Week 4, 28 July–3 August

This was yet another busy training week with all 16 trainee places snapped up. Most of the people were from the UK, but the USA was represented. Over 2000 people visited the site this week, a brilliant achievement, bringing the total this season to over 6000. Most visitors have gone away from the excavations saying how fascinating and interesting the work that we are undertaking is.

Trench 1

Yet more medieval deposits were excavated, but on the final day of the week a short length of masonry wall was uncovered. Could this be the south-east wall of the Roman interval tower at long last? This trench was now approaching its safe depth limit of 1m, and the sides were shored up in order to ensure the sides of the trench (and the standing medieval undercroft) do not collapse.

Trench 1 - still excavating medieval dumps!

Constructing the shoring in Trench 1

Trench 3

Erecting the shelter over Trench 3

A major advance in the excavation of this trench occurred this week, with the erection of a shelter on a specially designed metal frame. This shelter should ensure that the trench is protected from the weather, be it soaking rain or baking sun.

More 11th/12th-century levelling deposits were removed to the north-east of the column base position. These layers had a distinctly green hue, and were thought to be mostly dumps of waste material. They were divided into two working areas; one side was removed rapidly using mattocks to look at the overall nature of the dumps, whereas the other side was more carefully dug layer by layer. Excavation of the clay and cobble fill of the column base foundation began in earnest. A surprisingly large number of mostly Roman finds were recovered, including many fragments of painted wall plaster. Was the construction of the medieval infirmary associated with the demolition of major Roman buildings in the vicinity?

The medieval foundation pit under excavation	Roman painted wall plaster from the column base foundation

Trench 5

Excavating the 20th-century archaeological trench in Trench 5

The large cut found last week now occupies the entire south-west half of the trench. The rubble fill includes much reinforced concrete, and is clearly derived from the demolition of the World War Two air-raid shelter. In the north corner of Trench 5 a narrow cut with vertical sides, aligned west to east diagonally across the trench, came to our attention. It is thought to be a 20th-century archaeological trench, probably following the south wall of the Roman Multangular Tower where it projected back inside the fortress. Yet more great finds dating from the Roman period through to modern times were recovered from the backfills of these features.

Excavating the air-raid shelter demolition cut in Trench 5. The orange sand visible in the section forms the upper fill of the cut; a similar deposit was found in the uppermost fill of the same cut in Trench 3 in 2001.