Groundwell Ridge Dig Diary by Chris Walker

Thursday 10th June – Day 2

Quote: From yesterdays post
Dr Pete Wilson (EH Project Director) and Robert Dickinson (Swindon Borough Council) do the usual media interviews……..

From the Swindon Evening Advertiser :- date published: Thursday 10th June 2004

Mysteries of Roman lives unearthed ARCHAEOLOGISTS and volunteers have begun their quest to unveil the mysteries of what lies beneath at the Groundwell Ridge Roman Site. Yesterday the topsoil had already been uncovered, allowing a team from English Heritage to begin the slow process of digging down to where Roman remains were first uncovered by construction workers back in 1996. The excavation is the largest ever carried out at the Roman site and is part of a community project run by English Heritage and Swindon Council. Pete Wilson, project manager at English Heritage said: “Everyone has been eager to get on with the work, but they have had to wait until the digger has completed removing the topsoil and rubble. “We are already seeing signs of what we believe may be a Roman wall just six inches down.” Robert Dickinson, Swindon Borough Council heritage manager, added: “Groundwell Ridge is one of our great community assets and we have worked hard to develop its potential, protecting the buried remains while adding cycle paths. The excavations this year should reveal even more about the daily lives of people in Roman Britain and how we can protect the site for the future.” Previous digs have unearthed evidence of well-preserved Roman buildings, pottery and coins dating from the 2nd to 4th century AD.

This year’s activities will focus on one of the building’s damaged when the site was discovered. Visitors can see the team at work Wednesdays to Sundays with tours from 11am to 3pm

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Conditions for Day 2 – Hot and Muggy.
Big Yellow Trowel didn’t turn up (sub-contractor @#%$-up) but as it happens it didn’t matter. The wall that was 15cm under the surface is getting the small trowel treatment, the initial 1996 road cut is getting cleaned, and the 1997 Evaluation trench dug by Bryn Walters and Bernard Phillips is being cleared of backfill (I thought Bryn might have been here today to see how his work was assessed, it was textbook stuff.).

“So, Pete” (Chris does his TR impression) “it’s the end of day 2 and WHAT exactly do we have”

“Well Chris, the wall that was exposed yesterday has been cleaned up a bit and it looks like a double entrance, facing south, with a central pier.”

“Thanks Pete, that is impressive, the second day and an interpretation already. So, this magnificently facaded, multi-entrance, Roman Palace, was obviously the seat of a very high ranking Roman, probably the civic leader for the whole of the South West”

“Um, No, that’s not what I said!”

Anyway, the update was sent to the EH web site (using my ordinary BT line) and should be on line soon. I’ll post the link when I have it.

Other progress:-

With the absence of the JCB, Pete decided to get some of the pro’s on opening the second trench. This is across an earthwork and corresponding geophysical result and has been interpreted as a Roman road into the site. We won’t know till we dig.

Day2
You can see the extent of the wall, central pier and the 1996 road cut

Day2
SE part of Trench, showing entrance and wall.

Day2
Some of day 2, pottery finds. Wheelbarrow in picture for scale 🙂

And now the authorized version….

Official EH update for Week 1 – Day 2

Having lost our JCB for the day we started to deturf Trench 7. In the end we did more than start and between them about half of the team and volunteers managed to take strip the whole of the 20m by 3m trench! In Trench 6 we continued to clean-up revealing more of the Roman walls that we saw on day 1.

We are finding reasonable quantities of Roman material and one of the metal detectorists from the Wyvern Historical and Detector Society found a ring in the topsoil from Trench 7, which unfortunately appears to be relatively modern. (not the star and crescent ring Ed.

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