Year 5. We missed a year but we are back! Scroll to the bottom to start…..

Friday 27th August To all Woodgate archaeologists professional and amateur, I thank you for a wonderful three weeks. It feels as if Covid was cast aside and our lives were almost back to normal. The fun and laughter were infectious. People meeting people not seen since 2019 was a sheer joy. Thanks as always to Martin for guiding us. And yet it all seemed to happen without incident. People happy to dig or sieve or record or clean finds, as if we had carried on from 2019 without the missed year. I hope the person who wrote this will forgive me, but this is a quotation from a letter received today…’I have listened to lots of volunteers who have said that this dig has brought them out into the world again-and brought back some normality to their lives’ .

So we may not have found great riches beneath the soil, although we did find many features that help put together the history of Woodgate, but what we did find is the wonderful camaraderie of so many amazing ARP volunteers, just quite simply happy to dig holes to sieve soil and enjoy the wonderful scenery and tranquility of being beside the lake at Woodgate. A quick message from Sable who was very sorry not to be her normal self this year. She has suffered stressful times, but is recovering well and asks me to convey her love to you all. And thank you for the treats!! I am sure she will be back to digging holes and finding pottery very soon.

So may I please finish with a very heartfelt thank you to all who have taken part this year, and a special thank you to the generous sponsors of ARP. Sheila, Diana, Julie and Jan you are amazing and this would not happen without you. Raise a glass to next year when we open three trenches in the kitchen garden, close to kiln 2 and another where we have been this year. Sorry but I have to admit I’ve shed a tear writing this. So thank you. Peter.

What a great final day, the sun shone, sieving continued and we welcomed more visitors to the site. If you have come during this week, thank you so much, “getting the community into holes” is our strap line and we may not have had you in holes this year, but many of you came to see us which has been so good. Colin, Deborah, Nikki and Wendy, thank you taking people round, and Jan and Julie in the Finds marquee for talking through some of our finds.

Several who have been involved these three weeks were able to come along on this last day to help tidy up and move things back to the portacabin. It is always emotional at the end of the dig, more so this year, when we think what we have been through this last two years, but here we have been, in 2021, back together and learning more about the history of Woodgate. We will be back next August!!

Thursday 26th August It was more like October than August on the field today, gone were shorts and t-shirts and on came the trousers and jumpers! But we were still there and we had people come and see us, so thank you all for braving the weather. Martin joined us and gave an interesting talk about excavating and what has been happening here at Woodgate. One more day to go and hopefully the sun will shine down on us.

Wednesday 25th August Another great day welcoming visitors to our dig site, today we had several including a group from Stretch Fitness and Sheringham History Society. Julie Curl was also with us today and was able to talk to them about the various creature prints found on tiles, something that in the commercial world is not possible due to time constraints. We have none of these and we are indebted to Julie who supports us through the year – and provided delicious cheesy bone biscuits today as well! Thank you for all the donations and for those during the week who have signed up as Friends. We appreciate every penny.

Tuesday 24th August It was a beautiful sunny morning when we arrived early on the field today and we never cease to be grateful to Peter for allowing us, for three weeks of the year, to walk around his private land and dig holes! Sieving continues, with pot from yesterday washed and looking really good and today Carole found a lovely piece of flint. Thank you to all who came and visited today, became Friends and supported us in any way. A special hello and thank you, too, to all from Wroxham U3A.

Don’t forget, you can come along this week at 1000, 1130 or 1330 for an hour’s visit to hear what we have been doing.

Monday 23rd August No Martin or digging this week, but sieving is continuing and finds are being found, including a lovely piece of Roman pot rim and two or three others too from the same pile, by Colin and Frances. Thank you to those of you who visited, became Friends, donated and/or bought something. We appreciated every penny we take. If you’ve not yet been, remember we are there all week, come along at 1000, 1130 or 1330.

Friday 20th August Our work is done, the trenches are hushed and the fever of digging is over. But what a wonderful two weeks we have had. Never before in a single trench have so many clay extractions pits been found by so few! If the digging at Woodgate goes on for another twenty years, this will have been their finest hour. Ok I must stop being silly. So thank you to everyone who has been involved in any way with year five of ARP. Having been shut away from the world for 18 months or so, this has been a wonderful reunion of friends, of fellow diggers, of people who like to get their hands dirty and discover the amazing history beneath our feet at Woodgate. Digging, sieving, cleaning, washing, recording or simply watching it all unfold, the fact is that you have been here taking part in what is really a gathering of like-minded people having fun.

