possible. This consolidation of trench records will continue to be a key focus for both trenches for the next couple of days.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Figure 4. Jill and Millie updating trench records<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Meanwhile in Trench 17 Doug, Chloe, Nick and Julian continued to excavated the roadside midden deposit revealing bone, pottery and industrial waste. This evidence will be rich source of data to characterise the lives of the inhabitants of this settlement, as well as those travelling along Ermin Street, during the Roman period.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Figure 5. Chloe, Doug, Nick and Julian at work in Trench 17<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
\n
\"\"
Figure 6. Some of today\u2019s finds from Trench 17 <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part of a series of bulletins from the\u00a0BAS excavations at Wickham House Follow the project on our\u00a0YouTube channel Attendees: Julian, Geoff, Doug, Chloe, Debbie S, Paula, Michael, Millie, Merrill, Gordon, Nick, Jill and Keith  In Trench 15 Paula, Debbie, Millie and Michael continued excavating the two slots across the surface that were started the previous … Continue reading Wickham House 2026 \u2013 Day #19 Blog (12th May)<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-upcoming-event"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.berksarch.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.berksarch.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.berksarch.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.berksarch.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.berksarch.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13763"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.berksarch.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13792,"href":"https:\/\/www.berksarch.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13763\/revisions\/13792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.berksarch.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.berksarch.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.berksarch.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}