Great excitement as we are digging in the Kitchen Garden to try and find out more about a Roman building we know is here!
Our pre dig post brought queries about people being able to visit and take part in our dig. Unfortunately this year we have had to restrict the numbers on site for safety reasons and to create a rota to ensure the numbers are not exceeded. Now that the dig area has been created, there are deep trenches, narrow paths and very little space to get around. This feels alien to us as getting the community involved is part of what we always want to do. Hopefully we can return to that another year.
For those of you who find reading online difficult, Peter’s post are preceded by an audio . Scroll to the bottom to read from the start.
Friday 22nd August 2025 ARP Dig 2025 Day 15 Good evening to all, and welcome to a very brief round up of our last day at the dig this year. I’ve got to go watering my plants, so please forgive the brevity. Cleaning back was the order of the day, making the site pristine for final photographs by Britannia. Martin and Alice were with us adding to their recording and photos. They will be back in a couple of weeks to complete recording in readiness for a report to be produced.
The big news is…… Our building is a bathhouse, not a farmhouse!! Which of course begs the question…Where is the farmhouse (rusticated villa)? Yesterday’s excavations resulted in Martin realising that it was a bathhouse. The curved flint foundations were the clue. He spent hours researching bathhouses associated with rusticated villas, and having checked with other specialists….. It’s a bathhouse. I have to say I was not expecting that! I will attempt a more detailed report in a day or two.
So a final thank you to you all for the tenacity in coming back day after day to dig, sieve, push barrows, carry buckets, clean finds, sort finds, and to be a part of our community dig. The ARP. I must again thank the dear friend of ARP who funded this year’s dig. What an amazing three weeks. I am indebted to you all. Peter
Thursday 21st August 2025 ARP Dig 2025 Day 14 I don’t like the sound of day 14…. Only one to go. Mixed emotions of sad and happy! Yes it’s nearly over but YES we’ve found evidence of a substantial Roman building. I’ve spent fifty years wondering and now it is proven. Hoorah! Martin joined Alice today to help plan and decide best course of action over today and tomorrow.
Work today focused on the NW corner and the Hypocaust. First thing, Martin was mattocking the surface of the 6th grid down on west side in readiness for the diggers to make a start. He found a lovely piece of Roman glass and some opus signinum (Roman Concrete) with attached wall plaster. Indications of a reasonably high status building. When the volunteers started digging, plenty of CBM was retrieved along with a few pieces of pot including a nice chunk of black burnished ware. In grid 4 on the west side, the huge piece of Opus Signinum was removed, and filled three of our large finds trays. The biggest chunk of op sig Martin has ever seen in twenty years plus of archaeology. This Roman variation of concrete is as hard and solid now as it was 2000 years ago!! Perhaps modern house builders could learn a lesson! Cleaning back, a lovely curved structure of flints, a clue possibly?
The area to the north of the hypocaust was cleaned back and some lovely in-situ tiles are clear for all to see, something the Saxons have not removed. One starts to get an idea of how this site looked 1800 years ago. The middle section of the hypocaust was excavated revealing a huge amount of burning in different layers. Finds included lots of CBM and pot. And then amazingly two pieces of Roman window glass. This is rare. Very seldom found… so I’m now rather excited. There was also a large chunk of bone removed, which will be sent off for Carbon 14 dating. We should have results in about three weeks. This piece of bone could be extremely useful in learning dates of a certain phase of our building. The deep posthole to the east side which I have been mentioning too much over the last few days, was finally finished today. It is 70cm deep and beautifully packed with flint. A lovely example. At the bottom of the hole three small pieces of pot and one iron nail were retrieved. Not datable but definitely Roman.
Martin has been chatting to Alice and to Dan and to other Roman specialists, looking at other Roman Villa sites on his phone, and there seems to be a theory….. but I’m not privy to it. Hopefully all will be revealed tomorrow. So finally, a huge thank you to everyone who has helped today and over the last three weeks. This huge trench has revealed with your help my long hoped for Roman building, or buildings. Please sleep well, with the thought of some answers tomorrow. Peter
Wednesday 20th August 2025 ARP Dig 2025 Day 13 Good evening to all. Wandering around the trench this evening, before I write this I feel so thankful to you all, both Britannia Archaeology and the ARP for revealing the remains of our Roman building. Yes it’s been well and truly robbed out by someone, possibly the Saxons, but it’s existence cannot be denied. A wonderful result, down to the generosity of a very kind friend of ARP. Thank you.
