October 2005
The digging season has finished for this year with a flurry of activity in the trenches. The north eastern extension to trench seven has been expanded further to reveal a stony surface outside the back wall of the villa with deposits of roof tiles. These deposits will be investigated further next season together with the relationship to the nearby ditch. More work has also been done on what was thought to be steps leading down to the stoke room (see July diary). However having removed some of the flints of this structure the lower 'steps' now appear to be the wall of the stokeroom and the 'top step' part of another, as yet unidentified structure.
Trench 7 - north east extension
Glass rim from the ditch (trench 9)
Excavation of the ditch has continued and we have now reached the natural gravel making up the sides. We probably still have another layer of fill at the bottom of the ditch that will need to be removed before we have a complete picture of the stages of development of the ditch. There is also evidence of a drainage channel leading into the ditch which has been filled with chalk. An interesting piece of roman glass was found in the ditch fill, possibly the rim of a wine glass or other drinking vessel.
The two walls forming the corridor between trenches 7 and 8 can now clearly be seen. Between the walls there are several interesting burnt areas, possibly the remains of a hearth. The burnt areas are still however above the floor level of the rooms in trenchs 7 and 8 so more digging will be required before the original floor is reached.
Corridor
Burnt areas in the corridor
An attempt was made earlier in the month to investigate some of the promising anomolies on the geophysics survey to the north east of the villa. Unfortunately a small trench dug in the area revealed deposits of building rubble and rubbish from the recent clearance of the area and not the wall we thought it might be.
Plans for next year are already underway to clear more of the site at the back of the villa to investigate the back wall, ditch and area to north east of trench 8 which is possibly a chalk or tiled floor.
Look out for a summary of this year's excavation and some of the conclusions that have been drawn later in the year.