AN OCCASIONAL PROGRESS REPORT
of the 2010 Excavation
by Jeremy Cooper

The views expressed are Jeremy's own and the information is his own understanding - he has been known to get things wrong!

OK Rick and Ruth - relax. Your prayers are answered. The blog will continue even during my wife's absence - of which more later.

The dig kicked off with a dry day, in spite of the weather forecast, but it was a bit on the overcast side. Some sunshine broke through in mid-afternoon.

No goals were conceded and no coalitions formed. Nevertheless, at Whitehall Northants, as at Whitehall W1, this is a year of great changes, so gird your gladatorial lions and play...

Spot the difference 1:

Got it yet? Here's another clue:

And another:

You must have it by now. Yes, of course, the red and white tape has been moved. Well done. It now surrounds an area of newly sown grass-seed that marks where lay bath house 1 (BH1 of beloved memory) and the villa courtyard/post-roman timber building/missing NE wing... (all also of beloved memory).

It's really quite a shock to arrive on site and discover a completely new-feeling landscape, and it's very strange not to have the magnificent walls and cap-stones of BH1 to ponder any more. But it's also a bit of relief when you realise that all those complex courtyard contexts and features and slightly frustrating trenches have been buried.

Spot the difference 2:

I'm sure there must be a few bits and bobs of new clothing here, but the real answer is that the straw bales have been moved to below bath house 2 (BH2), and turn their back rather rudely on the excavation so that the finds working areas and other facilities...

... face away from the prevailing wind, and have a lovely view over the field to the canal and Northampton in the distance. Note the new tent second from the left...

... for small finds, clocking-in and general purposes. Rather a lovely shape - early Gothic I think.

If you look back with keen eyes at the Spot the Difference 1 photos, you'll also notice that the spoil heap has vanished (it was used to re-bury BH1 and the courtyard).

All in all, pretty well everything moveable has been moved - except for Project HQ (Steve's caravan) which alone stands defiant in it's old position...

... from which the Arch.Dir. can keep a beedy eye on BH2.

Spot the difference 3:

Yes this is Whitehall! As some of you will remember from way back in 2002 when this part of the site was last excavated (see the report here), this is the proto-villa (also known for while as the agricultural building). The aim this year is to revisit the area and see what else we can find related to the different stages of development here.

You'll also spot the difference that this area has been administratively upgraded to have its own project HQ and loo! Whatever next!

Spot the difference 4 (a bit trickier this one):

The answer is - no Barbara! As some of you already know, Barbara has a frozen shoulder and has had to withdraw from the dig for this year. She will, I'm sure, put in an appearance sooner or later as a visitor, but she is feeling very frustrated and p*ss*d off that she daren't risk damaging her shoulder by working on site.

Barbara looking frustrated and p*ss*d off, but putting a brave face on it.

Hi Barbara! Click on this photo for a bigger version.


Some Archaeology (but not much yet)

Between the pilae bases next to Dave's knee you can see a stone floor coming through. Mmmm.

And taking advantage of the mid-afternoon sun - the first tray of washed finds put out to dry. Aaaah.

That's all for now. I'll be blogging a little less regularly than last year, but I'll be sure to keep you up to date with major developments.

So watch this space!

Rick and family visited


Steve and Fred do a bit of Tai Chi










A cunning plot to keep the caravan in the proto-villa area


Meanwhile corporate sponsorship is being won for the break-away group.


Margaret demonstrates a find.


The pondering begins


The view is backing England


Nick keeping Peter, Margaret and Gillian at it...


... after all, you've got to fill all these several times over before you can go home.

Hello to all from Glenn Fleuchar in Hereford! He is sorry he cannot join you for the dig this year, perhaps next year we will be more organised and arrange for him to come back and stay locally for it. We have just moved (on 7th May) to a small village (Holme Lacy) 6 miles from Hereford, for our son's schooling and we are really happy here in the beautiful countryside - we have a fantastic view of the Wye valley from our garden!

Hope the dig goes well, we will be following the updates on the blog!

Glenn and family

Sorry for the late posting of this blog - I was out all yesterday evening at a Western Front Association meeting (www.wfamk.org.uk). Anyway...

By the time I got to Whitehall in mid-afternoon it was raining - for which I got the blame, of course. The tea break was effectively extended up to the site tour. But nobody minded much as it has been a very successful first week, with much more progress being made than usual (probably because there was not the vast open excavation area to clean up). And finding that mosaic helped!