To the hypocaust where two sections have been dug, lots of burnt material was found. As you would expect, but somehow it seems strange there is so much burnt material under what would have been the floor. Was there a fire at some stage? Hopefully we will find out tomorrow. Plenty of CBM was retrieved, mostly collapsed floor tile and others from the structure of the hypocaust. The flint surface on the west side of the trench looks wonderful after extensive cleaning. Another grid was taken down today, producing plenty of CBM mostly Box Flue tile from the hypocaust. Plenty of pottery sherds including a lovely piece of Nene Valley ware, matching many pieces we have discovered earlier this year and in previous years.
The huge north-south ditch was looked at again today. A section to the north was cleaned back and dug. The ditch cuts through the flooring of flints, so we know for certain the ditch is later than the building. Lots of CBM being retrieved along with several pieces of Greyware. Towards the end of the day a lovely piece of Pudding Stone Quern was removed from the lower fill of the ditch. Hoping it will match the large chunk found by Alice about seven weeks ago. Thank you all as always for all you have done today, whether digging, sieving or cleaning. Peter
Tuesday 19th August 2025 ARP Dig 2025 Day 12 Good evening to all. I’m really learning how things evolve on an archaeological site, how one idea changes as the dig progresses to something totally different, and then back to the original thought. It’s fascinating. So as a case in point, the Gulley story. A week or so ago we believed the gulley was part of the hypocaust flue. Where the heat from the furnace entered the hypocaust. Then it looked more like a drip gulley for taking rain away from the building. We were possibly distracted by the fact that the primary fill of the gulley was very fine water born silt. But of course once the building went into disrepair there would have been water flowing through a gulley leaving that deposit. Today we have discovered that the gulley turns a right angle and enters the hypocaust. So now we believe it is a flue for the hypocaust. And of course tomorrow we will change our minds again! The block that was removed to reveal the gulley was rammed full of lovely finds including CBM, bone fragments, lovely iron nails and quite large pins for fixing timber. Hopefully we can get these x-rayed at the castle museum. Lots of pottery including some lovely Nene valley sherds matching the ones we found three years ago.
The North East corner has now revealed a lovely flint surface, and the post hole I have mentioned rather too frequently has a beautiful surround of flints to stop the post from moving. Well worth a look if you get a chance. The floor surface of flints to the north west side is looking lovely having been cleaned. Still some more to do, but again if you get a chance to look it is well worth it. A possible exciting find is a piece of pot found in the demolition rubble in the north west corner. It could be, might be, hopefully is Saxon! It is a piece of shell tempered ware, that is very tantalising….. ! We will ask an expert for an opinion and then we will let you know in due course. If it is Saxon, then it makes huge sense if the Saxons were responsible for the demolition of our building or buildings.
Finally to the ditch running north-south across our trench. More sections were dug today with plenty of Roman CBM and pottery sherds. Most notable was a lovely pottery spindle whorl. As always my thanks to you all for digging, sieving and cleaning. We set out to discover there was definitely a Roman building under the garden, and we have most definitely done that. Sadly robbed out by possibly the Saxons. Thank you again. Peter
Monday 18th August 2025 ARP Dig 2025 Day 11 Welcome to the first day of our final week. Loving the cooler conditions. So much work has been done and so much more to be done. As we reveal the archaeology we are gradually learning more about the site, or so I’m told! I have to say I’m still very confused. The never ending Gulley story continues, with and I hope the answer being resolved tomorrow.
Moving to the North West corner, a rather odd feature appeared. Very dark soil with natural soil either side. It did look like a true cut, but after two hours of excavation some medieval pot was found and a few scrapes later a small piece of blue and white china appeared!! So we now know there was a mid 19th century intrusion for some reason or other. So my family are to blame, for which I sincerely apologize! Three grids lower on the West side are nearly fully dug. A surface of flints is being cleaned and look lovely. These flints form the sub-surface of a floor which would have been covered with a packing material such as opus signinum and then the floor surface itself would have been beautiful ceramic tiles, similar to Victorian pamments. There is an area of opus signinum(roman concrete) across some of the flints.
