Binchester 2013: Day Four

Another busy day on site. In Trench 1 all the work over the last week on the areas to the north and east of the barrack block are really coming together now. The nice cobbled surface to the north is being matched by some good surfaces on the east. In particular, the area around Hilly's Pit has cleaned up exceptionally well. Although the surfaces either side of the pit are probably of a different date, it is easy to see how these external surfaces spread round the barrack block itself. We've also seen real progress on defining and clearing the wall that runs parallel to the barrack. Earlier this week I suggested that it might just be the drainage gully that ran along the edge of the wall. However, I am now more convinced that it is indeed a structural. We are going to focus on really getting to grips with the area between this wall and the barrack itself over the next week. One particularly nice find this afternoon was a carefully placed grey-ware pot that seems to have been put in a deliberate cut that actually cut into the foundations of the new wall. In Trench 2, the latest of the sequences of deposits in the large room has been cleared and is currently being recorded- our students are starting to get to grips with the joys of single context recording. In the corridor, the lads are still going deeper and have been removing a yellow, sandy deposit- we must be close to bottoming it out. In the post-pad building, we are still clearing out the interior and coming down onto the underlying paved street front. We've now got the bases of what appear to be two slab constructed troughs or cisterns, which are intriguing. Weather is set fair for the rest of week, which means an unbroken week's work, which is pleasing. Meanwhile, if you are seeking refuge from the sun, have a look at the exhibition Binchester Exposed created by our students, which is now available online.