Tower
David Hunter photographing site

EH’s “latest” update – Week 2 Day 4

In Trench 6 cleaning of the area of the new room or building and the area around continued and, if anything, the site began to look even more complicated than we had thought it to be. A wall running north-south from the ‘new room’ suggests that it if it not part of a remodelling of Building 2 we actually do have another building overlying the one found in 1996/7. Looking at the trench from our photographic tower has proved rather daunting – we keep seeing new features and what we thought was going to be a relatively straight-forward, if interesting and important piece of archaeology, gets more challenging by the moment!

In Trench 7 we started to excavate the soil of the hill-wash that occupies the northern part of the trench, as well as testing soil areas in the southern part that may obscure archaeological features, or represent part of the build-up we saw along the terrace edge at the northern end of Trench 5 last year.

Finds Bulletin 2 Finds this week have included Roman building material and pottery. Building 2 may have collapsed when it went out of use. As a result we are excavating through the remains of roofs and walls and finding many fragments of Roman roof tiles. These come in two types; flat Tegula with upturned edges and curved Imbrex which covered the edges between two Tegulae. We have also found stone roof tile, some of which were made from the local Coral Ragstone. One of the rooms of the building has unpainted plaster surviving on three of the walls. There have also been a number of loose plaster fragments and some of these were painted either red or black.

Smaller finds have included a few fragments of glass, probably from a window pane, and some blue glass beads. These were tubular in shape with the remains of copper alloy wire running through the middle. They probably formed part of a bracelet or necklace.

Designed by Corinne Mills 2005
email [email protected]

Conditions:- Early short shower of rain was just enough to dampen the soil. Otherwise warm and humid.
More of the same today gently trowelling the surfaces trying to reveal and define the structure of the building. What was thought to be a plunge pool seems to be a bit too large, but painted plaster is still on the wall. And one of the inside walls of the building seem massive for an internal, so that is also causing interpretative headaches. But all in all everyone is happy with the way the site is coming on, it is very interesting how revealed features are posing more questions that they are answering, but everyone agrees that they prefer it that way.

…..on the political front :- IT support don’t send any one to install the modem (remember, administration privileges required) because it has been decided “it is outside their contractual remit” or some such rubbish.
Pete continues to use my dial-up to send the update for the web pages. He reckons the way it is going EH will have paid for 12 months broadband (minimum contract), he won’t get to use it, and I’ll get to have it for 10 months without paying for it. Ho Hum.

EH’s “latest” update –Week 2 Day 3

After photographing Trench 6 we began to trowel down the area around our new room or building very hard and take-out the fill of the 20th-century field drain trenches as a way of getting an insight into the layers into which they were cut. It seems clear that we have areas of collapsed building material, including what may be stone roof tiles. As we clean and re-clean areas we are beginning to see that the area of Building 2 is very complicated – in addition to the later building, or room we are also seeing a number of what may be other walls and we know that there are features within the area stripped for the road that are on a completely different alignment to the stone-built buildings.

On the west side of the site we returned to Trench 7 and have started to plan and record what we can see prior to excavation.

Conditions:- Hot, Sunny and Humid. Steady progress today and tentative talk of a multi-phased site.

Op. Sig. is coming out in lumps and wall plaster is being found. I keep on having to remind myself that it is only the start of week 2 and had to have a word with David Hunter (dig director) to make sure that he keeps me something special to work on in two weeks (else I won’t let him use my internet connection again )

Bryn Walters (he, with Bernard Philips, did the original evaluation after the developer found the complex) is going to spend some time on site tomorrow as he’s got a meeting with Dr. Pete Wilson. I haven’t seen Bryn for a month or so and it will be great to catch up on gossip (Bryn is a great gossip and a wonderful character) I expect he’ll pop in for a cuppa or a Guinness, depending on what time it is.

The finds specialist bottled it today and will now be turning up a week this Friday. I want to talk to him about the ring with the star and crescent design.

Designed by Corinne Mills 2005
email [email protected]

I was on my way up to trench 7 (over a possible road) when I was warned off by an EH guy. “I’d wait a couple of days, Chris”.

So nothing like trench 6 then with archaeology appearing after a few minutes. Still if it ain’t there, you can’t find it. There is optimism about the trench but the main aim is to interpret the building in the Southern part of the site.