To the North East corner the grid reveals lots of burnt material and demolition rubble and the very deep posthole I mentioned on Friday. Part of my confusion, mentioned earlier is because the flint layers to the east side are much higher than the flint layers to the west side. Is this due to different buildings, or due to a completely different era of building? Hopefully we will discover the answer in the next few days. The North side of the hypocaust there is a narrow channel leading northwards. Is this the channel where the warm air was incoming from the furnace? A wonderful area to be dug, and hopefully we will get the answers in the next few days. The team working today were digging through an extensive area of burning, lots of charcoal, CBM, cooked bone fragments and some rather lovely pieces of Greyware. One piece in particular was a lovely rim and partial body sherd. Very thin walls, indicates a very well made pot.
Finally to the long ditch that transects the whole trench running north to south. About two thirds of the way down heading south, another section has been dug. All finds were Roman, pottery, CBM and a lot of burnt material. We are longing to find something not Roman. Hopefully some evidence of Saxon. My sincere thanks to all who have taken part today. Be it digging or sieving or cleaning, or the people running back and forth carting buckets. Thank you. Peter
Friday 15th August 2025 ARP Dig 2025 Day 10 Dear all, the end of our second week. Where does the time go? I won’t go on about the beautiful posthole I mentioned yesterday, except to say it is a beautiful posthole! Martin Brook director of Britannia Archaeology was with us today to look over the excavation and to help Alice to plan for next week’s dig. So back to the north west… There is a definite wall running east west which was being very carefully cleaned today. It is lovely to see some extant remains of our Roman building. To the west of the wall are in-situ floor tiles, with a gap in the wall suggesting a possible entrance or doorway. We are gradually getting a picture of the layout of the building.
The gulley, I’ve been running on about these last few days looks to be a drip gulley. So the aforementioned wall was an exterior wall and any rain would drip off the roof and be channelled away by the gulley. It does make sense. There are still many below floor flints needing to be cleaned, so we can have a lovely view of the sub floor across the site. Remains of a wall adjacent to the west side of the hypocaust were being cleaned back and again we are learning so much more about our building. Every year we have dug, the story seems to change each day and gradually we learn the possible truth about our site. It’s the same this year. Further to the south on the west wall there was much demolition rubble to be cleared away. This will be completed early next week. And then we will see yet more of our flint foundation and sub floor.
An aerial drone photo will make interpretation so much easier. Going back to the west wall of the hypocaust, there is some intense burning, where some large pieces of burnt timber have been uncovered. These will be lifted next week for analysis. This section will be completely excavated next week to hopefully find the route into the hypocaust. To the north east corner there is a very deep post hole. 60cm at present with no sign of natural subsoil. This section will be dug next week. The huge ditch which runs the complete length of the trench of which Britannia dug some grids, we have started on again this afternoon. A lot of burnt material turning up. This long ditch is believed to be post Roman, and Martin really hopes we can find some late Roman or Saxon evidence to prove this.
So I thank you all for helping with our very exciting hole in the ground. All those who have dug, all who have manned the all important sieves, and of course the cleaners who carry on quietly in the background. I’m so happy and so grateful to you all. Peter
Thursday 14th August 2025 ARP Dig 2025 Day 9 Good evening to all. Another warm day in the kitchen garden. Half way down on the west side, there is a story! We have another posthole that is rammed full of CBM, identical to the one about 10 feet to the north. Mostly roof tile Tegula and Imbrex. Another piece of ridge tile which I now believe is actually a hip tile. At the bottom of the posthole are a layer of flints, all perfectly placed about 1900 years ago. This flint base is to prevent the post sinking after construction of the building. Great engineering all those years ago.
Moving up to the north west about 3 grids down from the top of the trench, the demolition layers have nearly all been cleaned away. Finds include plenty of CBM, pottery including some lovely greyware bases. Quite a lot of cooked animal bone fragments and some more quern stone pieces. Back to the gulley, I’m so excited about. It is still being gradually revealed and hopefully tomorrow we will trace it right back to below the surface of the hypocaust…..hopefully! The north east corner with the large pit has now got a very deep posthole in it. At least 60cm deep and still more to dig. Finds from this feature include yes you’ve guessed it plenty of CBM, all sorts of pottery, quern stone pieces and lots of nails.
