The first project the Group undertook was the excavation of a number of test pits in gardens in Cottenham. We identified householders who wanted, over the weekend of 16th and 17th May 2009, to dig a test pit in their garden, or who were happy to allow others to do so.

The reason we chose to do this as our first Group fieldwork activity was that we had the opportunity to work with Carenza Lewis and her team from Access Cambridge Archaeology and draw on their expertise to identify finds and interpret results. Funds to pay for their time came from the University’s 800th Anniversary Fund (as they did for the later dig in Willingham).

Carenza has an ongoing research project into the origins and development of villages in East Anglia and she was happy to add the results of the digging in the Cottenham test pits to her data.