Before looking at the mosaic - here's nice bit of Samian ware, spotted with the naked eye by Dave Derby in a place where it should not have been found, because it should never have been put there! 'Nuff said.

Part of the maker's stamp is evident.


Over to you Rick.

Rick's almost immediate email response on publication of the blog is:
"The samian is a type Dragendorff 18/31r. (The r meaning its rouletted design on the interior). Date range A.D.90- A.D.150."

Site tour

BH2

Steve, Sandra and Margaret started off the tour with a look at BH2.



The week's work had uncovered a limestone floor around the pilae of what was evidently a second stoke house in rooms 4 (see here for the rooms of BH2).


(Looking North)

It also revealed several more pilae at the East end of room 4.

The mosaic (to the East of room 4) is in the newly declared room 5.


(Looking West)

It is a non-decorated, very functional mosaic. The tesserae match those found in the villa, but not those found last year in room 3 (?) of BH2 (which are finer and possibly part of a decorated mosaic). So the mosaic is probably of the same date as the villa.

The mosiac has plough damage running along the slope of the hill and a dip at its southern end (left hand side of the photo above). The dip may be a result machinery running over it, and/or of there being a cavity beneath the mosiac - perhaps a hypocaust. The wood-lined drain found last year could very well run under right the mosaic floor.

There is a dark coloured feature running across room 5 (West to East - top to bottom on the photo above) which some people think may be the result of a burning beam falling onto the mosaic.

The edge between the mosaic (room 5) and the pilae to the West (room 4) needs to be defined to establish whether the mosaic runs under the floor of room 4 (room 4 is at the top of the photo below).



Room 5 is certainly at a slightly lower level than room 4, but this could be a phasing issue, or a terracing issue, or...

On seeing Sandra's photo from yesterday (Thursday), Rick commented:

"I had a quick chat with Bob Zeepvat (Bancroft Villa, ASC) today as he had a couple of cars in for servicing and asked him about the new discovery. He remarked that it isn't unusual to find layers of floor or tess. pavement on a site, one on top of another. One of the sites he dug in Cirencester had box flue tiles sandwiched between the floors. He remarked to consider it like someone laying an new carpet over the top of an old one."

Next week that join between rooms 4 and 5 will be explored and the baulk to the East of the mosaic worked back to see how far it extends down the hill. Also the floor of room 4 will be taken back southwards to establish it's extent.

To the North of room 5 is a substantial wall...


(Looking West) Two of the newly found pilae are under those buckets

... suggesting that room 5 was a high room needing large foundations. To the South of room 5 there is evidence of a robbed-out wall.

Proto-villa

Tony welcomed us to what he described as the low-status end of the site, far removed from the glamour of BH2. Since he's got his own caravan and loo I really don't see what he's on about.

Most of the week was spent cleaning off the site to expose the excavations as they were left in 2002 (see the report here).


(Looking West)

The location of the floor of the main building is still clearly to be seen and the trenches dug to explore several ditches are still in place. Expanding these a bit led to a nice find of animal bones which will be dug out next week.



A pot base was found underneath this bone cluster. (This site was previously renowned for it's finds of bone).

The alignment and sections of some of the ditches (boundary or drainage) have thrown up some conundrums to be addressed next week.

Further up the site (furthest away from the hedge-row entrance to it) they dug to explore a geo-phys anomaly, but found no evidence of another building. Never mind eh.

Fieldwalking near the hedgerow entrance to the proto-villa site had found a high density of sherds, and the hedgrow may well run alongside a trackway. So they got Ollie in to dig a ditch alongside the hedgerow (I think they're just trying to stop people coming onto the proto-villa site - Nestle want to protect their investment).


(Looking East)

The first level down revealed nothing, but taking it down a couple of feet further revealed two features...





The stone feature may be seen to line up with the conundrum ditch next to the proto-villa. But there is no firm evidence of the trackway. The sherds found in fieldwalking may just be the result of field dressing.

Originally it had been expected that work on this site would be completed this week, but there is enough of interest here to continue next week. Don't want to waste the loo hire!

Well, an exciting first week. And next week begins with Summer Solstice on Monday (at 12.28 local time), so that must be a good omen. I reckon the Romano-British at Whitehall would have been sure of that!

(Boring techie bit: I've increased the size of the main photos today - let me know if it poses any problems for you in fitting the photos onto your screen).