The weather was much kinder to us on Friday so the team were able to continue the task of cleaning and planning Trenches 13, 14 and 15. Archaeological features are now visible in all three trenches and the next task will be to begin excavating them in order to understand their function, date and how they relate to each other. Trench 13 contains a curvilinear feature which may be a ring ditch associated with Iron Age activity. There is a spread of rubble in trench 14 which is being carefully cleaned, and trench 15 contains many amorphous features which need to be excavated before we can further understand their age and purpose. Professor Stephen Rippon gave a site tour to students and volunteers on Friday afternoon which enabled everyone the opportunity to see how each trench was developing.
Meanwhile in the Hub, we welcomed 115 visitors in the first week! On Friday afternoon we were visited by families from the after school club and children designed their own Roman coin to go on display. One of the youngsters commented ‘Ipplepen is a small place- who would have thought there’d be SO MUCH history!’. Danielle Wootton then showed the headmaster of Abbotskerswell Primary school around site in preparation for their visit to the excavation. We look forward meeting more visitors in the Hub next week!
A special mention and a big ‘thank you’ to all the volunteers who helped on the excavation in week one- we hope you enjoyed your time with us and look forward to showing you our progress at the open day on June 25th.