Lovely cake Frances, very thoughtful of you and James. Super sponge! And at long last Martin is able to eat some Schute cake! Today was really just a morning of final cleaning back and taking samples for testing. Martin was taking photos and using GPS to map the features and trench boundaries. The sieves were again in action and plenty more finds retrieved. We are here again next week so anyone who wants to can get on the sieves. The more we do the better. We had our final talk from Martin on all we have discovered in the last two weeks and how it helps filling in the jigsaw of archaeology at Woodgate. We can now look forward to three trenches next year, and hopefully get back to normality and asking everyone to come along and take part.

Thank you to Old Beanz Productions for filming us, can’t wait to see the finished product. Finally my thanks to you all, but especially to Martin for leading us, to Jan for the so important task of bagging and tagging every find. And to Diana and Sheila for making this happen. Many many hours through every week between each dig each year, making sure that all is in order, emailing reports and monthly newsletters, sorting dig rotas, organising loos, understanding the generator to supply the tea wagon with electricity, fund raising, the list is endless. The biggest obstacle in their way is me. Changing my mind, how about doing this or doing that. Perhaps we could….. I’m sure you get the picture. Thank you everyone. Do sleep well tonight. Only eleven months and we start again….. Finding a Villa maybe!!! Peter.

Thursday 19th August We are nearly finished, can’t quite believe it. Just about the end of ARP 2021 our year five of digging. But fear not, at the current rate of progress we will still be here in 2060…. Well I won’t be!! Alice, Henry, Gemma and Olivia will be the veterans overseeing the dig, telling the younger members about the old days at Woodgate, and the very eccentric chap who always wore shorts but had a lovely dog called Sable. Martin will turn up occasionally with Dan, whose dreadlocks will be near his ankles, to reminisce about the kilns and the villa which we never found! However the final resting place of Boudicca was an unexpected bonus! And the Saxon ship burial to the south of the lake was found by accident when Henry decided to dig a test pit! Ok I’m gabbling again. But what is wrong with a dream for the future? So a very brief resume of the day.

Trench 1 was very nearly completely excavated, with more Roman pot appearing. Ralph dug a small circular feature in the ditch, which was where someone threw the remains of their Roman BBQ takeaway. Pot and burnt flint half a McDonalds burger and a well preserved can of Coca Cola were the only finds! Well maybe not the burger and the coke. In trench 2 the two sections through the huge, and I mean HUGE, extraction pit were finished. They show two separate cuts, where the Romano British were digging out the clay to make their pots. Permission was granted for the extraction pot team to find the rest of their pot in extraction pit 3. And after several barrow loads a piece of the same pot appeared. Very careful removal involving a shovel, lifted the remains, and Gemma was asked to excavate the soil block. Only two more sherds were found, but we have two more sherds to add to the half pot retrieved last Friday.

Dr John Davies visited again today, along with Chris Rudd and Elizabeth Cottam who are coin specialists. They are all so impressed with the fact that we have a huge area to dig, revealing the historic landscape of Woodgate. Martin, Dan, John Davies and many other archaeological experts keep telling us that the fact we can dig the whole site is such a rarity, and is so very important in understanding how people lived through the ages. Most archaeological digs are confined to areas for building, with the associated angry developer wanting digging to finish ASAP. We have the luxury of taking our time, and revealing the way our predecessors lived over the last few thousand years.

Thank you to everyone who has helped today in any way today. And thank you to everyone involved in ARP for continuing to believe in the mad idea to dig holes! Please sleep well and see you all tomorrow for a final clean up and a trench side talk by Martin at about 2pm. Peter.

Wednesday 18th August So lovely to have Alice as our leader today. It was great to see you back with us taking the leading roll, having been a volunteer in our first few years. And a bit of a shock for Frances who had no idea her daughter was coming!! A secret well kept. So a big thank you Alice for helping us on our journey today, and it is wonderful to think that as an ARP volunteer a few years ago, you are now a professional archaeologist. Brilliant. So on to archaeology and trench 1.