It is sadly the last day for the first batch of volunteers. Another lot start next Wednesday. A lot of the finds have been made by these volunteers, which must really be the icing on the cake for them. One of the female volunteers (no previous experience) found, a single hobnail (this was by trowel alone), a large lumpy nail with the head turned over (again just by excavating) and today, quite late in the day, started to find tiny blue glass beads!!!. She was chuffed.

I’ll get the info on this latest find tomorrow. Another bit of good news is that we’ve got the “non-roman” drain just where the geophys said it would be.

Apse and floor
Starting to be revealed

Apse
after initial cleaning

pipe
Length of lead piping

Official EH update for Week 1 Day 5

Being a Sunday we didn’t have the JCB, despite this we have made major progress in Trench 6 cleaning back over the western third and revealing what may be additional surfaces or walls. On the eastern side of the trench we have finally confirmed that we have the 1997 Trial Trench and in emptying it have exposed at least fours courses of Roman masonry. In the over cleaned part of the trench it looks fairly certain that we have got Roman surfaces, possible plaster, more probably mortar and likely to be floors.

In Trench 7 we have spent much of the day cleaning-up for our first set-piece photographs. However we have started a trench down the western side of the area north of the possible road to establish if the soil deposits are going directly down on to Coral Ragstone bed rock.

I like Pete. He has the air of a man constantly harassed. Mind you though :-

• Tuesday – he was travelling down to the site on the A419 when he ripped the back trim off of the EH Mondeo going over some roadworks.
• Wednesday – Volunteers on site. No delivery of hard hats or safety shoes till later.
• Thursday – No JCB
• Friday – Access ramp trashed by @#%$ lorry driver (that’s a job description not a criticism)

Hmm…………. I can see why he always looks harassed. Poor man.

Conditions Hot, Cloud with periodic sun.
Good progress made today on the main trench (20m x 25m) and I spent a little time up on the section through the possible roman road/trackway (25m x 3m) nothing spectacular yet and no archaeology to back up the theory at this time – but you know what you get along roman roads? Speculation about that was rife.

One thing I haven’t mentioned is the mock excavation on-site. This is for KS2 children from local schools. “Be an Archaeologist for a Day” is the idea that Dawn,the Outreach Officer, will be promoting. The mock excavation looks like a raised bed (in gardening) it has a couple of “Roman walls” built into it and all this is filled with topsoil and pieces of pottery and other finds are spread within the fill. Each kiddy will be given their own little trowel and pointed in the direction of the pit. (someone suggested they should be given mattocks as well but he was sent off to help with portaloo emptying). The teachers and TA’s then swan off to the pub while Dawn and a volunteer or two “supervise”. (I’ve got at least 2 classes that I’ll be with !!!)

Anyway – end of day 3.

Day3
S.W. corner of Trench

Day 3

S.W. corner of trench. Think that might be a wall 🙂

Official EH update forWeek 1 – Day 3

Today we were again able to have a JCB which has meant that most of the topsoil has been removed from Trench 6. With luck we should be able to get rid of the rest of the modern material used to infill the road created in 1996 tomorrow. As we have moved across the area the pieces of Roman tile that we have found have increased in size. We are getting readily recognisable pieces of box-flue tile that would have been used to take hot air up the walls of heated rooms – possibly rooms in a bath-house, or bath-suite or a larger building, or domestic rooms with underfloor heating. In the south-eastern and south-western parts of Trench 6 we have been using tools a little more subtle than a JCB and, working with trowels, mattocks and shovels, have defined the walls we first saw on day 1. However we are now less certain that we have the backfill of the trial trench excavated by Bernard Phillips and Bryn Walters in 1997. In Trench 7 our team have been looking enviously at the JCB operating in Trench 6 as they have been removing the topsoil that underlay the turf. However the size of the trench has meant that machine stripping was not really a viable option. Despite this we may have already got the top of a ditch running parallel with the earthwork that may represent the Roman road. Roman roads normally have a drainage ditch either side, so currently things are looking good.

Tonight is our ‘Residents Evening’ when we give those people most directly affected by the project an opportunity to see what we are doing and ask questions about the project. Last year it proved popular and we were able to put people’s minds at rest with regard to concerns that we might be building a visitor centre outside their front windows! When we have finished this year we will know much more about the site, but again we will be reinstating the site as a green field.

Designed by Corinne Mills 2005
email [email protected]

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

.

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.