The gallant sievers were once again very busy with barrow loads of spoil to be sieved and of course finding many more items to go off to the finds tent. And finally to the finds tent, which sits quietly to the south east of the trench. Many people washing finds and placing in trays to the sound of cooing pigeons and bickering squirrels! The mountain of finds yet to clean is huge.So once again I thank you all for your marvellous work in helping discover our history. And as always a special thank you to Alice for leading us, being asked by many people ‘what do I do now?’. Where do I dig next, what is that feature? Alice you are a star. See you all tomorrow. Peter.
Wednesday 13th August 2025 ARP Dig 2025 Day 8 Good evening to all. Yesterday was rather warm and today was getting close to very warm! The decision was made to stop digging after lunch to keep people safe. Let’s start with the north east grids where we said yesterday about the huge amounts of burning evident. We now believe that there is evidence of in-situ burning. So an existing pit or a new pit was dug and debris was deposited and set alight. Lots of finds discovered including nails, lots of nails (similar to Roman nail finds over the last few digs on this site), pottery mostly rim and body sherds, as always plenty of CBM. A large piece of limestone quern stone, adding yet more evidence that the occupants were grinding corn to make flour. And lots of bone fragments, including a half jaw with teeth of a juvenile animal. This feature will hopefully reveal some good dating evidence.
About halfway down on the west side of the trench where the huge amount of CBM was found, there is a ditch crossing between the two possible pits or postholes. Only dating evidence retrieved were some pot sherds and some Roman CBM, but this was in the top level of the fill. Unfortunate no finds in the lower fill of the ditch. We are always looking for good dating evidence in every pit, ditch or slot we dig. Three to four grids down on the west side of the trench, we were removing yet more demolition rubble, and hoping when we get to the bottom we will find more evidence of the foundation wall, unless of course someone over a thousand years ago has pinched it!!
Finally to our lovely gulley. Alice is hoping we can uncover the remaining block above, and then reveal the whole thing tomorrow. I do hope it really does link to the hypocaust. Fingers crossed. Sievers were as always very busy as were the cleaning crew who now have a huge pile of finds yet to process. So a massive thank you to everyone who helped in any way today, and for braving the heat. Looking forward to doing it all again tomorrow. Peter
Tuesday 12th August 2025 ARP Dig 2025 Day 7 Good evening to all, gosh it was warm! So thank you to all for bravely carrying on. The gulley story continues with a huge block of demolition rubble needing to be removed before we find more evidence of the route it takes. The problem, there is another two features within the block so it is slow progress. We should with luck clear this tomorrow and find our gulley once more. There are also many burnt layers within this block, just to add extra intrigue. As always finds include lots of CBM and some pottery sherds.
Two grids to the south revealed yet more demolition rubble (sorry if I am boring you with demolition rubble!), and lots of CBM. This grid is in its early stages of excavation, so hopefully we will discover more tomorrow. In the North East grids, there appears to be a large pit which contains much burnt material in different layers. Finds include some lovely pottery sherds, and of course plenty of CBM. The grid which turned up so much CBM yesterday revealed a big posthole and now a ditch running West to East is appearing. This matches what Britannia found in the weeks before we started. A few pieces of pot and of course CBM were found.
The wonderful sievers had lots to do, so a big thank you to you all. Likewise the cleaners in the finds tent have a mountain to climb, there are bags and bags of finds to be cleaned and labelled in preparation for the specialists to make their reports in a few months. So I thank you all for braving the heat and discovering more about our history. And a huge thank you to Alice keeping us in line whilst trying to keep on top of context numbers and photos and recording. You are a star, and very patient with us!! Peter.
Monday 11th August 2025 ARP Dig 2025 Day 6 We move into the second week with a lot of archaeology still to be discovered. Starting in the north west corner, our beautiful gulley continues just as Alice predicted, running west to east. Hopefully tomorrow we can excavate the next grid and locate the gulley turning towards the hypocaust. It might sound a bit strange being excited about a gulley, but for me it is wonderful to see a feature that has not been damaged by the demolition event probably caused by the Saxons. That top corner is well worth a look if you get the chance. There are heaps of in situ flints and just a few remaining floor tiles. As always finds include plenty of CBM, and pottery sherds.