Little more to report on yesterday. Colin and Donna were recording and drawing the last sections, before Martin has been taking final photos of each section. The digging of the remainder of the ditch has begun, with soil samples being taken for testing. We hope to be able to do the sieving ourselves. We are looking into buying or making the equipment, and then our volunteers can be taught how to take the samples for final analysis with a specialist. There is one more area of burning in the ditch which needs to be excavated tomorrow.

Moving on to the very busy trench 2, where we have 4 extraction pits, I think! The thought is they were clay pits dug for making the pottery to be fired in our kilns. There are now two sections being dug through the enormous feature in the west arm of the trench. Finds are few and far between but are nearly all small Roman pottery sherds. Frances, Gemma, Colin, Olivia and Zanna have been drawing and recording the features in trench 2, so for the first time since we began ARP, we are up to date with recording. Just showing how far we have progressed over the last 6 years. Well done to you all.

At the western end of trench 2 the ditch is still being excavated and as always a few more small sherds of Roman pot being found. The double ditch in the centre of the main arm of trench 2 is as we now know a Roman ditch with pottery in it, alongside a Victorian ditch with pottery in it. Alice Leftley pointed out that the Victorian ditch was probably dug mechanically. Using two traction engines with a cable attached between them, dragging a bucket of some sort to dig the ditch. The edge of the ditch is so perfectly straight and uniform, it could not have been hand dug. I wish I could find records in the house to show this happened. Perhaps I will… there are many estate records still to be looked at.

So again a huge thank you to everyone who has come along and braved the drizzle today. Thank you to Alice and Martin from Britannia. And thank you to the organisers, you do so much behind the scenes to make this work. I am forever in your debt. See you again tomorrow. Peter

Tuesday 17th August Damp! But as always the happy band of volunteers carry on regardless. You are all wonderful…..thank you. My morning was spent delivering plants and gardening goods around Norfolk. Came back, had lunch and things dried out. I was the lucky one!! Sable had stitches removed last evening, so she is a much happier girl today. Volunteers devised a way of collecting rain water from the marquee roof, to use for finds washing. Please see in the photos!!

So on to archaeology. I know we have not been blessed with finds this year, but that is the nature of evaluation trenches. What we have found are loads of features helping us to learn more about the historical landscape at Woodgate. As always the vast majority are Roman, but then we find the Victorian ditch cutting the Roman one. The extraction pits are new this year for Woodgate. So we now know where they were getting their clay from to make their pots.

Trench 1 is now completely dug. We have to finish recording, clean back and then the final photos. After that we can dig the remaining sections to hopefully find more dating evidence. In trench 2 at the eastern end yet another extraction pit was discovered. Gemma, Henry and Olivia excavated this with mattock and shovels. The sieved soil recovered one lovely flint blade and a small sherd of Roman pot. Sheila and Diana were taking environmental samples from the test pits next to the fire pit. These will be examined by a specialist to look for seeds and any small animal remains to give us an idea of the flora and fauna in the area 2000 years ago. Frances has been recording the parallel ditches with help from Gemma, Henry and Olivia.

The huge extraction pit in the western arm of trench 2 seems to have two different fills. The western most has far more finds in it, mostly very small sherds of Roman pot, found by sieving the sticky clay. Not an easy task!! Well done sievers. The eastern end of the pit has a far higher clay content and is almost impossible to sieve as the grids become blocked. The attached photos also show a lovely piece of iron slag, now washed and cleaned. Where is the bloomery?? Thank you as always for braving the elements. We have found so much more to add to the historic landscape of Woodgate and we know where to target excavation trenches in the future. See you all tomorrow. Peter

Monday 16th August Our second week has begun, with a few showers this morning, but not enough to deter the digging spirit. Henry spent the day gradually revealing the pot from the soil block lifted on Friday from the clay extraction pit in trench 2. About half of a pot was revealed, mostly in one piece, with three broken sherds. Where is the other half? As the pot was found very close to the section wall the chances are the rest of it is in the next section. So we will plead with Martin to let Henry dig the next section to find the remainder of his pot. Once photos and drawings have been taken…. Obviously!!

