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!