Moving on to the 4th and 5th grid on the west side of the trench, plenty of demolition material has been recovered. Again a huge amount of CBM and lots of greyware pottery sherds. Lots of mortar and packing material used to form a secure foundation before building upwards. One piece of mortar with an imprint of a floor tile was rather lovely. And the most exciting discovery as far as I am concerned was two very burnt acorns found in a pit below the floor surface. These acorns have survived for 1700 years because they were burnt. I am yet to understand what we can learn from these seeds, but am certain there is a university out there who would love to test them. Rather exciting!! Further down on the west side of the trench, the pit or posthole dug by Britannia was further dug by ARP. Well how much CBM can you fit into 60cm x 60cm hole. The answer is LOTS of CBM. These are huge pieces, mostly roof tile including tegula and imbrex. We also have our first piece of ridge tile. At least 20cm long and intact across the oval. Lovely patterning on it as well, a lovely lovely find. Thank you.
As always the sievers were continuing their essential work. Some lovely pieces being discovered. Thank you so much for your dedication. So we dig holes and we find things and then the sievers find more things and all of this ends up at the finds tent. Please take a moment to think about what they do. All finds as we know have a context number. They are then cleaned and dried and replaced into bags with their unique number. Put into one of my poly tunnels to dry off. These finds will then be sent to a specialist to provide a report. The unsung crew from the finds tent are so so important, otherwise we would learn nothing.
To end. I would like to thank all of you for helping today. We are learning so much about the Roman history at Woodgate. Looking forward to gulley extension and any more ridge tiles! And a few coins would be useful. Thank you to all taking part today. We have made big strides forward. Peter
Friday 8th August 2025 ARP Dig 2025 Day 5 The end of the first week and we are gradually making progress in the kitchen garden. It is so clear that whoever recycled the Roman building did a thorough job. Demolition rubble everywhere we look. All useful pieces taken and we are left looking at a patchwork of partial foundations and partial floors. A few floor tiles still in place, some foundation flints still in place and not much else. Ditches filled with broken tile and pottery, mortar and opus signinum. Areas of burnt material across the site, some in huge concentrations, others in small layers in ditches. I do not envy the archaeologist who has to write the report and give their best guess to what has happened on our site.
So to the north west part of the trench. The grid being dug has revealed quite chunky pieces of CBM roof tile , hypocaust tile and floor tile. And lots of it. These two grids are rammed with about 30-40cm of burnt material over quite a large area. Some lovely pieces of greyware pottery also being unearthed. The burnt material, we think!!, has been pushed into the ditch rather than there being a big fire in the ditch. We think this is the case because the sand beneath it does not look to be heat affected. But by the middle of next week we will tell you a different story! This is the constant battle archaeologists have, because as they dig they learn more about a site, and so the story continually changes. There is a signal from a metal detector suggesting something lurking beneath a floor tile (I obviously won’t tell you where), but am hoping it will be a coin and give us good dating evidence. Of course it will be a chunky piece of iron or bit of lead piping! But I live with the hope!!
Back to the gulley mentioned yesterday. There is clear to see a gulley running north out of the hypocaust area. There is a gulley running east to west in the north west grid. The gulley in the northwest is much lower than the one close to the hypocaust area. My amateur thinking is that it is a means of draining water away…. But that is my thought, which will be probably be thrown out by those who know. The intervening grids will hopefully answer the question. The Nene Valley pot sherd found yesterday, although similar to a piece found in 2022, does not appear to be from the same pot.
So as always a massive thank you to everyone who has helped today. Be it digging, sieving or cleaning and recording. This site is a huge undertaking and requires help in all directions from so many people. I thank you all for your expertise in all aspects of archaeology, and thank you all for your incredible enthusiasm as well as enjoyment in taking part. Thank you again to Alice from Britannia Archaeology for leading us. Please have an enjoyable weekend. Look forward to seeing you on Monday. Peter
Thursday 7th August 2025 ARP Dig 2025 Day 4 Good evening to all. The brave diggers continued to remove the backfill from previous digs…. and most is now removed! So with much joy we could start on new grids, filling in the gaps to try to understand the sequence of events that occurred when the building was in use and more importantly for us, after its demise.