Donna was still digging her possible fire pit in trench 2, going deeper and deeper, perhaps it’s a post hole instead. Gemma dug a circular feature in trench 2 which turned out to be quite shallow. Not much in the way of dating evidence unfortunately. Work has also begun on the huge pit in the western arm of trench 2. I say huge as it is 5 metres in diameter. Another clay extraction pit we think, so maybe some more pots we hope. The large ditch at the western most part of trench 2 has started to be dug. Some lovely bits of pot coming out, mostly Roman but also a lovely piece of iron age. Well done Roger for finding that. Made Martin’s day as he loves the iron age!

Sieving continued and loads more small pieces of pottery appearing. One lovely piece of Nene valley ware. Thank you sievers, there is so much to find and I know it’s hard work. All the work in trench 1 was at the southern end, investigating the two ditches, the Roman one running North -South and the Victorian one running East-West. There were also two other features one quite shallow and the other still going down. Some Roman pot was found in both.

A special mention to the finds tent cleaners and sorters. Thank you for continuing with this very important work, making sure every single find is washed, correctly bagged and tagged. Thank you Jan, Maggie and Iona for running the show. I nearly forgot to mention that the Iron Age maybe Saxon pot found in the first extraction pit was in fact…….Roman!! Martin sent it to the pottery expert Andy, and yes it was Roman after all. Actually a good thing, as any other date would have been awkward to explain!

Just Aylsham magazine editor was here today. Alasdair spent about an hour listening to me running on about holes in the ground!! He did ask me why we do it. And my response was simply…. Look at these wonderful people enjoying a day in a field discovering the history of Woodgate. He really understood the wonderful camaraderie and buzz that you all give off. The peaceful setting, everyone taking part, the ceaseless chatter of friends and the enthusiasm you all give to digging holes and sieving soil. Which leads me on to say thank you to all of you, for making this happen. I feel so lucky to have this history beneath my feet and even more lucky to have so many lovely people here to investigate it and share it with. And so it is time for me to stop rabbiting on, and can’t wait to see you all tomorrow. So much to do and only four days to do it. Thank you all. Peter.

Friday 13th August…… THE MYSTERIES OF WOODGATE!A piece of pot with three possible date ranges, and a Roman ditch filled with Victorian rubbish! The last day of week 1 has of course been full of surprises. The pot sherd Martin found in the extraction pit the end of yesterday has been iron age, early Saxon and finally 10th/11th Century. I have no knowledge whatsoever on these things so will not make a call, but wait for the specialists to investigate. Any thoughts from anyone, would be fun to hear from you. The parallel ditches in trench 2 which we thought were part of a double ditch enclosure….. are not! Well maybe! But unlikely! The northern most ditch has Roman pot in it, the fill of the ditch is silty with sand and clay mix. The southern ditch no more than 1 metre away has Roman pot and lots of Victorian glass, pot and brick in it. The fill of the ditch looks like topsoil!!! The cut of the ditch is a dead straight line, a very distinct cut. And to top it all it reappears in trench 1 to the southern end. The same fill, the same width the same Victorian rubbish. I think I need to speak to Great Grandfather about this. We know he had the lake dug in the 1860s, where there was a water meadow previously. Was the ditch we have found something to with the digging of the lake?

In trench 1 the sections through the ditch are now complete, still finding Roman pottery. The features at the southern end are starting to be dug. Carole (with an E) and Neville discovered the Victorian ditch right at the end of trench 1. I hope we can try to understand what this ditch is all about before we finish next week. But if not Martin is already planning sections between trench 1 and 2 for future years.

The extraction pit in trench 2 has now been dug and recorded. There is more fill to dig, but we are now at the water table and the sides are starting to collapse. So an auger will be used next week to find the depth of this feature. The only dating evidence is the iron age, early Saxon, late Saxon piece of pot!!! Donna was digging a fire pit in trench 2 but it was very shallow. She found lots of burnt flint and charcoal but not really much to go on dating wise.