Wednesday 9th June – Day 1

Trench Plan
Plans of this years Trenches overlaying Mark Corney’s earthwork survey of 1997

Conditions for Day 1, heavy rain overnight, cloud cover, very humid.
Hectic early morning start for all on site, first batch of volunteers tip up at 08:30 and are given an induction and initial training, issued with safety equipment i.e. boots and hard hats and are teamed up with their mentors.

Dr Pete Wilson (EH Project Director) and Robert Dickinson (Swindon Borough Council) do the usual media interviews, and finally the Big Yellow Trowel starts de-turfing. Usually this part of a dig can be a little boring, but in the case of the Groundwell site the archaeology is, in places, just under the surface.

I have not spent much time on site today (I’ve been booked for 1 week at the mid-excavation point and the penultimate week!!!). BT can’t put in the EH broadband link to my house until June 14th !!!! So the EH web updates from the site will probably start after then.

So that was the first day, and features can be seen already (there is a raised observation platform where the great unwashed can watch each stage of the dig unfold all day if they want). Outreach tours of the site by EH are at 11am and 3pm.

Day1
The Dig gets started

Day1
Starting to get the wall

Day1
Possible pier in double entrance. Or is it just stand alone masonry?

Day1
Tea break. A wall emerges

Finds tray lunchtime first day.

Official EH update for Week 1 Day 1. (Last Wednesday 9th June 2004)

Technical Note:- the 20m x 25m trench is Trench 6 This is sequentially the 6th trench opened on the scheduled site. Sorry I should have explained that earlier.

GROUNDWELL 2004

Week 1 Day 1

Trench 6 was started using a JCB to strip the topsoil and remove the modern material that had been used to infill the area of the road stripped in 1996 when the Roman buildings were discovered.
The bulk of the Centre for Archaeology Team is on site, along with our first eight local volunteers and three members of the Wyvern Historical and Detector Society, although our four trainees don’t start until Week 2. Although the team had to be patient while we waited for the JCB to move back far enough to allow them on site safely, we still managed to locate our first Roman walls and the trial trench excavated by Bryn Walters and Bernard Phillips in 1997.

We have had lots of press interest, indeed before the excavation started the Swindon Evening Advertiser sent a photographer to take pictures of portakabins being craned on to site last week. As well as the Advertiser returning we had Great Western Radio (GWR), BBC Radio Swindon (twice!), BBC Radio Wiltshire, ITV Local News and Swindon Link magazine. BBC Radio Swindon are intending to do weekly updates.

Although our education programme is still to start we had a group of 12 teachers come to site as part of an INSET day in advance of them bringing their children to be ‘Archaeologists for the day’ during the project. As a group the teachers had an opportunity to work on our ‘mock-excavation’ which has been specially built for the education programme to allow the ‘archaeologists for a day’ to experience excavating, planning a ‘site’ and finding objects – just like the team in Trench 6!
Our viewing platform is open and we had our first visitors, some of whom spent much of the afternoon watching the JCB, mattocks, shovels and trowels extend what we know about Building 2 – our main target for this year.

Pete turns up to finally get the BT Broadband set up (we thought). So he gets out the laptop, connects the CD-ROM, fine. Plugs in the BT supplied Broadband modem…….”new hardware detected….you do not have sufficient privileges to add this hardware”. I stay out of the way. He contacts the IT support group (who are outsourced) he doesn’t seem very happy when he explains that although EH want to use my line to access their servers the IT outsource people haven’t approved it and technically my house isn’t an EH site so they are not happy to provide support and won’t give Pete privileges to add the modem. All very political but I’m sure it’ll all sort itself out.

Chatting on site to Dawn Irving, the Community Education Officer, and she passed on the information that at 01:00 this morning the site was nighthawked – the security guard chased them off the site but this morning it was found that a complete hypocaust box-flue tile that was being painstakingly excavated had been ripped out and was gone. So first off there had to be an assessment of the trench to see what else had been disturbed.

Bryn and Bernard are on site today, it’s good to see them both again and catch up with Bryn.

P.S. IT specialist is coming up to Swindon from Portsmouth to type in the password for the privileges to install the broadband modem. They couldn’t tell Pete the password, else they’d have to shoot him.