Karen and Angela were in the North East corner revealing the long ditch that runs down the complete eastern side of the trench. It is full of CBM and just a few sherds of pottery, bits of lead and lots of burnt material. The thinking is this is a post demolition ditch, but as we know this could change at any time! To the North West Franz, David and Ralph were in grid B looking at a combination of many phases of activity. Burnt material, bucket loads of burnt material. CBM and more CBM as always on this site. Only a few pottery sherds. This is a very important grid as there is a gulley in the grid to the west and another gulley in the grid to the south east. So the question is do they connect in this grid? With another 50cm or so of burnt material to remove, hopefully we will find the answer tomorrow.
Four grids down on the west side there is a flint surface, above which would have been a tile floor. And again more CBM and some pottery. Late in the day a lovely, albeit small piece of pot emerged. It is a fragment of Nene Valley pot from an indented beaker, with the same pattern as one we found in 2022. I have not yet located the piece from 2022, but what are the chances if I manage to find it that they will fit together? Will advise in later reports.
So we will continue tomorrow under the wonderful leadership of Alice. Trying to learn what feature cuts another feature and then learning which is the oldest. This will provide us with a sequence of events and hopefully then provide us with a narrative about our Roman building. It’s existence and its future demise, and all the time retrieving as many finds (dating evidence in themselves) as we can to paint the picture of around 1700 years ago.
The sievers carried on bravely providing trays of finds to be cleaned. The cleaning group, which was well supported today brushed washed and gently scraped through mountains of finds. There are trays and trays of finds hidden away in the nursery drying nicely. It’s quite useful having poly tunnels not in use in August!!
So thank you to all of you who helped today in any way with unearthing the history of Woodgate. See you tomorrow. Peter
Wednesday 6th August 2025 ARP Dig 2025 Day 3 Welcome to day 3 in the kitchen garden. The digging team were continuing to remove the backfill from previous excavations. Hard work for the diggers, but the end is now in sight. Later in the day tomorrow we will begin on new grids, and we will start to fill in the gaps of the chequer board. I know there will be many great discoveries and we will learn so much more about this wonderful site.
So a big thank you to all the diggers for lots of hard work. Finds from the backfill are of no consequence to the report but we obviously record everything, and yet more CBM and pottery was found. Lots of tile fragments and a few pieces of pottery. At least one piece of Samian ware but difficult to date. The sievers found many finds, keeping the cleaners busy. Thank you all for coming today and helping us move forward in our attempt to understand what is happening in my garden. What will tomorrow reveal?
Peter
Tuesday 5th August 2025 ARP Dig 2025 Day 2 As the shadows lengthen, I write this with a wee tremor of excitement! It may sound very dramatic, but to me it is. The small piece of Nene Valley pottery found by Britannia last week, which looked very similar to a slightly larger piece I found about twenty years ago are definitely from the same bowl or plate. The amazing thing is that they join together perfectly! What are the chances of that? Two bits of pot lying around in the soil for the best part of 1700 years, and today they were reunited.
OK enough of me getting excited! Today we were back to cleaning the remainder of the grids, so Alice could take final photos of the wonderful work performed by Britannia Archaeology. Photos taken, including one with volunteers standing in the grids, after having done I have to say, a wonderful job of cleaning back. All grids looked in pristine condition. Next piece of work started about 2pm was to dig down and remove the fabric covering previous excavations. This is not easy, and takes a long time. We hope by end of tomorrow, we should be finished and then the digging of new grids can begin. Finds today include lots of CBM (I think I will be saying this all week), greyware pottery, bone fragments and Roman nails, lots of nails. As well as mortar and opus signinum (Roman concrete).
Thank you to diggers who have done a lovely job cleaning the grids, thank you to sievers for ploughing on through the spoil heaps finding loads of CBM and pottery and other finds. And thank you to the finds cleaners who patiently work their way through many bags of CBM and pottery, turning a muddy lump into an item of beauty. As ever I wonder what tomorrow will reveal.
Thank you everyone who has taken part today and thank you to everyone who has helped in any way to make these three weeks of archaeological discovery happen. Peter.
Monday 4th August ARP Dig 2025 Day 1
Good evening to you all. We’ve enjoyed a wonderful first day at the ARP dig where we are working in the kitchen garden. We have been very fortunate to be funded by a very generous friend of ARP. Britannia Archaeology have spent the last eight weeks digging a chequer board of 2m x 2m grids, we are now able to dig the remainder. We have about 30 grids to excavate…. a lot of work to be done over the next three weeks. We have a large Roman building beneath our feet, or rather the remains of a building, as most of it has been robbed out at some stage by possibly the Saxons or maybe the Normans. Discovering a piece of dating evidence from this dig would be invaluable…please keep your eyes open!!