Sieving continued through the day, and hats off to all sievers this year as there are not many finds. But sieve on we must as it all helps with painting the picture of Woodgate through the ages. Something happened just before lunchbreak. There was a call on the radio that we should have a look in trench 2. Great news as Dr. John Davis and Dr. Tim Pestell from Norfolk Museums were here today and saw the excitement. Franz and Henry were digging the second extraction pit and found a pot lodged against the wall of the pit. About 150cm below the surface. This was very carefully removed in a soil block to try to prevent it crumbling into bits. The general thought is that it is Roman, but we must carefully extract it from the clay soil on Monday and get a better idea of its age. Julie Curl is going to guide Henry on the very gentle removal of this wonderful find, bearing in mind that there may have been something in the pot. Thank you to Julie for coming to help us today. Her knowledge of all things archaeological are mind blowing. Please go and see her if you can. There are so many things you can learn just by watching her clean up an animal bone, or look at a bit of Roman tile.

Talking of Roman tiles, Julie has been looking at the Roman roof tile we found whilst stripping back last week. She has found animal footprints, including newt, rodent and pine martin on the one piece of tile. I know I have gone on about this before, but the fact we have footprint proof on fired clay tiles, we know what animals were rummaging around at Woodgate a couple of thousand years ago. This is why community archaeology is so important. We are not being pushed by developers so they can build their houses, we can take our time, look at everything and hopefully miss nothing. I am as always humbled by the turnout each day of so many wonderful people who simply love archaeology. The buzz, chatter and excitement when something has been found is infectious. My thanks again to all of you who make this happen. And a special thank you to Martin for leading us this week. You are a star. You help us, lead us and answer endless questions with a smile. It was lovely to see your family with us digging holes and finding special stones and pretty pot. I hope you can all have a relaxing weekend. See you all again on Monday. Peter.

The recordings taken by Radio Norfolk on Wednesday went out on the Chris Goreham radio show this morning in two parts. The wind was blowing, so apologies if the sound is not as clear as it might be for part 1!

Thursday 12th August Welcome to day 4 of ARP, I can’t believe we are nearly at the end of the first week. I have to admit that after stripping back with the mechanical digger I was concerned at the lack of finds and features. Thankfully we are accumulating finds and cleaning back has revealed more features, so I am now worried that we might not finish by the end of next week!! Well this is Woodgate archaeology and it never disappoints. What this means is our evaluation trenches are revealing their secrets of the past and will give us a guide as to where to dig in the future….. probably everywhere! So I will begin with Trench 1.

Martin tells us the V-shape profile is classic Roman and everyone seems to agree that it is a drainage ditch, taking water off the fields towards the stream. About 30 Roman pottery sherds have been found in digging the sections, all with worn edges, so not really suitable for dating evidence. But of course a bit of pot rolling around in a drainage ditch would have worn edges. There are four more sections to dig and the two wibbly features at the southern end. Martin hopes to get this trench finished as soon as possible, so more time can be spent on trench 2. So on to trench 2…. The extraction pit on the west arm, probably to remove clay for the potters, is now rather deep! Martin had a quick look at the end of the day and found two lovely pieces of pottery. One of which is causing confusion, possibly late iron age or possibly Saxon. Either would cause excitement as it doesn’t really fit in with the thought that this is a Roman pit. If the pit was dug in Roman times there is a chance that some pot from the bank rolled in, or if the pit was not filled in then the Saxon pot might have fallen in. So more digging required and hopefully more pottery to help date this feature. Further along this west arm, we have the test pits which are going to have soil removed for environmental sampling. These samples should help with identifying the flora in the area and animal remains such as snails and micro-organisms. The possible post holes now look to be fire pits, and probably for cooking as they are quite small. Lots of burnt flint, some Roman pot and entire flints in one hole, and lots of charcoal from the second. These will be photographed and records drawn tomorrow, then the other half will be dug.

The double ditch in the central arm of trench 2 is very confusing. We started to dig sections today and found Roman pot, post med pot and recent pot sherds. As well as Roman brick and Victorian brick!! Could this be something to do with the lake being dug in the 1860s? Only time will tell as we dig the sections further. I love this archaeology, you think you know what’s going on and then it all changes day by day. Some of you were once again doing recording today, so thank you very much for that, learning more about field archaeology and giving Martin more time to answer the endless calls for assistance with a difficult section or ‘what on earth is this?’.

