It’s been a busy and productive couple of days. Janet and Pru busy were washing finds on day 1- a messy but essential job. David fetched finds from the field and was a master water carrier for the pot washers! On day 2 Janet, Jenny, Joy, Gill  and John did the honours.

Pot washing is not just for the fairer sex – here John is making a good fist of it with the rubber gloves provided!

And Gill is taking the worst of the mud off the cbm before washing.

Saturday – and volunteers start clearing the loose from trench 4 – the smaller of the two buildings – all of which has been opened up by the digger.

And one of our resident metal detectorists, John, checks the spoil heap for metal finds.

But in trench 4 itself, this little gem is found. It is a child’s bracelet made of copper alloy. It is undamaged – quite remarkable in the circumstances.

Tina in trench 4 is uncovering the external wall. One piece of window glass has been found in this trench so far.

Steve and Abigail also in trench 4 working along the wall line opposite Tina.

JCB driver Scuddie – relieved to have finished on site!! He made a difficult job look easy. Matt acting as the banksman from Cotswold Archaeology looks on before  heading off to supervise work in the trenches.

Pam finding  paving in trench 1 in the main villa building.

One of our younger volunteers and one of the keenest – John in trench 1 – he has been on site for 3 days so far

Jim, Philippa, Gary and Steve totally engrossed in trench 1. Four pieces of window glass were found in this trench ………….

……………….And one nice piece of decorated glass.

Remember that child’s bracelet – this is what it looked like the cleaned up by Lindsey.

But the biggest surprise so far was finding a tessellated floor in trench 3 of the main villa.

You see before you a happy man! Matt was really thrilled to see this and everyone stopped work to take a look. It is rare to find an undamaged section like this and we hope that more will have survived. Although we found individual tesserae on the Hoar Hill site, we never found an undamaged section like this.

Photos courtesy of Lindsey, Steve and Joy.

Last day before volunteer diggers arrive.  A ducky day was had by all – as 15 ducks came to view the site and tuck into any spare lunch!!

The serious picture below shows the walls of the smaller of the two buildings being uncovered by the digger.

Photos courtesy of Lindsey.

What a difference a day makes!! Thankfully the weather was great today and the site has dried out well. We have been able to catch up on the planned geophysical work before the JCB work tomorrow. So resitivity and magnetometry has been finished on the main villa and second smaller building. Trenches are marked out for the JCB on the buildings too. Everyone has had a chance to try out the different pieces of equipment and got excellent results. So providing the weather is as forecast tomorrow, we shall be able to start digging the buildings on Saturday and processing finds. It’s been lovely working on the site today in the sunshine – it is a beautiful site with spectacular distant views set at the top of a lovely valley. You can see why the Romans picked the spot!

Typical Summer Weather!! But the forecast is better for tomorrow!!

Steve and Mike – two of the brave heart team slogging their way through the smaller of the two buildings under investigation with the resitivity meter

The Sartorial Elegance of our Lindsey!

We will start digging on Saturday so if you plan to come – great ……but just drop an email to Joy joy@appleton.uk.net Look forward to seeing you.

Day -4. Work has started preparing the field for the upcoming excavation. The marquee has been erected, loos installed and once the total station arrived we were able to start putting the poles in place which form the grid within which the trenches are located. Despite heavy downpours of rain we even got the geophys started with the first few squares of magnetometry.  Despite the weather we were very pleased with the progress we made but fear tomorrow might be a bit less productive due to even worse conditions being forecast. It looks a bit better from Thursday so fingers crossed.

Lindsey

Julian will be coming to Boxford on Wednesday 9th November to deliver a talk entitled “A Career in Ruins.” He will also be bringing books for sale – so if you have enjoyed his TV appearances, bring your wallet as there may be some books that tickle your fancy! We look forward to seeing you. (If you haven’t yet booked your place, please let me know asap. joy@appleton.uk.net) Thank you.

Below some of the nearly 100 people who turned out to the  see the results of this year’s Big Dig in Boxford yesterday. Members of BARG (Berkshire Archaeology Research Group), volunteers and Cotswold Archaeology were on hand to explain the site which contained not only Roman but Iron Age finds. It was good to see some of the younger volunteers sufficiently confident in explaining what they had been doing over the last two weeks.  There were a number of aerial photos on display kindly provided by Richard using his drone. A few of the finds were on display – when they have all been recorded, they will be on display in Boxford Heritage Centre. Pottery, bones, shells and metalwork will all be sent to experts for identification; as well as large amount of soil samples taken for environmental analysis. Our thanks go to Cotswold Archaeology, BARG and all our volunteers without whom , none of this would have been possible. Especial thanks goes to Dave who ferried equipment around and Pru who washed innumerable finds almost single handed! Now we are looking forward to our last HLF funded project next year in August – another Roman villa – maybe two or perhaps the second building will be a barn or full scale brewery! Please contact Joy Appleton at: joy@appleton.uk.net if you are interested in joining us. It might be hard work at times but we do have a lot of laughs!! We hope to hold a feedback session later in the year. Please subscribe to get updates.

Uncovering the walls to the grain drier which is about 3 meters x 3 meters. This can have been  for malting barley – the first stage of brewing beer – so perhaps West Berkshire’s first micro-brewery!

Marvelling at the increasing size of the stoke hole – hard work for James and Jim – the hot air from this fire was channelled under the building and emerged at the opposite end of the building and was deflected back into the main body of the building using  recycled roof tiles or tegulae, all to heat the grains.

Obviously serious intent by the Romans to produce a brew judging by the size of the stoke hole, the sturdy building and enclosures!

Photos courtesy of Emily