Neil and Kat
At work in the “deep room”

EH’s “latest” update -Week 2 Day 2

We continued to clean Trench 6, working towards our first overall trench photographs. The weather was kind and they were taken in early afternoon. What we thought yesterday might be an east-west wall on the northern side of the trench is looking increasing like it might be a path across the open area between Buildings 1 and 2 – on further cleaning the surface of the stone looks as if it has been worn by the passage of feet over a considerable period of time. To the south of it we are beginning to define what may be a later building overlying Building 2, or possibly a room that was added to it late on in the Roman occupation of the site and served to extend the structure out into the area between the buildings. To the south-east of the road scrape Bernard Phillips’ and Bryn Walters’ possible cold plunge bath appears to have the remnants of plaster on three walls, but is looking less like a cold plunge as it is probably too large, approx 4m x 4m with a 2m square extension to the north-west. We were fortunate to have the benefit of having Bernard and Bryn visit today and their comments on the site as now revealed, and their commentary on their excavations have been extremely helpful.
We returned to Trench 7 and have started to plan and record what we can see prior to excavation.

The end of another great week. Today more features were being discovered, and causing Pete more headaches and there is really only next week left to dig, for the final week is reserved for backfilling. The building speaks for itself, it needs a lot more work done on it and hopefully EH can come up with the funding, but with like everything – money is tight and this seven weeks at Groundwell has taken a rather large slice of the Centre for Archaeology’s budget. And as I say this is only one building of a complex of several on this site.

Today I carefully exposed, cleaned and recorded a concretion of nails and other iron artefacts hard against a wall, possibly the contents of a bag of some sort of which parts could remain. So after cleaning and photographing in situ, it was block lifted to be excavated in the lab looking for fabric, fibres or organic matter. I was quite pleased with that delicate job.

Then me, Kat and Neil took the soil covering the walls of our room back to about 2cm away from the inside faces so that on Wednesday when we expose the plaster we can work quickly to strip the remaining soil and record the exposed room before the plaster deteriorates and maybe falls.

Back on site and in the “deep room” to take two 15cm vertical strips down the soil adhering to adjacent walls to see how far the plaster goes down. The east wall gives us the answer – the plaster continues down to where we have dug to. The decision is taken to half section the floor and continue through our gravelly context. Finds have dwindled but I still manage to “small find” process 8 nails whilst cleaning up the walls.

Recorded after 1st reduction of digging area

Shot showing tarp. covering investigative vertical cut and showing depth of room.

This afternoon we had two very special visitors turn up to poke around and keep an eye on us.

Professor Mick Aston and assistant Teresa Hall. It was really good to see them again and we breifly chatted about being in my back garden last year. Mick joked with Pete Wilson about not using the locals as they are “noithing but troible”, and Pete was warning Mick not to say anything as it all gets published on this thread. Which, as you can see Professor Aston, it does

I’m not digging tomorrow, I am on site with a party of local 10 year old school children – helping out with “crowd control” :eek but Neil and Kat will let me know if anything spectacular happens. That’s all for now I’ll let you know how I get on with the children tomorrow.

Pete, Mick and Teresa
Wednesday afternoon

Pete, Mick and Teresa
Being shown the “Deep room”

Ohhh!!
Pete saying “And that’s where Chris split his trousers”

Mick
Generally musing on the site.

EH’s “latest” update – Week 5 Day 1

Today we were working under the threat and rain and wind – unfortunately neither came with any force until the last hour or so of the day. Now both have arrived with a vengeance and tomorrow is looking like a good day for finds processing! In Trench 6 we cleaned-up and photographed the cold plunge bath (Room 3). We have continued to take down the infilling of Room 4, but are yet to find the floor – do we have a second cold bath? In Room 6 it has been suggested that we might have a channelled hypocaust, although it is equally possible that the one channel that we can see may be the water-supply for the cold range of the bath house. If it is the water supply what we had thought was a stone base for a lead pipe carrying the water in will in fact be one of the sides of the water channel. Elsewhere in Trench 6 we are investigating the wall that connects Building 2 with Building 1 to the west – as it was damaged by the road construction work in 1996 we are taking out about 1.5m of its foundation to allow us to examine deposits that we know to predate the stone buildings – given the protected status of the site it may well be the only walling that we remove. In Trench 7 we are continuing to draw the section,

Professor Mick Aston of Time Team fame visited today. Mick was here when Time Team did their ‘Big Dig’ last year and so has an interest in the site and also a long-established interest in Community Archaeology. After the limited discoveries last year, by both Time Team and ourselves, we were glad to be able to show him our bath house in its gradually increasing glory!