Binchester Day 4

We had some much-needed rain over night. Although it has not been particularly hot, the site was already starting to dry out, making it difficult to dig. The work on clarifying the structural remains has ended up confusing matters rather than clarifying things. Some of the walls are certainly better defined, but others are less substantial than originally thought. It is clear that in some cases lengths of wall have been robbed out, whilst elsewhere they appear to be cut by pits or other possible features. The mound of rubble we originally thought might be a late ballista platform is becoming more complex by the minute; the rubble now appears to be overlying an earlier rectangular stone structure, which surprisingly is not on the same alignment as any of the other structures in the fort. The key question we really need to determine is that of chronology. Are the structures we can see late Roman or early medieval? We certainly have 4th century pottery and coinage, however, this is mainly unstratified; it is not until we start sectioning some of the pits and post-holes and getting finds from secure contexts that the question of date might start getting clearer. Confusingly, there is also a surprising quantity of late medieval pottery from the area we are digging. This is appearing in quite large fragments so is unlikely to be from manuring scatters. Is it possible that some of the structures are in fact late medieval? I think its unlikely, as the site appeared to be sealed by medieval ridge and furrow. However, this does the raise the question of how it got here; the original site of the medieval Binchester Hall is about 100m upslope, so it is quite possible that it came from there.

The key question is whether we are talking about a short late/sub-Roman chronology (sequence perhaps lasting into the mid-5th century) or a longer one (sequence lasting into 6th century or even later); we’ve certainly been playing with the idea that a large rectangular dark feature within one of the structures is an Anglo-Saxon sunken-featured building. This is highly speculative, but not entirely unfeasible, given the evidence for early medieval activity elsewhere on site. There’s only one way to find out though….

Binchester Day 3

Relatively little to report today as far as on-site activity is concerned, as I had to spend most of the day in the office : ( However, I was able to pop out briefly at lunch time. Work continues on defining the possible tower; at this stage it still mainly appears to be a dump of rock, although a small stretch of walling can be identified. At the east end of the main section across the site we have started to look at the deposits close to the rampart. Its difficult to be clear what’s happening, though it is just possible that we are starting to isolate layers of dumped re-deposited natural, which may well make up the fabric of the rampart. At the other end, there has been more work cleaning the number of services which lie to the south of the wall of the main structure; it is possible that we are seeing a surface that has been repeatedly repaired and patched: but how late? Is this late Roman or sub-Roman?

Outisde the trench we’ve had a couple of good pieces of news. We’ve received a grant of £2500 from the Roman Research Trust to extend the geophysical survey; we aim cover the area to the north of the fort. GSB Prospection carried out a large-scale survey for Time Team, and identified vicus activity and an important early stage of the fort in this area; however, the large gravel plateau continues north towards the Bell Burn and we aim to use the survey to identify how far the vicus extends in this direction.

I’ve also been awarded a Beacon Fellowship, which will allow me to spend three months of my time over the next academic year developing the community side of the project; we are working closely with the Durham and Northumberland Archaeological and Architectural Society to allow members of the general public to spend time working on the site. I’ll also use this opportunity to work closely with the local community to explore other aspects of the historic environment of Binchester and Bishop Auckland.

Binchester Day 2

Another busy day! We finished our initial cleaning back of the main trench. This allowed us to begin to explore the site in more detail. In the south-east corner, where the possible late interval tower is located, work began on gently trying to define the edge of the large mound of rubble. Elsewhere on site we are taking a large section across one of the main structures. Having clearly defined the stonework of the walls, we are now cleaning back in shallow spits. We have identified a number of different surfaces, one made of large flat stones and another of smaller cobbles; there are also other possible patches and layers overlying these surfaces. We still have much work ahead in resolving the stratigraphic relationship of these late features. The site is already rich in finds, with more pot and glass being recovered; as well as coins and many ‘fe obj’. In addition to the excavation on the site, we began work on the environs survey this morning. The students set up a simple 25m grid and began the slow task of digging and sieving the contents of the shovel pits, which we are going to use to assess the contents of the topsoil around the site. The immediate landscape is primarily pasture meaning that we cannot use fieldwalking to explore the site’s context.

Binchester Day 1

Today we finally started excavation on the fort. Forty-five single honours Archaeology undergraduates arrived on site this morning raring to go and ready to get stuck in. The topsoil had now been completely removed from most of the trench and it was already clear that a number of structural remains could be seen. Pleasingly, the rectangular structure visible on the GPR plot was clearly visible on the ground and, in places, areas of flagstone paving could still be seen. The main job for today was to give the site a thorough clean, removing the last of the topsoil and preparing the trench for planning. This cleaning stage took all today and will continue tomorrow. The structural remains are becoming better defined and a number of other potential features could be identified. It looks like we may have got the edge of a trench excavated in the 1930s by Kenneth Steer; it might be useful to reexcavate this to give us a proper section through the rampart. There is also a possible platform adjacent to the rampart, which may be a late Roman tower- we shall have to see whether this platform is indeed structural or just an area of collapese or rubble. We are already recovering a large quantity of pottery and tile, as well as small finds including iron nails, Roman window glass and, find of the day, a rather nice lozenge shaped enamel brooch. Its early days, but its shaping up to be a really exciting excavation. The key challenge is going to be with the weather; the site is a well-drained gravel plateau and I suspect we are going to have real problems with the site drying out.

Traces of the probable rectangular building, presumably a barrack block.

Ground Penetrating Radar

First results from the Ground Penetrating Radar; they seem to show the walls of a parallel building, and to the right of this are bands of data which appear to represent a possible track and then the fort wall.

First results

Work is continuing with the topsoil strip which should be completed today. There are clearly lots of archaeological features appearing including SW/NE building/s; there is some plough damage (the site was cut by medieval ridge and furrow) but much is still intact including areas of large stone internal paving. A range of finds have been recovered including pottery (fragments of terra sigillata, mortaria, courseware and possible amphora), Roman window glass, a lot of unidentifiable iron objects, several probable Roman copper alloy items, including a small enameled stud, and a number of coins.

We also have the first results from the geophysical survey, which show evidence for activity within the area we are looking. We're hoping that the Ground Penetrating Radar survey data, which is being processed at the moment, will give us a more detailed and subtle understanding of the features in the area of our trench.



Magnetometer data


Resistivity data

Breaking the sod...

Well, we’ve finally officially begun the excavation stage of the Durham-Stanford Binchester Research project. The GPR survey and the topographic survey were carried out yesterday (Monday) leaving nothing to do but begin the removal of the topsoil. Although a JCB is used for this, the process was carefully monitored, with a member of Archaeological Services keeping a close eye out to ensure that the digger driver just removed the disturbed topsoil and didn’t eat into the archaeological deposits.. The spoil was then given the once over by members of a local metal detecting club to catch any metal items that were in the topsoil. The topsoil strip is about 2/3 completed now and already it is clear that there is plenty of archaeology for us to get our teeth into. We’ve identified the traces of a possible interval tower and it’s clear there are other structural remains, presumably barrack blocks. As well as the exciting job of beginning the excavation, there was also more mundane progress this morning; the arrival of the tool stores, site huts and the all-important chemical toilets!
Traces of wall; perhaps an interval tower?