The Twenty Pence Project planning group decided that it might be useful to dig a trial test-pit on the site before the main dig in July so that we had a feel for how deep were the features that could be seen on the geophysics and how easily they could be seen. So Matt, Roger and I dug one trench 2 metres by 1 metre over a period of two days. Matt had selected a position which appeared to be over one of the features seen on the geophysics.

The turf and topsoil was very hard to get through. There had been no real rain for many weeks and the surface was baked hard. But the effort was rewarded. There was quite a quantity of Roman pottery in that topsoil. The digging then got easier and we saw, just below the topsoil, the top of one narrow, shallow ditch and, running at a different angle, the fill of another ditch. The shallow one could, we were not sure, have been a plough mark but the other one was much wider and we could only see one edge of the cut in the test trench.

The fill was reasonably straightforward to trowel down and produced another bag full of pottery as well as some animal bone. We did not extend the trench to find the other edge of the ditch, nor, given the time constraints, did we excavate to the bottom of the ditch. We diligently backfilled the trench and replaced the turf but discovered later that the regular inhabitants of the field, curious and energetic cows, not (I’m slightly disappointed to have to say) bullocks, have since removed the turf and enjoyed a bit of a dust bath there!

Our conclusions were that certainly some of the features identified in the geophysics were ditches, one of the ditches at least in that trench was substantial and the evidence for occupation of the site was predominantly, if not exclusively, Roman.

The pottery found in that test trench included some delightful rim sherds and none of it was particularly abraded. It appeared to be mostly domestic table and cooking ware. There were some small fragments of Samian ware too.

The test trench was planned and sections were drawn. We labelled it Test Pit 1. In July we hope for many more and also hope that our understanding of the site grows with each one.

John Stanford