We had the film crew with us today, as I am hoping to produce a short film showing what community archaeology is all about. We’ve all seen Time Team but I want to get a piece of film to show the real facts about a community dig. It’s not all gold, skeletons or mosaics. It’s digging finding nothing most of the time, and then a wonderful moment when something special turns up. Thank you all for coming and helping to understand, and today get more confused about the history around Woodgate. See you tomorrow, do sleep well. Peter

Wednesday 11th August Good evening everyone. We had Jupiter on our side today, the god of the sky and the weather…so thank you Jupiter. Another wonderful day with a full house of amazing volunteers helping to learn more about the history of Woodgate. We have lots of features but finds are a rarity, but we did find dating evidence in nearly every feature we have dug. So that deserves a big Well Done.

Starting with trench 1, eight sections have been dug through the ditch, and the drawing and recording has begun. Donna, Gemma and Colin were doing the recording and Martin was more than impressed! So well done to you. We are gradually able to do more and more of the archaeology ourselves, not just the digging and finds retrieval but more importantly the recording. And this is what community archaeology is all about. As we take part we are learning, and able to do more and more ourselves. I do implore anyone who would like to help with recording to ask Martin. It gives him less work to do, so he is very happy with that!!! There are 7 more sections to dig in this feature followed by recording. Then we have two wibbly features at the southern most end to look at. Are they associated with the ditch or not? We will find out once they are dug. If there is time we will fully dig the whole ditch next week, but that of course depends on what happens in trench 2.In trench 2 the first extraction pit was being dug. A few pieces of Roman pot were found, so again we have dating evidence. The test pitting near the ‘post holes’ are nearly complete. I say post holes, but once Franz had dug a section through the first one it looked much more like a fire pit of some sort. Lots of burnt material being removed along with another piece of Roman pot. Once the section has been recorded we will dig the remainder of this pit and hope to discover more dating evidence. There is of course the second post hole or fire pit to be dug tomorrow or Friday, so that will also help with dating and the association between the two.

The extraction pit in the west wing of trench 2 has been partially dug, and yes you’ve guessed it.. more Roman pottery discovered!! There is still plenty of work to be done in this pit. Plenty of sieving being done today, and plenty of finds. Roman pot, medieval pot, post-med pot, clay pipe, bone, and heaps of iron slag. This is yet more evidence (as if we needed anymore) that smelting of iron ore was taking place on our site in Roman times and possibly later. Radio Norfolk were with us this morning in the form of Rob Carter. He was not very keen to leave us, as I think he might have caught the Dig Bug!! But good news that what we are doing will be aired in the next couple of days. We will let you know when, so you can listen or catch up on BBC Sounds.

I know I say this each day, but Thank You to all who make this happen. There are so many people who spend hours and hours planning and organising this dig each year. Not only the dig but all the activities throughout the year. Tuesday meetings for archiving, zoom meetings throughout the troubled times of the last year and a half. Talks, fundraising, social media work, the list is endless. We are already working on next year’s dig, getting dates arranged with all the professionals who need to know. I am so lucky to have archaeology beneath my feet and am so pleased to be able to share it with everyone, but without you all it would not happen. So thank you to all who do so much. Thank you for reading this, hopefully it will make you sleep well if you are not there already! Looking forward to tomorrow and what we will discover. Peter

Tuesday 10th August It hardly rained, just a light shower at lunchtime, so the trenches have been drying out. Very welcome after the paddling pools we had yesterday. This morning was more cleaning back, and rather annoyingly, re-cleaning back after the rain messed up some of your stalwart work yesterday. Most importantly we have started to dig features. Let’s start with trench 1, the north-south trench to the eastern side of Mary’s Beck field. Sections were marked out along the entire 30 metre trench to provide profiles of the ditch. About eight sections have been dug so far, some completely and others to be finished tomorrow. The bottom of the ditch has a nice V shape, and Martin’s initial thought is a drainage ditch. It makes sense as it runs down to the what would have been stream in Roman times. A few finds, just a few, but at least we have dating samples. Roman pottery sherds, dating to around the mid 3rd century, so contemporary with the kilns. As we move to the south we hope to find more dating evidence, and we will also discover if the profile of the ditch changes in any way. At the most southerly point, there are a couple of features which may or may not be associated with the ditch, only digging will let us know.