Today was all about cleaning all the grids so Alice, who was leading us today can take photos for the report from Britannia. Our team of diggers, far fewer than normal due to the restrictions of the congested site and the deep excavations, cleaned back the grids and bagged up lots of different finds. We have a huge pile of CBM (Ceramic building material) including roof tiles floor tiles and hypocaust tiles. Lovely pieces of pottery including a rare fragment of Nene Valley Roman pot, similar to a piece I found about 20 years ago. It’s part of a shallow bowl or a plate, not often discovered. Also a piece of Samian ware, looks like a base of a Samian bowl, difficult to date. Some nails, fragments of bone and as always many sherds of Roman greyware pottery.
The volunteers who were sieving found loads of CBM, Mortar and Opus Signinum (a form of Roman concrete). And more pottery, bone and worked flint. Thank you for your work. The cleaning team were working through loads of finds, some from the Britannia dig and of course the finds that were coming up today. Cleaning finds can be incredibly rewarding, discovering a beautiful artefact once the soil has been carefully removed. So thank you to all who have taken part today, thank you to Alice for leading us and thank you to all the ARP team for organising the whole procedure.
What will we discover tomorrow and over the next 14 days? Hopefully some very good dating evidence for the demolition of the site, some more quern stone (please Hilary) a nice stone statue would be lovely, some coins and of course a wonderful mosaic! Thank you and thank you all again for helping us learn about our history here at Woodgate. Peter
Saturday 2nd August 2025 Pre dig post Dear ARP volunteers. We are coming close to beginning our excavation of the kitchen garden on Monday 4th August 2025. Britannia Archaeology have been on site since Monday 2nd June. The first ten days were stripping back with a large excavator and dumper truck. Our initial problem was getting access to the garden with the huge machinery…. We managed it with some careful tree pruning and a very slow and gentle approach with the 13ton digger!! But it happened and the stripping back revealed loads of finds, lots of CBM and lots of pottery. The mechanical digger stopped when we reached the archaeological horizon…now down to digging by hand.
Over the last eight weeks, the archaeologists from Britannia have discovered exactly what we thought was under the garden… a large Roman building. They have been digging a chequer board of 2 metre by 2 metre grids. Digging every other one, leaving the remainder to be dug by us.The coins we have found over the years across the site, have shown Roman influence from 66AD through to 390AD. We would like to discover more finds with tight datable evidence, so please can you help? This will mean very careful troweling in each grid searching for that tiny piece of evidence, be it a coin or a very datable piece of pot. I am relying on you!!
We have found in a previous dig one piece of Saxon pot, some more of that would be a bonus. This year we have already found a piece of Iron age pot dated 300-100BC. Any worked flint and early pottery or indeed Saxon pottery would be wonderful. Please keep your eyes peeled. The excavations that Britannia have done have revealed that whoever demolished the building were rather thorough. Not much left!! We have huge flint wall foundations up to 4 feet wide, indicating a big structure. Possibly a two storey building. We also have nothing left above them. The recycling of useful materials was extensive and we are looking at a shadow, a glimpse, a hint of what might have stood 1800 years ago. There are parts of floors, parts of a hypocaust system, parts of many structures yet to be evaluated. There are robber ditches filled with fragments of Roman building material. There are pits and postholes filled with CBM and pottery. There is a massive ditch running North-South down the site which is giving up CBM, pottery and bone. This ditch was dug AFTER the Roman building was demolished, as it cuts through the Roman building.
Significant finds so far include a bronze coin dated 348-350AD, a beautiful chunk of pudding stone quern, two pieces of limestone quern. Samian pottery sherds, Nene valley pottery sherds, lots of local greyware pottery sherds. Cooked bone fragments, and a large iron bolt. And about a quarter of a ton of CBM!!!We are so lucky to have this amazing opportunity to dig a site that is totally full of archaeology. You cannot walk across the site without standing on something that is 1800 years old. I am looking forward to seeing you next week, for a really exciting chance to learn what was happening, who was here, and what were they up to all those years ago. Thank you to you all for helping to uncover the remarkable history lying beneath our feet.
And finally a massive thank you to the very generous person who has paid for this to happen. I cannot thank you enough. Peter