Community Dig – Day 7 – Some might say…
That’s it, a whole week done. My, how time flies when you’re shovelling clay! I’ve been on my own in Trench 1 for most of the day, but we’ve had lots of help from other volunteers in Trenches 2 and 3. Also, a test pit in Hen’s Orchard, which produced Medieval pottery.
Trench 3 (right side by the wall) is being explored to see if what lies below the stone spread is the sandy...
Read MoreCommunity Dig – Day 6 – Julia’s gone potty
It was a little quieter on site today, as four in the morning turned into the Triumvirate of myself, Julia and of course, ‘The Boss’, Roy after lunch.
We’ve made good progress today. I’ve hacked out most of Trench 1 down to nearly 5 feet at the top end and at over 2 metres in length that was a lot of mattocking! The blisters on my hands now have blisters of their own and the...
Read MoreCommunity Dig – Day 5 – Looking for a date?
Well I’m pleased to announce that Trench 1 has redeemed itself. It’s an effort now to get in and out of our trench and by first tea break the only signs of life were the frequent shovels of soil coming from seemingly nowhere into our buckets on the topside of the trench.
Julia had a very frustrating morning; she thought she had hit the natural. It was just like being at the beach...
Read MoreCommunity Dig 2014 – Day 4 – Vino anyone?
Well it’s been a slow but progressive day for Trenches 2 and 3. Trench 1, however, needs to hang its head in shame. On the plus side it’s been a beautiful day to be down a hole and we’ve had lots of people stop and ask us what we’re up to, thankfully out of curiosity and not suspicion.
Trench 3 has a tremendous cascade of limestone falling away from the wall that separates the...
Read MoreCommunity Dig 2014 – Day Three – Wonky just won’t do
Two things are becoming apparent after only 3 days. The first is that we have dumped all sorts of rubbish into the ground over the past 50 years or so. Trench 3, the new trench, had an abundance of smashed glass, barbed wire and nails in the upper-most layer. The second is that our water bills, particularly those in Trench 1, will be more this month as a result of the strenuous stone moving,...
Read MoreCommunity Dig 2014 – Day Two – Can anyone smell gas?
Well at the end of day two it was onwards and downwards! Trench Two, or the gassy trench, contained an abundance of broken and burnt brick in a very dark deposit. With a sporadic whiff of gas between trowels we began to wonder if we had left the camp stove burning. However, it was in fact the remains of an old gas works that used to sit on the playing field. Contained in this dark material...
Read MoreCommunity Dig 2014 – Day One – Turf Off!
The day started in earnest at 9am with the first sods of turf being removed and stacked by the wall. By 10am we had it all removed and the exciting prospect of hand excavation started. What would we find? Oh the anticipation! Within minutes we came across an area of stones in the top right corner of Trench 1. Could it be part of a wall, a building, a grand hall, no, no, surely a Medieval...
Read MoreThe Community Dig 2014
. A blog documenting a volunteer’s experiences taking part in Bradford on Avon Museum’s excavations at Barton Farm in 2014 .
Dear Reader
Welcome to the Community Dig Daily Report page, a review of the days archaeology, progress and finds. I hope you enjoy reading them and when you’ve finished,...
Read MoreMuseum members at the Roman Baths
. A small party of Museum Society members was treated to a tour of the stores of the Roman Baths Museum in Bath. The serious reason for the trip underground in Bath was towards identifying and understanding the Roman and Medieval pottery that has been found in Budbury and other places in Bradford. They had the opportunity to examine some fascinating sherds...
Read MoreThe Medieval Landscape Emerges
As work continues on plotting archaeology from the Lidar images, it’s clear that we will get a mapping of the prehistoric and Romano-British landscape. This was from the outset the main objective. There are now a few signs of a period in time that has defeated local archaeologists and historians, namely the form of the landscape since Domesday – Bradford Hundred in the Middle...
Read MoreBradford on Avon Museum Anglo-Saxon Archaeology Conference
Saturday 6th July, 2-5pm at the Lecture Theatre, St Laurence School, Bradford on Avon
The following presentations will be given:
Digging up Bradford on Avon – problems and possibilities: Roy Canham. Wild West frontier town – Bradford in the politics of Wessex and Mercia: Martyn... Read MoreMuseum Celebrates Lottery Win!
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Bradford on Avon Museum has been successful in a bid for an award from the Heritage Lottery Fund’s “All Our Stories” round of grants. With the HLF funding and support, community groups like ours will carry out activities that help people explore,...
Read MoreThe Museum Collection: Medieval
Bradford on Avon Museum, Wiltshire .
Although whole buildings of the middle ages stand in and around Bradford, so far very little from the medieval period has come to Bradford on Avon Museum. Less than from the New Stone Age (Neolithic ) and much less than from the Roman Period!
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Read MoreNew Acquisition: a Neolithic Flint Arrowhead
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Bradford on Avon Museum’s collection is very poor in objects from Broughton Gifford, which, as an area in the Bradford Hundred, falls within the the collecting area of the Museum. The chance find of a Neolithic flint arrowhead near Monkton adds not just to the collection of...
Read MoreMuseum Collection: Neolithic Flint Implements
Bradford on Avon Museum, Wiltshire
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The Neolithic Period (New Stone Age, roughly from 4000 to 2500 BC) was marked by the first introduction of farming, both in growing crops and keeping domesticated animals. Large areas of the country were cleared of ancient woodland to make fields, but hunting and gathering still went on. Metal tools...
Read MoreSt Laurence School Roman Villa
It had long been known that there was significant Roman building in the Budbury area, on the plateau just north of the centre of Bradford. An excavation in 1976, when new houses were being built, found a bath house, so the villa house had to be nearby.
A fragment of plaster that had fallen from the walls of the bath house. Many of these pieces were conserved in a...
Read MoreThe Museum Collection: Post-medieval Archaeology
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Bradford on Avon Museum, Wiltshire
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In this country, the Middle Ages are considered to have finished in 1485, when Richard III was defeated at the Battle of Bosworth Field. After that come the Tudor dynasty, the Reformation, the Stuarts, Georgians, the reign of Victoria and modern...
Read MoreThe Museum Collection: Roman
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Bradford on Avon Museum does not hold excavated material from organised archaeological digs such as those at the Atworth and St Laurence School Roman villa sites. Objects excavated there are held by the Wiltshire Museum in Devizes, except for the St Laurence material from 2002 and 2003, which is still being examined at...
Read MoreRoman Bradford
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The limestone hills around the city and religious site of Aquae Sulis (modern Bath) are rich in remains from the Roman period (43-410 AD), including the uplands of the western part of the Bradford Hundred area. Even today, most of the northern border of the Hundred is defined by the line of the Roman road from Londinium.
There were major...
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