Moving on to trench 2. We knew from the cleaning back yesterday we had several features to look at. The postholes, at least three ditches and the wibbly features, which Martin now thinks may be abstraction pits. We have kilns on the site, and we have a droveway running north-south from the kiln field to Mary’s Beck field. So abstracting clay from these pits to make pots, tiles etc, makes huge sense. The one sole lonely find from the first pit was Roman pottery. A few more sherds would help to ascertain this is a Roman feature. Good luck tomorrow. The area where there are two postholes has begun to be test-pitted. A chequer board of 1 square metre slots to investigate the sealed soil above the natural. Again very few finds, but one piece of Roman fineware was found. We have been so lucky in the last four years finding trayfuls of pottery and other finds, and this year is rather barren. As Martin tells us, what we are digging this year is a far more normal scenario. And of course it makes sense, we are digging in an area way beyond the confines of the possible villa and the industrial area on the kiln field. You can’t expect a Romano British individual to throw away a load of pot and bone for people 2000 years later to dig up!! It would have been nice if they had dropped a purse though! Sieving has also found few things, but there were a couple of pieces of late iron age pot. My sister Jane found one, of which she is very proud! Martin will be asking for help with recording over the next few days, so please can anyone who would like to help, please let him know tomorrow.

Dr John Davies was with us this morning to see how we are getting on. He loves the Roman period, so having a forty acre Roman site to investigate is very exciting for him. He is hoping to write another book on Roman Norfolk and hope our discoveries will be a help to him. Thank you John and hope to see you this Friday. If you have any questions for John, I am sure he would love to talk to you on Friday. Thank you to you all for making this dig so much fun. The chatter and laughter is just wonderful to hear. Thank you as always to the planners, the early morning organisers, the loo cleaners, the equipment cleaners, all those who make this happen behind the scenes, I am truly indebted to you all. And of course thank you all for being here each day, digging, sieving and cleaning. You are a wonderful group. Peter

Monday 9th August. We’ve made it, we were in a trench digging… well cleaning back. What a joy to see so many smiling faces, to hear the constant chatter and banter between so many friends old and new. After two years I did wonder if the covid thing might have dampened spirits, but not a bit of it, the enthusiasm to take part in community archaeology was abundant. Thank you. The only dampness was the odd shower, but it looks like (fingers crossed) the rest of the week weather wise should be on our side. We started this morning attempting to remove the water residing in trench 2. The lower part of which is resting on clay, so nowhere for the water to go, except into buckets and what a wonderful job you did. As Martin has explained we have two evaluation trenches this year, not a full excavation as in previous years. We are taking a snapshot of the geophys on Mary’s Beck, to give us an idea where to dig in future years. So we were looking for features, and of course we found them.

In trench 1 we have a long ditch running the complete length of the trench, about 28 metres, running almost due north-south. Possibly a drainage ditch, taking the water down to the stream which would have flowed where the lake is now. We will be digging sections through this feature in the coming days, to hopefully find dating evidence, and of course to find out the extent of this feature. How deep, how wide etc. Trench 2 is a long trench running north-south with two spurs at either end. The southernmost running west and the northernmost running east. We have found the double ditches which showed up in the geophys, along with a curvilinear feature and of course at least three maybe four postholes. There are also three features which I shall call wibbly blobs!! Once this trench is fully cleaned back we will start digging cross sections within these features, and possibly test pitting the larger ones. The sieves were in use as always, and a few finds. Not the huge quantity as in previous years, but finds nonetheless. Some Roman pottery, post-med pottery. Lots of burnt flint, clay pipe, iron slag and pieces of glass. Happily some pre Roman pottery was found, making Martin very happy. So I will say thank you to all for coming today, for the fun and laughter and for the progress made in rather damp conditions. Thanks as always to the army of organisers, you all know who you are. Without you all, this would never happen. And thank you to everyone who has paid to be a friend, paid to dig or has just donated to our cause. And thank you to everyone who appeared today to restart the ARP.

A message from Sable… She says that the operation went well and she is now taking her time to get back to normal tail wagging and in due course rabbit hole digging. And a message from me to say thank you to Taverham vets who have been so kind and caring looking after Sable . Sleep well all. And see you all tomorrow. Peter