Week 5, 4–10 August

It's been a brilliant week, with almost as many visitors to the site as the previous record week. Trainees from Italy, the USA and England were treated to the usual rigorous tuition. It was great to see some familiar faces from last year returning; some may suggest they were gluttons for punishment! Read on for the exciting new developments within the trenches.

Trench 1

Trench 1 under excavation

Hurrah! Further investigation of the masonry uncovered last week showed that it was indeed the south-east wall of the Roman interval tower SW6. However, it had been almost entirely demolished, and even the facing stones on the inside of the wall had been removed. Evidently the series of medieval deposits excavated in recent weeks were the backfills of a large robber trench that had been dug down to and around the tower wall in order to remove the usable stone. These deposits contained much domestic rubbish, including pottery, brick and tile. These finds suggest an 11th/12th-century date for the robbing, although most of the finds were residual (much earlier than the date of their deposition) and included a prehistoric struck flint.

Investigating the wall of interval tower SW6 and the medieval robber cut in Trench 1.

Trench 3

Checking the context drawings in Trench 3.

Work continued on the complex sequence of green dumps at the north-east end of the trench. Excavation also continued within the medieval foundation pit in the centre of the trench. Several stake-holes and an unsual slot were also revealed this week. The slot was associated with a large post-hole or small pit, both being backfilled with deposits which were an olive greenish brown colour. It is difficult, at present, to imagine the functions or uses of these two features, but they appear to have been in use during the construction of the Anglo-Norman infirmary undercroft. Artefacts recovered this week included fragments of glass, metal-working slag, a stone bead and a copper object, possibly a bezel with an amber insert.

Excavating the Anglo-Norman levelling deposits in Trench 3. The undercroft foundation pit is visible to the left.

General view of Trench 3 looking south-west. The medieval foundation pit under excavation is in the centre of the trench, and beyond it the cobble fill of an adjacent foundation pit is visible.

Trench 4

Excavating the overburden in Trench 4

English Heritage agreed that, as we were making good progress with the excavations, another of our proposed new trenches could be opened up. Trench 4 will expose two features previously uncovered during the recent excavation programme - part of the medieval stone drain, which was found in our Trench 2 in 2001; and the entrance to the World War Two air-raid shelter, revealed by Time Team in 1999 (link prologue). This trench is also designed to assess whether the deposits associated with the Roman fortress and the medieval hospital survived the 19th-century excavations and the air-raid shelter construction. Work began on the removal of the modern overburden of topsoil and gravel.

Trench 5

View of Trench 5 looking west, with the Multangular Tower behind

This week there was a determined effort to try to remove the thick rubble layers infilling the demolished air-raid shelter. In doing so we reached the safe excavation depth limit of 1.5m in this trench. In addition to the usual fine array of Roman and later finds recovered from these layers, an unusual metal vent was found. This vent was probably situated on top of the air-raid shelter to let air into it from the surface. In the north corner of the trench we have continued to explore a 20th-century archaeological trench. Although it is thought this trench follows the line of the south wall of the Roman Multangular Tower, the wall has not yet been located despite the removal of considerable depth of backfill deposits. The impressive range of finds unearthed in these fills, dating from the Roman period onwards, is intriguing, as it suggests that the excavators at that time didn't keep as many of their finds as we do nowadays!

Excavating the vent in the air-raid shelter demolition deposits, Trench 5